Vol.2, Issue II, Spring 2014

China Hands F O R F U T U R E L E A D E R S I N U S - C H I N A R E L AT I O N S

NEW MAN IN BEIJING CHINA’S NEW FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS econ & finance, 19

The challenges ahead for Ambassador Baucus

BRINGING AMERICA’S PASTIME TO CHINA life & culture, 31

INTERVIEWS WITH STEPHEN SCHWARZMAN & JEROME COHEN politics & diplomacy, 16, opinion, 40 VOL. 2 ISSUE II | SPRING 2014

What’s Online chinahandsmagazine.com

Politics & Diplomacy MARCHING WEST: REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA Emily Feng examines China’s new clout in Central Asia. In the official report of the Third Plenum, the appearance of the phrase “opening to those that border China inland” marks China’s decade-long push to create stronger ties with Central Asian countries that lie beyond its western provinces. Despite its brevity, the clause highlights an immensely important aspect of Chinese geopolitical strategy.

Opinion TIGER WOMAN ON WALL STREET Junheng Li is a Shanghai native and author of the new book Tiger Woman on Wall Street: Winning Business Strategies from New York to Shanghai and Back. A graduate of Middlebury College and Columbia Business School, Li founded JL Warren Capital, a leading independent equity research firm in New York that focuses on Chinese companies and the Chinese economy, in 2009. From making her first million before age thirty, to heading an equity research firm, and now a regular contributor at Forbes with appearances on CNBC and Bloomberg, Li is making waves.

China Hands Journal Our growing repository of the latest scholarly thinking on China

CONTEMPORARY CHINESE LUXURY CONSUMERISM Gabrielle Chen analyzes the growing luxury market in China. As the fastest-growing major economy in the world, China’s consumption rate, with its newly found wealth, has grown at an exponential rate over the past decade. As its consumerist culture develops, China is also becoming increasingly brand-obsessed. Luxury goods, whose traditional notions often involve wealth and social status, are receiving increasing attention from Chinese consumers.

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WHAT’S INSIDE

Table of Contents 5

Words from our Editors

Features YIFU DONG AND YI-LING LIU ERWIN LI

6

Memories of the Cultural Revolution

10

Inside the Classroom

Politics & Diplomacy

TEDDY MILLER

13

ASHLEY FENG

14 16 17

Back to the Party

CHRISTIAN RHALLY

18

Created in China

XIAOYING ZHOU

Engines of Change

BENJAMIN SHOBERT

19 21

JEAN YOUNG KOO

22

Trading Up

ERWIN LI

CLAIRE ZHANG

23

RACHEL LENG

28

Baucus Goes to China

Journey to the East: Interview with Stephen Schwarzman Finding Common Ground

Economics & Finance Mixed Prognosis

Features Different Tongzhi Culture

Life & Culture

JAMES BADAS

31

China’s Perfect Game

SCARLETT ZUO

A Day at the Met Among the Faithful

MICHELLE PETERS

34 35 37

LUCY WANG

38

Seeing with a Brush

ANNA RUSSO

Playing from the Heart

Opinion FORREST LIN KYLE HUTZLER DHRUV AGGARWAL WANG XINGZUI

40 41 42 43

Lawful Change: Interview with with Jerome Cohen Review: The Lius of Shanghai World View: Interview with Andrew Nathan Op-Ed: Social Stability

The contents of this magazine are copyright of China Hands and may not be reproduced without express written consent. The opinions expressed by contributors to China Hands do not necessarily reflect those of its advisor, staff, or sponsors. China Hands would like to thank the Carter Center, Yale Department of Economics, Yale-China Association, Schwarzman Scholars Program, and New Haven’s Taste of China for their support of this publication

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China Hands EDITORS IN CHIEF David Yin, Yale ’15 Dylan Sun, Yale ’15 MANAGING EDITOR Kyle Hutzler, Yale ’14 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Dhruv Aggarwal, Yale ’16 Sandy Jin, Yale ’16 Erwin Li, Yale ’16 Forrest Lin, Yale ’16 Yi-Ling Liu, Yale ’17 Teddy Miller, Yale ’16 EDITORS AT LARGE Daniel Sisgoreo, Yale ’14 Helen Gao, Yale ’11 OUTREACH DIRECTOR Christian Rhally, Yale ’15 ASSISTANT OUTREACH DIRECTOR William Qiang Yale ’15

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Jennifer Lu, Yale ’16 ILLUSTRATORS Wa Liu, Yale ’17 Karen Tian, Yale ’15 Lucy Wang, Yale ’17 Sherril Wang, Yale ’17 Christina Zhang, Yale ’17 BUSINESS DIRECTOR Yafeng Gao, Yale ’16 BUSINESS MANAGER Kenan Jia, Yale ’16 WEBSITE DIRECTOR Alex Fu, Stanford ’17

CHINA HANDS JOURNAL Tiffany Fan, Yale ’14 Jonathan Lam, Yale ’16 Jason Parisi, Yale ’16

BOARD OF ADVISORS Stephen Roach, Deborah Davis, Jessica Chen Weiss, Nancy Yao Maasbach

cover illustration by SHERRIL WANG 4

VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

STAFF

Dear readers, The publication of this issue coincides with the one year anniversary of China Hands. Looking back to our founding a year ago, we can see great progress in the strength of our editorial content, design, and partnerships with other schools and institutions.

Over the past year, we have formed important partnerships with institutions and established chapters of the magazine in various universities in America and abroad. We hope to continue to deepen these partnerships as both a source of readers and contributors.

In this issue, we are proud to feature a number of exceptional stories. Our features in this issue highlight some of the best classes on China in American universities and look at the bigger ramifications of China’s growing gay rights movement. Our pieces on memories of the Cultural Revolution and Chinese youth each offer an individually moving window on China’s past and present.

In our Politics & Diplomacy section, we analyze the impact former Senator Max Baucus will have as the United States’ new ambassador to China. In the Economics & Finance section, we discuss China’s women entrepreneurs and growing intellectual property as possible engines for future growth.

Our Life & Culture section features a number of captivating pieces, including the effort to bring baseball, America’s pastime, to China. Finally, we are proud to share interviews with acclaimed legal scholar Jerome Cohen and Stephen Schwarzman of the Schwarzman Scholars program. We are grateful for the extraordinary talents of our design team who do so much to give this publication original flair and bring its content to life.

The generosity and support from the Carter Center, Yale Department of Economics, Yale-China Association, Schwarzman Scholars Program, and New Haven’s Taste of China have all made this magazine possible.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

WORDS FROM THE EDITORS

Yours truly,

David Yin Dylan Sun Kyle Hutzler EDITORS OF CHINA HANDS

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FEATURES

Memories of the Cul Yifu Dong and Yi-Ling Liu share their relatives’ experiences of a tumultuous era

Yifu Dong

M

y grandmother was born in Xinmin County, Liaoning Province in late 1932. She joined the Communist Youth League on July 21st, 1949 and became a Party member on March 24th, 1951. She can recall these dates as quickly as she can recall family members’ birthdays. Back then, becoming a Party member was a sign of excellence, and grandma was ready to live up to the promise of that distinction. “Do what the Party says, and devote my life to the construction of socialism; the post-liberation atmosphere was just like this.” She would say this with a hearty smile, her tone far from mechanical. For her it was a simple but adamant belief, and it still is today.

Grandma’s brilliance and loyalty to the Party paid off in the 1950s, when she was promoted to important positions in the Communist Youth League in the three schools that she worked in. Finally, in May of 1960, grandma became the principal of the Experimental Elementary School in the city of Fushun, Liaoning Province. She was only 28 years old. For the next six years, she worked closely with teachers to improve the quality of education. She can still talk about the methods and axioms of teaching as if she has just retired. Besides advanced teaching methods, grandma also fostered an environment of discipline and respect. Today, she is most proud of the fact that her students learned how to behave decently.

In August 1966, the Cultural Revolution struck at the peak of grandma’s career.

There was “immense cultural destruction, enormous social upheaval, widespread violence, tremendous catastrophe.” For individuals, the Cultural Revolution was “a nasty trick” that destroyed people’s lives and careers.

Top leaders asserted that the bourgeois had infiltrated the top positions of institutions across the nation, and proletarians must challenge the bourgeois in leadership positions through class warfare. As soon as Cultural Revolution kicked off, the Red Guards, or “rebels,” as grandma called them, started torturing her.

They demanded confessions of crimes from

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FEATURES

ltural Revolution

illustration by CHRISTINA ZHANG

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FEATURES her, but she only admitted she had mistakes, not crimes. Grandma said she would correct her mistakes if the rebels could prove any, but reasoning had no place in their conversations.

Soon the rebels marched grandma on the street, the very first of hundreds of marches that were to follow in Fushun. She marched from her school to district government and city government like a prisoner, carrying a tag that read “Official On Capitalist Track” and wore a pointed hat.

Even after such humiliation, grandma considered it a mere prank, because she was certain that she had done nothing against the will of the Party. However, such brutal “pranks” showed no stopping. Across the nation, schools were closed as irrationality and chaos presided over the Cultural Revolution. Unlike her, grandma’s students could not continue elementary school. Adding to the “pranks” was dictatorship. Politically untrustworthy teachers, such as ex-rightists (though many were unjustly accused) and award-winning teachers were under the dictatorship of other teachers, who were each given a big bat to settle their own hatred and jealousy under collective slogans and righteous revolutionary objectives.

Fortunately, grandma herself did not receive too much beating. Still, she felt terrible when she had to bring my father, who was only four years old, to the “bullpen” where she was forced to “confess.” What had the child done wrong to deserve such a punishment?

Curiously enough, however, when my father played with other kids, he would yell, “Down with the pointed hat!”

Compared to grandma, my grandfather suffered much more. He had already left his post of headmaster at Fushun No. 6 Middle School, but after the Cultural Revolution kicked off, he was called back to the school to “be under the rule of dictatorship of the proletariat.” My grandfather was born in southern China but had to flee home at a young age after Japan invaded. His mother died of illness and his younger sister died of hunger on their way to survival. He attended schools, joined the student movements against the Nationalist regime, and eventually joined in the cause of Communist revolution. He firmly stood behind official doctrine and devoted his entire life to service.

It is curious how a staunch Communist like my grandfather, who even plays “red songs” on his Windows 8 computer today, could be deemed a counterrevolutionary and enemy of the people. However, as soon as Cultural Revolution started, he was labeled “the devious backstage for niu gui she shen” (literally translated as “a ghost with a cow’s head and 8

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ON THE DESTRUCTION OF CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE: “Schools were no longer places for learning. Turning in blank exams was heroic, and denouncing teachers patriotic - that was what school kids did all day long. Books and historical monuments were labeled ‘Si Jiu’ and destroyed. The only ‘art’ existed in the form of propaganda: patriotic songs, chants and politically charged plays. There was no love but love of the Party... How inane were the passionate songs about the merits of Communism. How silly were the people who danced to such songs like puppets. But at that time no one realized it. The feverish atmosphere swept them along.”

“There was a teacher at my school (call him W) who was a close family friend. We knew him, affectionately, as ‘Uncle W’ and liked him. One day, he was denounced as ‘unorthodox’ and shamed in public. I saw him being paraded down the street with a cardboard sign on his neck that read ‘打倒W’ (“down with W”). I was frightened to see someone I knew so well being jeered and called a criminal. When I met him a few days later, he greeted me and gestured me to come closer. I ran away screaming ‘Down with W!’ I didn’t really know what it meant at that age, but I felt an inexplicable fear when I was near him...”

Anonymous parent of a Yale student

a snake’s body” and used to describe evil people) because he had been defamed and investigated in the Anti-Rightist movement in the 1950s. He was immediately under the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” and sent to the “bullpen” in the countryside for eight months.

Under dictatorship, grandpa was forced to recite pieces written by Chairman Mao, whom he had worshipped all his life. He knew the required pieces by heart, but received beatings whenever he stumbled or hesitated. He has no complaint against the requirement; he only argues that coercion did not help memorization.

What was even wilder was that grandpa and other inmates at times were even required to beat each other. Most inmates were reluctant, but a few did start throwing punches at their former colleagues. A Red Guard asked why my grandfather didn’t return punches. Grandpa simply replied, “His beating me is wrong. Now you are asking me to return punches, but don’t you know that two wrongs don’t make a right?” For a moment the Red Guard was stunned by grandpa’s reasoning and gave up his demand.

Aside from severe beatings, which left him with chronic pain and to which many people succumbed, inhumane humiliations – the conquest of the soul and the decimation of the will – played a major role in my grandfather’s sufferings. During the Cultural Revolution, ordinary people were forced to “talk” to a portrait of Chairman Mao twice a day: inform him of one’s plans in the morning and tell him how things went at night. However, “ ” like my grandpa did not have the right to talk to the Chairman’s portrait. Instead, he and other inmates had to make confessions in the morning, at noon and in the evening. For these tri-daily confessions, they would line up in front of the gate of No. 6 Middle School, with huge signs saying either “ ” or “ ” (people who were anti-Party, anti-socialism and anti-Chairman Mao) hung over their chests. The idioms for the accusations were lively, succinct, ambiguous and vicious – the Chinese language at its nastiest and darkest moment. The signs were made of the heaviest wood board the Red Guards could find and thin wires surrounded their necks and cut into their flesh.

Grandpa would bend forward and confess his “crimes,” thrice a day. A slight slip of tongue would incur harsh whipping. As if the exhibitions in front of the school gate were not enough, big banners that read “Down with ,” followed by many names, my grandfather’s among them,

FEATURES were in many public places like the city stadium, where my father happened to see the signs at his school’s sports meet.

Years of hard labor followed eight months of “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Besides the usual items, Grandpa had to climb roofs without protection and drive tractors without learning how. Once his tractor lost control and dived downhill, and he escaped just in time to save his own life. Even if he died, grandpa reasoned, it wouldn’t have mattered much, and his torturers would probably regard his demise as a sign of cowardice and a way to evade his indictment. “Self-pity” is not part of grandpa’s vocabulary; in retrospect, he is simply stunned by the powerlessness of life in that bygone era.

Grandpa describes that even criminals under formal charges were given days off during holidays, but he never rested during years of hard labor. He recalls a great irony that during Civil War, he and other Communist soldiers were cold, but no one robbed the Nationalist prisoners of their heavy coats because they believed in human dignity. But during the Cultural Revolution, no one respected his dignity. What keeps bewildering grandpa is that the obvious enemies of the Communist Party, like criminals and the Nationalists, were treated with humanity, while he, an enthusiastic disciple of Mao and the Party, had to undergo inhumane sufferings that aimed to decimate his body and soul.

It was not until 1987, 11 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, when the Party finally officially renounced the false charges against my grandfather.

Today, in their 80s, my grandparents exude no anger when they recount their sufferings. My grandmother still has tears to shed, not for herself, but for the destruction of values and lives. My grandfather usually avoids talking about his torture, and he still does whatever he can to serve what he believes is the Communist cause: blogging on education and repeatedly petitioning for better preschool education in the city.

Undoubtedly, to actually pull through the Cultural Revolution, the survivors needed more than what we can imagine. It is difficult for anyone in today’s world to truly comprehend the magnitude of their physical and mental torment through mere testimonies, but equally necessary to ensure that nothing entailing such suffering of innocent people should ever happen again.

Yi-Ling Liu

M

y Dad was not yet 8 years old when the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, studying at an elementary school in Changchun, Jilin Province. The revolution permeated every aspect of his life. He didn’t learn anything at school but words from Mao’s little Red Book and lines of propaganda.

“Long Live Chairman Mao, and Perpetual Health to Lin Biao” was one such a slogan. Once, my Dad, still a naïve second-grader, pointed towards a photo of a Lin Biao and commented earnestly “but he doesn’t look very healthy to me,” only to be met by the stern words of his own father – “don’t say that, or you’ll get locked up.

Despite the tightly controlled environment of Mao’s China, my Dad somehow taught himself a skill that was perhaps most condemned at the time – English.

One day, he came across The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at the house of one of his mother’s friends, Mr. Wang, who once was an English teacher. Every week, he would visit Mr. Wang, and learn the basics of grammar and pronunciation in exchange for gifts and liquor over the holidays. He lugged a Chinese-English dictionary around with him all day and memorized words.

In the evenings, he sat in front of the short-wave radio that they had at home.

Listening to the Voice of America was taboo - like eavesdropping on a private conversation, or watching pornography.

In 1969, he went down to the countryside with his parents for the first time.

This was a part of Mao’s “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside” movement, initiated to send the urban population to the rural areas to be reeducated and learn the way of the peasants. He returned to Changchun in 1971, only to be sent back to the countryside again in 1975. He was supposed to go two years later, after graduating from high school. But my Dad tried to beat the system. The whole purpose of being sent to the countryside was to for-

get everything he had learnt at school in the city, so what was the point of going through of two years of schooling that would only be forgotten? He decided to go early.

Here, he worked all day, seven days a week. In the summer, they would rise with the sun at 4:00 am and come home as the sunset. Since the sun rose and set late in the winter, they would go back to the fields again to work in the evenings as the moon rose, guided by its glow.

He lived with seven boys and seven girls in three rooms. The kitchen was in the center, the girls’ room on the right and the boys’ on the left. Everybody slept on the same kang, warmed up by each other’s body heat, and the smoke that came from the kitchen through a tunnel that was connected to the bottom of the kang. They were like family.

It turned out that his decision to go early was a miscalculation – after two years of labor, the Cultural Revolution had petered out, and Mao’s policy of sending students to the countryside was discontinued. My Dad had effectively wasted two years of his youth, and had to catch up with what his peers learned in two years. And yet, he says that in retrospect, those two years on the field was the most valuable experience that he had during his formative years. The effect of tot having primary and high school education was marginal in comparison to the way going to the countryside shaped his experience.

“I was able to achieve a level of selfconfidence that if I could go all that adverse circumstances unscathed, I could go through anything unscathed,” he said. “Later in life, it is this level of selfconfidence that to a large extent enabled me to rise up to the many challenges I have encountered.”

YI-LING LIU is a freshman at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact her at

yi-ling.liu@yale.edu.

YIFU DONG is a freshman at Yale University. Contact him at

yifu.dong@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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FEATURES

Inside the Classroom

Erwin Li looks into the some of the top US college classes on China

F

rom its inception, China Hands has championed the power of dialogue and exchange as ways to influence the future of US-China relations. In this issue, we take a look inside some of the classrooms of the best classes in American universities on China. Our selection of courses incorporates a breadth of subject areas, ranging from Chinese ethical philosophy to the Asian American diaspora. Each course offers a unique perspective on the complex dimensions of modern China, and contains subject content worth investigating for anyone interested in Chinese politics, history, and culture.

GOVT 3403 China Under Revolution and Reform and the World Professor Andrew Mertha Cornell University This course seeks to trace the formation of the modern Chinese state by examining the rise of communist power following the Qing Dynasty’s collapse in 1911. In addition, the class focuses on China’s institutional apparatus, mapping out the relationships between government, military, and Party bureaucracies both past and present.

“

Students say

Professor Mertha’s teaching style combines standard lectures on Chinese political institutions and economic reform with his own vivid observations and insights…he openly shares stories of [how he was] removed by police when trying to interview mine owners, and [his] candid talks with local cadres about corruption.

ER18 Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory Professor Michael Puett Harvard University How should one make ethical choices? What is the best way to live an ethical life? How should the state be organized to best encourage proper human behavior? This course is a study of how classical Chinese thinkers wrestled with these questions and what responses they gave. It investigates how the views that arose in classical China are among the most powerful and influential in human history.

“

Professor Puett’s unique approach to teaching breathes life into ancient Chinese philosophical texts. He assigns very few secondary readings, instead requiring students to grapple with the original works of Chinese philosophy (in translation), applying their own analysis and insights to the questions raised in those works.

HIST 308 The Jewish Experience in China from Kaifeng through the Holocaust in a Comparative Perspective Professor Vera Schwarcz Wesleyan University

HIST 183 Asian American History – 1800 to Present Professor Mary Lui Yale University This course provides an introduction to the history of East, South, Southeast Asian migrations and settlement to the United States from the late 18th century to the present. Major themes include labor migration, community formation, US imperialism, legal exclusion, racial segregation, gender and sexuality, cultural representations, and political resistance.

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Students say

With Chinese Americans playing an increasingly important role in U.S.-China relations (e.g. Gary Locke and Yale-China’s Nancy Yao Maasbach), understanding how this ethnic group has crafted an unique identity in the face of racial discrimination, legal exclusion, and U.S. imperialism is crucial... Professor Lui’s course provides a thought-provoking framework for doing so.

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Students say

With the growing importance of Sino-Israel relations in mind, the goal of this seminar is to introduce students to the historical details of the Jewish experience in China -- including the historiography of Chinese attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. The course also aims to situate such discussions and their significance in a broad comparative context, and will identify the cultural, religious and political factors that have enabled Jews to survive in China for centuries.

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Students say

“Professor Schwarcz does not only inspire students only to discover the hard “facts” about China, but as an intellectual historian who studies historical trauma and memory, [she encourages students] to listen to China and feel China through its history, culture, arts, and language.”

FEATURES

The “Microeconomics” of Chinese Policymaking An interview with Susan Shirk, of University of California San Diego, on her course, “Chinese Politics.”

T

he year was 1971. As the United States and China started to normalize relations, PhD student Susan Shirk was one of the first Western visitors to China. After studying abroad in Japan during high school, Shirk had become determined to discover more about East Asia; for so long, its culture and history had largely remained mysteries in the US. Today, as Professor Shirk remarks on the state of China studies, she tells me that the situations then and now are like “night and day.” She furthers, “our access to China has expanded so greatly; before, I had to do my dissertation by interviewing refugees in Hong Kong, but now I can go [to the mainland] all the time. My PhD students collect all sorts of useful information that have been published online through different agencies of local and central government.”

A leading expert on China’s political system, Shirk has spent almost 30 years teaching students at UC San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

Her class, “Chinese Politics,” stands out as one of the university’s most well regarded courses on China. When I ask Shirk about what she tries to do differently with her course, she responds: “I try to teach Chinese politics much as you would teach the political institutions of other political systems.

We use ‘the microeconomics of political institutions’ to map out authority relations and make sense of the policymaking process.”

In our conversation, Shirk notes that we face limits in our understanding of elite politics in China. Researchers find that Chinese elite politics can still be a black box about which they may only make guesses through rumor – even acquiring information through interviews and other means can be quite difficult.

But beyond the instruction aspect of teaching, Shirk finds much enjoyment from mentoring and getting to know her students.

“I find it personally rewarding to give advice

about everything, from potential career paths to child rearing, and I love hearing about a student’s own journey,” says Shirk. She also comments that because many of her students are from China, she treasures the opportunity to provide Chinese students with insights about their own political system. She hopes that her course material will allow her students to not only gain traction intellectually, but also to understand strategies for how to influence Chinese policymaking.

While on the topic of politics, I ask Shirk about her time as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. She states that as an academic, she was excited by the rare opportunity to help create history rather than merely studying it. “I’d like to think that our administration made some good progress by putting a floor under US-China relations,” remarks Shirk. “China made some major concessions and took major steps forward to build the relationship too – such as when China negotiated to join the WTO. For those interested in US-China relations, Shirk has a few pieces of advice. She cites how the language abilities of today’s youth dwarf her own generation’s, and she encourages students to continue to follow such trends.

She also recommends supplementing one’s academic knowledge with on-the-ground experiences; professional work in Chinese firms and NGOs provides much different pictures of China than a course on China.

The future, Shirk predicts, is thus quite bright for those wishing to study China.

“China changes so much over time that people will never be bored. New intellectual puzzles will always emerge.”

IRGN 404 Chinese Politics Professor Susan Shirk University of California, San Diego Today, Chinese elite politics still remains an enigma for scholars, policymakers, and citizens alike. In response to this challenge, this course seeks to elucidate the operations behind China’s modern political institutions. well as how its political institutions operate. Questions such as “How are policies in different issue arenas formulated and implemented?, and “How does the Communist Party maintain its sway over a changing society?” are focal points for discussion.

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Students say

While similar courses are offered at other institutions, there is only one Susan Shirk...[Her course] is consistently one of the most popular courses at the School of International and Pacific Studies (IR/ PS), providing a profound framework for understanding the Chinese policymaking process.

SUSAN SHIRK is the chair of the 21st Century China Program and Ho Miu Lam Professor of China and Pacific Relations at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) of UC San Diego. Shirk’s publications include many notable works, such as The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, and China: Fragile Superpower.

photo provided by SUSAN SHIRK chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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FEATURES

From Scholarship into the Classroom: The Chinese-Jewish Cultural Exchange An interview with Vera Schwarcz of Wesleyan University on her course, “The Jewish Experience in China from Kaifeng through the Holocaust.”

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What’s on the syllabus of our featured classes China Under Reform and Revolution (Cornell) Lieberthal, Kenneth. Governing China: From Revolution through Reform.

(New York: W.W. Norton, 1995).

A

s a scholar, educator, and poet, Professor Vera Schwarcz is no stranger to adding her own spin to the classroom. At Wesleyan, students have fallen in love with her class “The Jewish Experience in China from Kaifeng through the Holocaust,” citing its engaging material and forum for discussion as their primary reasons for nominating the course. In my conversation with Schwarcz earlier this year, I ask her what her thought process was for starting such a class.

According to Schwarcz, she launched the course after she had researched the subject area for many years. As an academic and board member of Points East Sino-Judaic Institute, she was acutely aware of how expansive the literature on Jewish communities in China had become. Yet while the scholarly field flourished, she remarks that nobody had tried to put together what she considered to be a “no-brainer”: a class for undergraduates.

“I have a good mix of students,” says Schwarcz. “Some are from Bangladesh and India, while others are Chinese or American. This course has been transformed because questions of ethnicity are always on the table.”

Schwarcz elaborates using the example of the Chinese word (gu4 xiang4). She notes that although can be roughly translated as “home” or “native land,” it is a Chinese word whose meaning the English language cannot fully capture. Schwarcz explains that when she raised questions about the meaning of to the first Jewish immigrants in China, her students enlivened the term by introducing their own personal understandings of identity and home.

When I ask Schwarcz how she first came across Chinese studies, Schwarcz attributes her initial interest in China to her East European roots. After growing up in Romania, she arrived in the US as a young teenager confused about the ideals of capitalism and communism. “At the time it seemed like China was right and America was wrong,” she chuckles, citing China’s Maoist visions.

Yet her political infatuation with China would eventually fade. After laughing about her first Mandarin class at Yale (she was

Reading List

Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).

Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory (Harvard) Ivanhoe, P. J., and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2005). taught by a novice-level Italian man), Schwarcz explains she delved deeper into China’s culture and history when she studied abroad in Taiwan in 1973. Schwarcz would also be sponsored as an official exchange scholar to China’s mainland only five years later. While there, she was introduced to several survivors of China’s Cultural Revolution, and became deeply inspired by their narratives. “I learned to not assume theories, and that we should never pursue knowledge without the personal context of individuals,” says Schwarcz.

As our conversation draws to a close, I ask Schwarcz what advice she has for young students aspiring to become more involved with China. She replies, “We cannot just look at business or politics. Our ‘now’ is colored by the history of the past, so it really pays to understand [Chinese] society from cultural and linguistic perspectives. So if you’re able to quote some Chinese poetry or discuss Chinese thinkers of the late 19th century like Kang Youwei, you might be able to close a business or diplomatic deal even more effectively.

Genuine cultural knowledge has an immediate payoff in practical life.”

VERA SCHWARCZ is the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. She currently chairs Wesleyan’s East Asian Studies Program and has written several prize-winning books, including Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory, and Time for Telling Truth Is Running Out: Conversations with Zhang Shenfu. A full list of her works can be found at between2walls.com.

photo provided by VERA SCHWARZ

Roth, Harold David. Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism. (New York: Columbia UP, 1999).

Asian American History (Yale) Lee, Erika. At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2003).

The Jewish Experience (Wesleyan) Goldstein, Jonathan A., and Frank Joseph Shulman, eds. The Jews of China.

Armonk, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000) Schwarcz, Vera. Bridge across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory. (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1998).

Chinese Politics (UC San Diego) Shirk, Susan L. The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China. (Berkeley: University of California, 1993).

Nathan, Andrew J. China’s Crisis: Dilemmas of Reform and Prospects for Democracy. (New York: Columbia UP, 1990).

IN THIS SECTION

Back to the Party p. 14

Journey to the East p. 16

Finding Common Ground p. 17

Politics & Diplomacy Baucus goes to China Teddy Miller asks what the Baucus nomination means for US-China policy

O

nce crucial to essential questions of war and peace, ambassadorships in today’s Washington are mostly prizes to be bid for by campaign donors or sleepy posts for career diplomats. If there is any nation for which the ambassadorship still matters, it’s China. The Obama administration’s decision to nominate Max Baucus, the former Democratic senator from Montana, to the post after Gary Locke ‘72’s surprise resignation in the fall has prompted a divided reaction among close China watchers on both sides of the Pacific.

“A STAFFING DECISION” As news of the appointment spread, Baucus’ colleagues in the Senate were quoted by Politico as being “surprised” and “shocked,” according to Patty Murray, Democrat from Washington, and Rob Portman, Republican from Ohio, respectively. Vice President Joe Biden, who served with Max Baucus for three decades, was the chief advocate for Baucus’ nomination, according to Politico.

An undoubted cause of some of that surprise is Baucus’ comparative lack of experience on China. A career politician, he served as the head of the powerful Senate Finance Committee for much of the past decade, meaning his engagement with China was primarily through trade issues. As chairman, he did not hesitate to accuse China of undervaluing its currency. In 2012, Baucus wrote that “China will not end its currency undervaluation unless the US seizes opportunities … to insist it does.”

Senator Sherrod Brown ‘74, Democrat of Ohio, in a statement praised Baucus’ economic “stature and expertise” which will be useful in the continued effort to “crack down on China for illegal trade practices.”

Robert Daly, Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, said that the appointment “strongly implies that economics is at the core of the relationship.”

“Focusing on the economy is safe and somewhat conservative, non-controversial,

and non-aggressive.”

And yet, in the early 2000s, Baucus did briefly chair and afterwards remained a member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a group that has been the most consistently vocal government critic of human rights violations on the part of the Chinese government.

Baucus’ experience with the CECC was enough to give some analysts reason to believe that he will bring a hawkish stance to his post in Beijing. Daly tempered this expectation, saying that it was “important to recognize that the ambassador not only doesn’t make China policy, but doesn’t even have a very big voice on China policy.”

“Decisions are being made by an increasingly small group in Washington,” Daly said, characterizing the appointment as fundamentally a “staffing decision.”

THE WORD FROM BEIJING In a widely circulated quip on Sina Weibo, China’s popular microblogging platform, one Chinese internet user joked that Gary Locke resigned because “the haze in Beijing is so bad that [he] couldn’t take it anymore.”

In his official reasons for resigning, Locke, a former governor of Washington, cited his desire to rejoin his family in the United States.

As the first Chinese-American to hold the post of ambassador to China, his most important contribution was largely symbolic. A photo of Locke and his family carrying their own luggage in the Seattle airport attracted praise and bewilderment from ordinary Chinese citizens for its unassuming nature and contrast with princely Chinese leaders.

The assessment of Locke’s tenure in China was mixed. Some observers believed that Locke had been little more than an administrator, praising but also downplaying as an example his efforts to reduce wait-times for visas to the United States.

Politico Magazine quoted a former member of the Obama administration’s economic team as saying that Locke was sent to Beijing and “never heard from again” after a failure

wikimedia commons to make a name for himself as Secretary of Commerce. Yet, The Atlantic crowned Locke as the “best-ever” ambassador to China for his mix of personal appeal and smooth supporting role in the high profile Wang Lijun (the Chongqing police chief who attempted to defect as part of the broader Bo Xilai scandal) incidents.

The assessment of Baucus’ appointment by the Global Times, China’s global affairs newspaper, was balanced, noting that “Baucus is proficient in trade issues with China.” Sounding not unlike some American skeptics, the editorial warned that “in light of China’s establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea, intensifying China-Japan disputes over the Diaoyu [Senkaku] islands and the South China Sea disputes, the trading veteran may be in a disadvantageous position due to his lack of experience in handling security and diplomatic issues between China and the US.” Concluding that Baucus would handle the relationship with a “cool mind,” the paper noted that Baucus would be the first ambaschinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

13

FEATURES& DIPLOMACY POLITICS sador in thirteen years that could not speak Mandarin. In a typical stylistic shift from analysis to warning, the article said “we expect Baucus to stay away from human rights issues and democratic shows that could hardly politically interrupt the bilateral relations.”

A CHINA POLICY “IN DISARRAY?” On February 6th, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations voted to confirm Max Baucus by a vote of 96 to 0. In interviews with China Hands, the consensus by China experts was decidedly less unanimous.

Robert Daly noted positively that it would be “extremely valuable to have an ambassador who can explain Congress to China” and vice versa, given that Congress has been “one of the most difficult aspects” of the bipartisan relationship. The main job of an ambassador to China, Daly reasoned, was to be seen as a “credible voice,” and Baucus was “an outstanding choice from that point of view.”

Others believed that the Baucus appointment was a rather overcautious choice. Warren Cohen, a senior scholar at the Wilson Center, countered Daly by saying that Baucus’ “principal asset is an easy confirmation.”

“The Chinese government will see this as an indication that the Obama administration is not going to challenge them on any of the issues that have come between the two nations,” said Cohen. Despite Baucus’ past attention to Chinese human rights issues, Cohen also criticized the Obama administration more broadly for being “completely disinterested” in human rights.

Cohen condemned the choice as indicative of an Obama administration policy on China

that was “in disarray.” President Obama, he judged, hadn’t worked “through the strategic implications of the relationship,” and warned that Baucus would face a learning curve on important security issues.

Robert Kapp GRD ‘70, former president of the US-China Business Council, was hopeful that Baucus would be an “astute listener.”

Baucus will “do fine in exercising judgment at those moments when as ambassador he really does have a decisive role,” Kapp said.

Daly disagreed with criticism that Baucus’ lack of deep experience on China issues was inherently negative. There are “many ways to be an effective ambassador,” he said.

While conceding that Baucus’ role would likely be limited, Daly did not see it as damaging for relations between the two nations overall. The most important aspects of the job are “managing machinery well” and “accompanying visiting firemen” from the United States attempting to solve issues between the two countries.

STARTING ONE STEP BACK Baucus’ appointment has already put in jeopardy one of the Obama administration’s most significant efforts in its pivot to Asia. As head of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus had been expected to lead the effort to grant President Obama trade promotion authority that would have made it easier for the United States and China to reach an agreement on the far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The proposed trade agreement among 11 Pacific nations including Canada and Mexico would affect nearly $2 trillion in trade in

goods and services. It marks an effort to ensure continued American economic influence in a region increasingly dominated by China’s economic might. In late January, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed his opposition to fast-track authority, which many nations believe is necessary before making major commitments that would otherwise be subject to interference by the Senate.

Baucus’ experience on the Senate Finance Committee, however, could improve the prospects for the bilateral investment treaty negotiations announced by the United States and China at the 2013 Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington.

If Baucus’ appointment represents an effort to emphasize the economic dimension of the US-China bilateral relationship, it would also seem to ignore the reality of growing security tensions in the region.

“The danger to the relationship,” said Daly, “is that China and the United States have incommensurate ideas about what constitutes security in the Western Pacific.” This “stark disagreement” will be “the ground under which Baucus’ ambassadorship unfolds.”

The name of the state from which Baucus hails is derived from the Spanish word for mountain. It may also portend a rocky tenure.

TEDDY MILLER is a sophomore at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact him at the-

odore.miller@yale.edu. SANDY JIN and KYLE HUTZLER contributed analysis to this article.

Back to the Party

Ashley Feng discusses American-educated Chinese youths entering the world of politics at home

T

op US colleges are packed with American students who dream of becoming senators, Secretaries of State, even President. Chinese students at these universities are likewise incredibly bright and ambitious; furthermore, the names of their schools command an unimaginable degree of deference and respect in their home country. So why don’t more of them pursue public service when they return?

The most obvious barrier to public service is that central feature of Chinese society and

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politics: guanxi. Relationships in China have become crucial to everything from buying real estate to landing employment out of college to receiving quality medical care. The massive bureaucracy responsible for a billion people makes this especially true for the political system. “Even if you pass the entrance exam and land an entry level position, if everyone at your level has connections they will advance many times faster than you,” says Matthew, a senior at UPenn from Hong Kong.

The incompatibility between local govern-

ment and US-educated students is two-fold.

Although local bureaucrats may respect these youth for their academic achievements, they don’t consider them suitable for work in their own offices. “[After college in the US] you’re seen as too naïve, too Westernized,” says Jing, a Chinese senior also at UPenn.

Officials must be willing to grant favors to local business interests and order sometimes violent crackdowns to contain situations.

Xiaodian, a police chief in a prosperous and well-developed coastal city, notes that he has

POLITICS & DIPLOMACY protesters outside his office every day, sometimes every week.

Eric, a 2013 Yale graduate from northeast China, says “the municipal officials in my city are like thugs. People like you and me, how can we deal with those people? And our local government is perceived as so corrupt that no one with a US education want to be seen interacting with them.”

Eric’s statement hints at perhaps the single strongest driving force behind the choice to avoid political careers. Mianzi, or face, is the ultimate goal many students in the Chinese and Chinese American communities pursue, it is what drives them to succeed in high school and college. Government jobs carry little prestige, relative to other opportunities available to a Chinese graduate of a US college. “Prestige is everything,” said Matthew. “I was at a different school my freshman year. When I told people I studied in the US they all asked, ‘Harvard or MIT?’ and lost interest when it was neither. When I transferred to Penn, they all responded ‘Oh that’s amazing.’ I felt like I was still the same person but their perceptions completely changed. There’s so many people in China that you can’t sit down with everyone and get to know them. So people read signals, and school and career are two of the biggest.”

Indeed, many of these students choose to work for the Chinese branches of major Western companies. Matthew notes, “I can’t think of any friends in Hong Kong or Beijing who would want to go into politics.

Everyone wants to enter industry, business, finance, medicine, or law.” Due to the more meritocratic structure of Western firms, wellconnected young graduates believe they are accepting a greater degree of responsibility for their careers when they choose to work at these companies.

The investigation into hiring practices of JP Morgan and other major Western banks, on the other hand, reveals that foreign companies wishing to do business in China have also been willing to consider the background of applicants, sometimes just as much as their merit. But while children of the elite hold an advantage at any firm, they often have less of an edge at Western companies than they would have in the state-owned enterprises where their family members work.

A former analyst at a Chinese branch of JP Morgan who chose to speak anonymously noted that Chinese hires fell into two poolsmerit hires and relationship hires. She had the background to come in as a relationship hire, but chose to compete in the merit pool instead, because relationship hires garnered less respect and were the first to go when it

came time to cutting personnel.

Wen, a Chinese sophomore at Yale whose father works for a state-owned bank, says “My father’s friends tell me, ‘You’ll go three times as fast up the career ladder if you come back to China and work in your father’s field.

He has so many friends. Use them.”

But rising through the ranks of national politics often requires starting at the local level. According to Jing, “the way Chinese politics and government works is that it focuses a lot on down-to-earth wisdom gained through practice. Most Chinese leaders have been through local level government. Hu Jintao was party chief of Gansu, one of the poorest provinces in China. Especially for people with our background, you’re not likely to be very welcome. You need to show people you know how things work and you’re not an American-educated, naïve teenager.”

Despite all these barriers, Young graduates truly wishing to serve society have found alternatives. In recent years, numerous young Chinese have returned to China to work in the nonprofit sector, with some even launching their own organizations.

Still, China’s political system is not making the most of the talent and leadership potential of its young college graduates. There are indications, though, that this will change, albeit gradually. The problem of graduates avoiding local government jobs for their lack of prestige may be remedied by the ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has reduced some of the most conspicuous nepotism and multiplied the likelihood of punishments for accepting bribes and other offenses.

Those rare haigui (“sea turtles,” a nickname for those who return from studying abroad) like Qin Yuefei who do decide to pursue politics make it that much easier for those who follow. Jing, who is pursuing Chinese policy research in DC, notes that hers “is a pretty new path to follow. I know what the path is like for consulting and finance, because of all the people who have gone before me, but I’ve had to figure out my own internships and career path. Most people gravitate toward the known paths because they fear uncertainty.”

The possibility that descendants of the political elite may take the ideas they encounter abroad back home with them when it becomes their term to chart China’s future remains a possible, but as of yet unrealized prospect.

ASHLEY FENG

illustration by WA LIU

is a sophomore at Yale University. Contact her at ashley.feng@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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FEATURES& DIPLOMACY POLITICS

Journey to the East Erwin Li asks Stephen Schwarzman about his new scholarship

I

n April of 2013, Blackstone chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman announced his hopes to revolutionize the future of USChina relations. His plan? To establish and endow a $300 million scholarship program at China’s Tsinghua University.

Known as “Schwarzman Scholars,” the program has already received over $250 million in funds and will accept its first class in 2016. Scholars will have the choice to study for a Master’s Degree in four different fields: Economics & Business, Public Policy, International Relations, or Engineering. Schwarzman donated $100 million and is personally leading the fundraising campaign to raise an additional $200 million. At $300 million, the program will be the single largest internationally-funded philanthropic effort in China’s history.

In our conversation, I ask Schwarzman how he first became involved with China.

He tells me that after his company sold a $3 billion non-voting interest to China’s government in 2007, he was introduced to many senior government officials and university scholars. They offered him a “terrific crash-course” on all-things China, and the opportunity to sit on the international advisory board of Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management. Such experiences, Schwarzman explains, deeply informed his decision to establish the Schwarzman Scholars program.

Understandably, it’s easy to liken the Schwarzman Scholarship to a certain Oxford trust. Yet the program is far more than just a “Rhodes East.” As Schwarzman tells me over the phone, he believes that the objective of his scholarship differs from that of its UK counterpart. “There’s bound to be disagreements and friction between ascending countries like China and established ones like the United States,” Schwarzman says. “So the [aim] of the program is to allow countries around the world to better interpret China’s actions and therefore reduce the potential for tensions to flare.”

The scholarship’s goals are thus defined

by China’s growing importance in international affairs. And to respond to China’s meteoric rise, the program will accept 200 16

VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

applicants a year – a composition that includes 45% US students, 20% Chinese, and the rest from elsewhere around the world.

Chosen scholars are presumed to become more than just leaders in their fields; they may eventually find themselves in positions to shape their countries’ future relations with China and the wider world.

To promote such deep understandings of China, the program will inevitably need to foster cultural connections. When I ask Schwarzman how he will integrate Schwarzman scholars into Tsinghua’s community, he replies, “We’re very mindful [to not] set up an isolated group that could just as easily be at places like Yale… [so] we’re doing a number of different things.”

Scholars will be encouraged to take courses at Tsinghua, and some of the university’s faculty will live in Schwarzman College – a state of the art East-West hybrid residential and academic hall designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. In addition, each student will be assigned a mentor based on his or her own career interests. From legal experts to top-level businesspeople, these professionals will “teach students about the real world, and provide them with firsthand knowledge of Chinese culture,” says Schwarzman.

Perhaps most intriguing, though, is the program’s throwback to the primary school buddy system. By pairing scholars with fellow Tsinghua students, Schwarzman Scholars hopes that Chinese locals can show their students around Beijing; after all, China’s rich cultural wonders are far better experienced from an insider’s perspective. Such a dynamic may even allow Schwarzman Scholars to become mentors themselves. The chances to build meaningful relationships with locals are thus ever-present.

I decide to inquire a little further about the scholarship’s role as a bridge between cultures. After I ask Schwarzman how he wants to incorporate the performing arts into the program, he replies that as a music-buff himself, he too wants to have regular cultural activities at the College. “We’ll have both renowned Chinese and Western

artists come to the college to either perform or lecture,” explains Schwarzman.

Given the program’s extensive outreach and contacts, these endeavors are certainly within reach (Yo-Yo Ma happens to be on the Schwarzman Scholar’s Advisory Board). But sometimes, Schwarzman says with a chuckle, these connections happen quite serendipitously. “[Just] last year, I had the chance to meet the opera singer Renee Fleming, and so I asked if she would be willing to come talk to the scholars,” remarks Schwarzman. “She said that she would be glad to.”

A Yale graduate himself, Schwarzman is no stranger to strong academics. In fact, an Academic Advisory Council made up of faculty from top schools around the world have collaborated to create the program’s curriculum. But he hopes to implement such extracurricular options to also reinvent how students learn about China: their every experience should be unique and formative. In our interview, Schwarzman tells me that as someone many years beyond his formal schooling, his memories are more about who he spoke with and what he heard – not necessarily the minutia of a course. And in the same way, Schwarzman Scholars should actively embrace this learning philosophy. After all, their time in China will only last a year.

Certainly, the program has ambitious goals to promote mutual understanding and cultural integration. But never before has the demand to bring East and West together been so great. As the world’s geopolitical and economic landscapes rapidly change, Schwarzman Scholars stands as a pivotal step to define the course of the 21st century. As Advisory Board member Condoleezza Rice states, “I’ll bet you that in 10 to 20 years, there will be a meeting of government officials…and at that table there will be a Schwarzman Scholar.”

The year 2016 likely marks the beginning of many great things to come.

ERWIN LI is a sophomore at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact him at erwin.li@yale.edu.

POLITICS & DIPLOMACY INTERVIEW

Finding Common Ground China Hands speaks to Major General Qiao Liang about his book, Unrestricted Warfare, the prospects of US-Chinese military relations, and the potential for cooperation.

A

s a General in the Chinese Air Force, Qiao Liang caught us off guard with his wry sense of humor. Our first topic of conversation was jetlag, something the general apparently “never gets.” He then proceeded to correct himself with a chuckle, saying that he does not suffer from jetlag when he leaves China but does for “as long as a month” upon his return.

Of course, in reality, General Qiao is no slouch. Serving in China’s highly distinguished, highly secretive People’s Liberation Army Air Force, Qiao broke ground in 1999, when the Foreign Broadcast Information Service published an English translation of his book, ‘Unrestricted Warfare,’ about the rising dominance of alternative modes of conducting war, as opposed to conventional military force.

Naturally, the book served as our next topic of conversation, so we asked the General what place he thought warfare served in today’s society. Traditional military warfare, according to Qiao, “does not play as important a role” as it used to. Instead, “economic warfare, cyber warfare, and cultural warfare have gradually begun to play major roles.”

We then asked the General to speculate on what he thought the source of any future USChina conflict might be. He said one factor would be the “American misconception” of China as an aggressive power, which Qiao believed China is “neither willing nor capable” of becoming in the near future.

General Qiao is also a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s National Security Policy Committee, so when asked specifically about developments in China’s military build-up, he was quick to assert its “purely defensive” nature. According to Qiao, China has “very weak offensive capabilities” and is merely seeking to “protect its people’s safety.”

The General, who also happens to be a professor at China’s Air Command College, then showcased his historical repertoire to back up his points, from the “non-expansionist nature of the Qin empire” to the rise of British hegemony in the 18th century. “The misunder-

standing is bi-directional,” General Qiao did admit, as many Chinese people also believe that the “United States is trying to subjugate them.”

General Qiao was upbeat about the future prospects of US-China relations, predicting “a very good state of affairs,” dependent on the United States allowing China to “peacefully challenge” its hegemony in trade and culture.

Nuclear warfare, according to Qiao, “is virtually impossible,” even in the long term.

Our discussion then took a philosophical turn as the General described what he believes to be the “two-fold foundation of cooperation” between the United States and China. The first aspect of cooperation is simply the “bond of economic interdependence,” as Qiao put it, a field that the General was also able to speak about at length. The second, though, is that the United States’ and China’s “political ideas are fundamentally similar,” a concept that the General conceded “sounds very weird,” at least at first.

Although China and the United States “seem to have different values,” according to Qiao, “they agree on the most fundamental concept of political realism.” Qiao believes that “the United States is very realist when it comes to political resolutions,” and “China’s politics focuses on realist demands.”

Just like it started, our conversation with General Qiao ended on a lighter note. We asked General Qiao how he thought young people could contribute to alleviating USChina tensions, and he once again surprised us, referencing Gangnam Style and parkour.

According to Qiao, young Americans and Chinese can “find common ground through communication,” including culture and sports.

The General then chuckled and said he, of course, would not be able to participate in this kind of discussion. His wit and youthful smile could have fooled us.

TEDDY MILLER, JOHNNY XU from Yale University, and ANGELINE LIM from Fudan University contributed to this article.

chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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IN THIS SECTION

Engines of Change p. 19

Mixed Prognosis p. 21

Trading Up p. 22

Economics & Finance Created in China

Christian Rhally reports on the progress of Chinese intellectual property rights

PATENTS Across the Globe

Number of patents filed

600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 China USA

100000 0

0 ‘01

0 20

C

‘02

hina’s leadership have long made clear its desire to transform China’s economy away from being the world’s workshop to instead the world’s leading innovator. Consequently, patent applications have been surging over the past decade. In 2013, invention patents jumped 26.3% over the previous year to 825,000.

“We don’t just want made in China, but we want created in China,” says Huang Haifeng, a partner at the law firm Jones Day in Hong Kong and Executive Editor of the Chinese Intellectual Property Review. Even though China’s unbalanced economic development is reflected in the patent filings being concentrated in the rich provinces of Jiangsu, Guangdong, or Beijing, Huang says that Chinese patents are now becoming more diversified in their industries. Today, Chinese patents range from mobile phones and electronics industries (think Lenovo and Haier) to the pharmaceutical industry. A key factor

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VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

‘03

‘04

‘05

‘06

‘07

‘08

Japan South Korea

‘09

‘10 ‘11

‘12

source: World Intellectual Proper t y Organization

in China’s emergence in the pharmaceutical industry, despite the huge investments required for research and development, has been the successful use of cheaper generic drugs by the country’s companies.

According to Huang, while patents from foreign companies have increased in China, it is the huge proliferation of patents from Chinese companies that has been driving the rise in the number of patents. China has three classes of patents, all administered by the country’s State Intellectual Property Office: invention patents, utility model patents, and design patents.

Utility model patents differ significantly from patents in the United States. Although there is substantial examination for invention patents in the US, the Chinese utility model patent does not involve much examination of the patent’s quality. Many Chinese companies have taken advantage of this lack of quality control to file large numbers of

utility patents with no real technical breakthroughs. This has prompted fears among some Western firms that Chinese companies could successfully obtain a patent application based on Western IP and then use that patent to block the actual innovator from competing in the Chinese market.

The Chinese government has taken several measures to develop a more innovative country. Various legal measures have been taken to make companies of all kinds – state or private – realize the importance of intellectual property rights augmentation to economic growth. For instance, the government has designated a large portion of funds as subsidies for companies that spend money on R&D and on getting a patent.

In Shanghai, residents who file patent applications qualify for a subsidy of 3,000 yuan (about $490) for domestic patent application, 800 yuan ($130) per utility model application, and 300 yuan ($50) per design appli-

ECONOMICS & FINANCE cation. If the patent application is extended to Hong Kong or Macao, the subsidy jumps to 10,000 yuan ($1,640) and each additional application in foreign countries (up to three) qualifies for an additional subsidy of 30,000 yuan ($4,900.)

Huang points to these subsidies as a major cause for the increase in patent filings in China. The Chinese government is also discussing how to translate inventions into individual rewards for the inventors, from both private and state-owned companies.

This involves a more uniform and stringent enforcement mechanism for patents, involving an integrated system of courts for IP law presided over by IP judges.

The United States has supported the Chinese government’s commitment to greater protection of intellectual property.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office and SIPO have established bilateral mechanisms, including annual meetings, to increase dialogue between the two agencies.

According to Xie Zhengui, Vice President of Marketing and Patenting at the Changsha office of the Beijing Lu Hao Intellectual Property Agency, this cooperation can be seen through several patent infringement cases, such as in pharmaceuticals with the Eli Lilly vs Jiangsu Stockhausen patent in-

fringement case. The two countries’ bilateral relations in innovation also take place through education. Many Chinese students obtain advanced degrees and live in the US for years, before helping US firms conducting R&D in China.

In the private sector, several multinational companies have established R&D headquarters in Asia. Huang says that multinational companies “choose to have their R&D centers outside of their home jurisdictions because they want to tailor some products to Chinese customers.” Despite foreign companies’ willingness to apply for patents in China, government agencies still have the tendency to give preferential treatment to Chinese companies over their foreign competitors.

The surge in patents and R&D investments has been centered on China’s emerging entrepreneurial hubs. In Beijing, the Zhongguancun district provides a growing hub for techies and venture capitalists alike.

Instead of turning to friends and family for seed funding, aspiring entrepreneurs can now rely on networks in the district to connect with wealthy investors. A Chinese Silicon Valley in its own respect, Zhongguancun is surrounded by top academic institutions like Tsinghua University, and boasts trendy

tech cafes that host weekly guest speakers.

Beijing’s entrepreneurial culture has witnessed the emergence of numerous tech companies, such as Xiaomi, an electronics company that develops and sells smartphones. In just three years, the company has grown to sell 18.7 million phones in 2013 and is now valued at $10 billion. Despite such success, Xiaomi has suffered from the country’s (still) weak IP laws. Its chat application Miliao lost its entire market share after the tech titan Tencent launched a similar application called WeChat.

Indeed, China still has significant progress to make in IP protection. But with the government’s new commitment to innovation, Chinese companies are becoming significant players in the market, catching up to international patent filings from American or Japanese companies. “I think you will see more competition from Chinese companies and Chinese companies will make more filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office,” says Huang. “The next Samsung will be in China.”

CHRISTIAN RHALLY is a junior at Yale University. Contact him at christian.rhally@yale.edu. Additional reporting by

REBECCA SU.

Engines of Change Xiaoying Zhou reports on women entrepreneurs in China

I

n April 2012, Tiantian Ma and her partner finally moved to Shanghai to open up China’s first cold-pressed juice and natural food cleanse company, VCLEANSE. In less than two years, VCLEANSE has consolidated its supply chain, received funding from angel investors, and opened its second physical store in Beijing. On Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, VCLEANSE has attracted more than 11,000 followers and customers regularly post pictures to show off their healthy lifestyle to friends.

Tiantian was born in Xi’an, China, and lived there for seven years before her father moved the family to the United States. A proud Chinese-American and first-generation immigrant, Tiantian attended Harvard for both her undergraduate and law school studies. She spent a couple of years as a lawyer in

Washington, DC before realizing that starting a business was what she really wanted to do in life. Today, Tiantian’s parents still live in New Jersey, and her fiancé also works in the States, but Tiantian has moved back to China by herself.

“I know, the decision to move back might sound counterintuitive to many,” Tiantian told me over Skype. “But what’s really exciting about China is seeing its growth right before your eyes.” There is serious need for basic infrastructure building in China. “Often times you’d have to build your supply chain all by yourselves. It’s a lot of work, but it also makes you feel you are part of the development.” Tiantian’s positive outlook has also helped her deal with the Chinese bureaucracy. She has to navigate her way through opaque administrative structures and officials

not telling her all the required details upfront.

She is, however, set on going through the process and learning things herself.

Before the arrival of angel investors, VCLEANSE was funded by a small sum of capital saved up from Tiantian’s and her partner’s previous professional careers. But after two years of living and doing business in China, Tiantian has also learned that “the bravest ones are actually those most ordinary-looking, small business owners. There are a lot of them in China. They don’t fit with the Steve Jobs creative genius label, but they are also entrepreneurs.”

According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, an initiative aimed at measuring the level of entrepreneurial activities around the globe, China and the United States scored roughly the same for “total early-stage enchinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

19

FEATURES & FINANCE ECONOMICS trepreneurial activity for female working-age population” in 2013, though a much higher percentage of Chinese female entrepreneurs’ businesses were “necessity-driven.” For the past two decades, state-owned enterprises have been downsizing in China, resulting in millions of workers losing their jobs. In recent years, unemployed college graduates have also become an increasing demographic in the country. In these scenarios, small business owners have been the real job creators—indeed, many created their own jobs after getting laid off—and economy boosters.

Zhengqin Rui is one such small business owner. “Classifying businesses into purely opportunity-driven or necessity-driven is a bit extreme, don’t you think?” Zhengqin commented after I shared with her GEM’s findings. “Most people would be somewhere in between—it’s not like you would have absolutely no other option if you didn’t start your business.”

This assessment certainly applies to Zhengqin herself. After graduating from Nanjing University last year with a bachelor’s degree in biology, Zhengqin has been preparing for graduate school entrance exams and running her own business at the same time.

“You see, the business seems to be running

well and I would really love to just put all my eggs in one basket, but it’s too risky.”

Zhengqin has made a name for herself designing and selling trendy campus-themed T-shirts and other accessories to university students in Nanjing. In August 2013, Nanjing’s Industry and Commerce Administration adopted a new set of rules regarding business certificate applications, which comes into effective in March this year. Among other good news, there will no longer be thresholds for initial investments, and people can use their own home address to register and get their small businesses started. Although Zhengqin is worried about the amount of taxes to be incurred, she wants to get her studio registered as soon as she can. “Business development becomes so much easier once you are a legit, registered company.”

Regardless of looser regulations and greater support from government agencies, Zhengqin is still somewhat confused about where exactly she wants to be in the near future. “You need to be tough in order to persevere and develop your business,” she said, before commenting on the indispensable qualities for any female entrepreneur, “it’s like the biology major—definitely not for the softies among ladies.” However, Zhengqin also confessed

Tiantian and her par tner at their meeting with Chinese business magnate Pan Shiyi 20

VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

that she is still quite unwilling to quit her lifestyle as a financially dependent student, even though her current income from the studio is sufficient for her living expenses.

“I don’t know about people out there in the society, but within my college friend circle, few guys appreciate the tough-lady type—they’d feel you’re being too overbearing.” But one girl in her studio did start a relationship with a “good-looking guy,” Zhengqin added quickly, “so it’s not like it’s totally impossible!”

One thing that is certain about the increasing number of female entrepreneurs in China, then, is that it has little to do with the rising status of Chinese women. Another native Chinese entrepreneur I spoke to said she felt that the fact she was happily married definitely put her parents at ease, and allowed them to accept her decision to quit her job and start her own company.

However essential the government initiatives may be, it is a broader change in gender dynamics that is growing the ranks of China’s female small business owners.

XIAOYING ZHOU is a senior at Yale University. Contact her at xiaoy-

ing.zhou@yale.edu.

photo provided by PAN SHIYI

ECONOMICS & FINANCE photo courtesy of RUBICON STRATEGY GROUP

OP-ED

Mixed Prognosis Benjamin Shobert, founder of Rubicon Strategy Group, writes on healthcare FDI in China

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very year across China over 10,000 doctors are assaulted either by a patient they are caring for, or a family member responsible for the healthcare of a loved one.

These eruptions reflect a simple and unfortunate reality: as China modernized its economy, the country overlooked basic investments in public healthcare. As a result, China’s public healthcare expenditure stands at 5.2% of 2012 GDP, well short of WHO standards.

China’s economic miracle has many positive impacts, but improvement in basic healthcare services leaves a lot to be desired.

In 2009, amid growing concerns over access and affordability of China’s healthcare system, the central government announced a massive stimulus of RMB 1.13 trillion ( $185 billion). Part of that stinulus was directed towards an expansion of the country’s healthcare insurance. As a result, now over 95% of the country’s population has some basic level of government-provided healthcare insurance.

With the release of the Twelfth Five Year Plan, China made public its plans to spend an additional RMB 4.4 trillion ($720 billion) beyond what had already been allocated for the sector. China released two healthcare investment plans in 2009 and 2011 with different focuses: the 2009 plan expanded what procedures and pharmaceuticals would be covered by the national insurance plan, while the 2011 investment created new primary care and hospital capacity. If successful, the latter investment will fund 150,000 new primary care physicians, add 2,000 new county-level hospitals, create 29,000 new township hospitals and clinics and upgrade 5,000 existing township health facilities.

Questions remain about how impactful this new funding will be at the ground level. This concern has driven government officials to set in motion a handful of carefully selected policies that, if successful, would draw domestic and foreign capital into the country’s insufficient healthcare system. One of the key policies is China’s “20% by 2015” initiative. In early 2012, Chen Zhu, China’s then Minister of Health, stated the government’s goal to see 20% of all hospital beds across the country funded through private investment by 2015.

Considering that as of 2012, only 8% of the

country’s hospital beds were privately funded, this is an ambitious goal. It is also fraught with political risk. The average Chinese expects the government to provide healthcare at no cost. Many Chinese families rationalize the damage to their environment and food supply because they believe that the eventual economic progress will result in social benefits, of which healthcare is the most basic and essential. Chinese healthcare consumers have long been wary of private healthcare, largely because of the negative experiences many had with small privately-run clinics that proliferated across the country in the 90s. While paying a doctor a “red envelope” has become commonplace, most Chinese anticipate private healthcare to only cost more.

The Chinese government understands these concerns, but has its own dilemma: even if it is successful in spending all of the 2009 and 2011 stimulus money wisely, the country’s healthcare needs will outstrip the government’s resources. This realization has driven China’s policy makers to put forward two additional sets of policies designed to draw in private capital. The first policy was a late 2011 announcement that the country’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) catalog would be modified in 2012 to allow for 100% foreign ownership of hospitals under the Wholly Foreign Owned Entity (WFOE) structure. Previously, foreign capital was largely limited to joint ventures (JV) in China’s hospital space.

The second policy was the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) announcement that the government would make it possible for private investors – both domestic and foreign – to own a public hospital. The MOH had piloted this idea several years before with terrible results, largely because the privatization scheme was limited to poorly located and badly under-performing public hospitals that private capital did not want to own. This time, the program has been expanded. Questions remain surrounding residual issues private investors inherit after completing such a deal; however, these unknowns have not prevented both domestic and foreign capital from making initial investments. One of the first American pioneers to take advantage of the MOH’s privatization transaction will be China

Healthcare Corporation, which has already set in motion two deals using this approach.

The combined effect of the “20% by 2015,” FDI catalog, and public-to-private transaction policies is a positive indicator that China’s healthcare reforms will carve out space for FDI. However, healthcare investors remain cautious about how future FDI reforms could impact their ability to invest capital successfully in China. Leading their fears is the uncomfortable reality, made especially clear during this summer’s anti-corruption drive against bribery in the pharmaceutical sector, that healthcare in China is entering an era where access and affordability are political matters. While this is always the case in any part of the world, it is a particularly sensitive issue in China. Investors – especially foreign operators – will need to understand the unique risks they face as providers of a scarce service in China. These investors will hence need unique reassurances by the Chinese government that their investments are safe and secure from future regressive FDI reforms.

Comments like those of a Vice Minister from the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), Sun Zhigang, who said the emphasis on private healthcare was over-stated and would be “largely encouraged only at the ‘grassroots’ level”, send mixed messages to private capital.

The domestic and foreign capital that has flowed into the private hospital sector since 2012 has been disappointing. A recent study

by CN Healthcare, one of China’s leading healthcare think tanks, identified approximately $1.7 billion of investments into private hospitals over the last two years, well below expectations. To ensure FDI flows match the Chinese government’s expectations, the country would do well to provide additional safeguards and incentives designed to protect and promote private investment. While the steps the Chinese government has taken thus far are symbolically important, they may also have been too little, too late.

BENJAMIN SHOBERT is the founder and Managing Director of Rubicon Strategy Group.

chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Trading Up Jean Young Koo reports on the Free Trade Agreement between China and South Korea

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noted, “China-Korea Free Trade Agreement will be good for both countries, especially if it can include some high-level issues [such as] competition and investment.”

The FTA can also fulfill South Korea’s more political goal in terms of relations with other countries: its goal of becoming a “FTA hub” nation. South Korea is currently in

t seems that the world’s fastest growing major economy and an Asian Tiger will together evolve into the biggest trading bloc in East Asia. The Free Trade Agreement between China and South Korea, initially proposed in 2012 and discussed by the two nations at summits in Seoul and Beijing, holds much promise for economic growth and interdependence in the region.

The interdependence between the two in matters of trade is unmistakable. Trade between China and Korea exceeded $220 billion in 2011. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner, and Korea is China’s fourth largest national trading partner. Therefore, the two countries’ economic cooperation through the Free Trade Agreement is projected to greatly impact their economies as well as to alter socio-political dynamics within the atmosphere of East Asia.

Many experts view the Free Trade Agreement in a positive light from an economic perspective. This treaty is projected to increase China’s GDP by up to percent 0.40.6 percent and Korea’s by 2.4-3.1 percent, according to a 2005 study by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

Korea has much to gain from the FTA, with many Korean companies and 22,000 Korean start-ups flourishing in China. Korea’s volume of export in the automobile, textile, and petrochemical industries will increase.

Korea already benefits from a trade surplus of $48 billion with China, and an increase in exports will further help stimulate its economy. Fan He, the Assistant Director at the Institute of World Economics and Politics,

This treaty is projected to increase China’s GDP by up to 0.4-0.6 percent and Korea’s by 2.4-3.1 percent the process of stimulating its trade through sealing Free Trade Agreements with major economies, including the United States and European Union. China’s benefits will come mostly from the agricultural and fishing sectors, the two areas in which Korea imports the most from China.

Beyond the immediate economic gains, the FTA will facilitate the consolidation of economic and political security in East Asia. With the Free Trade Agreement as a conduit for greater cooperation, China and South Korea will share a more amiable and stable diplomatic and geopolitical relationship. A stronger China-South Korea relationship will ease the tension within East Asia, leading to better outcomes in overarching issues such as the North Korean nuclear crisis, land disputes between China, Japan and South Korea, and the reunification of

GRAPH Korea’s Trade with China Number of exports

150000

Exports to China Imports from China

120000 90000 60000

the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Japan pulled out to avoid a “multilateral bet.”

A key concern surrounding the Free Trade Agreement is that Korea’s biggest exporting industries—automobiles, chemicals, and electronics—will face fierce competition from China, which is currently developing and investing heavily in these areas. Despite its potential challenges, the Free Trade Agreements seems to be on a smooth path for now, as China and Korea are taking small steps in negotiations about specific policy ideas. Abraham Kim, the Director at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, noted, “the China and Korea FTA is quite plausible. The two countries are working toward completing it and getting it implemented by next year. Chinese government is pressing hard to get it done.”

When South Korean President Park Geunhye visited China last June, she emphasized the importance of reaching a consensus on the negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement in a speech. On the Chinese side, President Xi Jinping made a public statement last October, urging both China and South Korea to actively push further developments in the treaty. Xi noted that the bilateral agreement would be highly beneficial for both countries by expanding common interests and facilitating development within the region.

30000 0

JEAN YOUNG KOO

1990

1995

0

200

5

200

7

200

8

200

9

200

2010

2011

source: Korea International Trade Association 22

the Korean peninsula.

Some raise questions about the feasibility of this Free Trade Agreement. Initially, Japan was a part of the Free Trade Agreement, which would have made it a trilateral treaty. However, due to Japan’s participation in multiple Free Trade Agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and

VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

is a freshman at Yale University. Contact her at

jeanyoung.koo@yale.edu.

FEATURES

Different

Claire Zhang reports on Chinese youth culture

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went to China last summer because I had been starting to feel less Chinese. I went because my mother has said things like, “You’re so American.” I went because I can’t remember how to say “turn right” when a couple of Chinese tourists ask me for directions on campus. My waiguoren friends’ pictures in China are splashed all over Facebook, and yet, I have not been in the country since I was 11 years old. I am not immune from the old clichés of the immigrant child caught between two worlds. My official reason for going to China was to write a story about the culture of Chinese youth, but a part of me wanted to prove to myself that I could be part of this culture, that I could be Chinese too, make friends with, and be a local, native Chinese young person no different from them.

To find other university students, there is no better place than the district of Haidian, Beijing, home to the best universities in China: Peking University and Tsinghua University, and a host of others. The first students I meet are Jiang Lai, her boyfriend, Liu Yue (“Harry”), and Du Xiangyua, Lai’s childhood friend from her hometown of Chongqing. We meet (different word) at an enormous shopping complex, which, after already spending a month or so here, I realize are ubiquitous in China today. They are always at least six stories tall with shiny floors and bright lights and flashy brand names, Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton. Walk into one, and you can almost forget you’re in China if it weren’t for the salespeople aggressively accosting you to buy things.

We have dinner in a Sichuan restaurant at the top floor, where there are a number of other restaurants filled with young college age students like ourselves chattering noisily.

Lai begins in English and I quickly explain that I can speak Mandarin if she would prefer that. She smiles and says, “Oh so you can speak Chinese!” I say, “I’m decent, I can’t say some harder things though.” I feel a spark of pride when she says that I speak pretty much like a native Chinese person.

L

ai and her boyfriend are public health students at Peking University Medical School, and Xiangyuan is a math and physics technology student at Tsinghua University. Peking University and Tsinghua are the top two universities in China, parallel to Harvard and MIT, and to say that the admissions competition is fierce would be an understatement. The high stakes standardized test known as the gaokao is the only way to gain admission to college in China with no consideration for the broader holistic factors American universities. The high pressure that the test inflicts on Chinese students has become famously known outside of China.

Each university has a certain cutoff score, and to gain admission, one must attain this score or higher. In addition to cutoff scores for admission into university, different majors have cutoff scores too. Thus, even if a student scores high enough to enter a top university, they may be unable to study the subjects they are interested in – if they are interested in anything at all. The majority of students simply wait until after they receive their scores and decide among the choices

L

iu Zihao, a Japanese student at Renmin University, and a high school friend of my second cousin’s, lamented Chinese students’ lack of passion.

“Chinese schools don’t really know how to nurture talent. China schools will definitely always have very talented students, but they will always have the competitive aspect too.

Everyone only cares about tests,” said Liu Zihao, a Japanese language student at Renmin University, says over dinner along with my second cousin, Lin Chutong and another friend, Li Jiaqing.

We’re enjoying noodles and wontons and other small dishes in the “xiaochi” (translated literally as “small eats”, similar to tapas) side of a restaurant located near his old high school, a boarding school associated with Minzu University. It’s one of the most prestigious high schools and colleges in Beijing and specially designated for Chinese ethnic minorities. Students must test for admission.

The surrounding area is typical of a Chinese college district, streets lined with little stalls selling all sorts of snacks – boba milk tea, tofu drizzled in hot sauce, egg waffles filled with red bean paste – and young students

With sudden freedom, a lack of interest in major, and burnout from the pressure cooker of high school, some students give up on their studies in college, skipping class and playing computer games instead, then graduating and using parental connections to find a random job. they are given. Switching majors is only possible if you scored high enough for the major you want to switch to and maintained extraordinarily high grades. As a result, many students don’t care for what they study. With sudden freedom, a lack of interest in major, and burnout from the pressure cooker of high school, some students give up on their studies in college, skipping class and playing computer games instead, then graduating and using parental connections to find a random job.

strolling with snacks in hand. Vendors attempt to peddle wares like cheap hair accessories, shoes, and even shampoo bottles, laid out on blankets by the sidewalk.

Zihao had not originally been very interested in Japanese, but like many others was assigned the major after failing to meet the score cutoff for other majors.

We decide to visit their high school after dinner. They show me various textbooks and old tests.

“This is a test prep book,” Chutong ex-

chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

23

FEATURES plains as he shows me one. “In China, to prepare for science tests we mostly just do a lot of practice problems. But for humanities tests we just memorize lots of things.”

They show me a politics book and ask if I have that sort of class in America. I tell them we do, and Zihao snorts, quipping that American politics classes would certainly be different from China’s.

We sit down on top of the desks and begin to chat. They talk about their high school days: classmates who were a bit weird (some that they speculate are gay, some who are shockingly actually, really, truly gay), what other classmates are doing now, who is dating who, those particularly mean teachers, all the ridiculous rules and regulations they had to endure in high school. They were required to not only wear uniforms, but also to style their hair in a certain way. Chutong points at Jiaqing’s hair and says that her style wouldn’t have been allowed because bangs were forbidden. Hair was to be kept out of the face. They were not allowed to leave campus except from 5PM Saturday to 5PM Sunday. Jiaqing recalled how everyone would rush to the dorms to change into jeans and pants on Saturday afternoons immediately after class. Dating was severely discouraged.

“Once they came into the exam room holding hands,” Jiaqing says of some old classmates.

Zihao chuckles at my face. “Haha, she doesn’t get it. To you, it’s really normal, but to us it was a big deal,” he says to me.

“Yeah I mean, the school seems to just control everything,” I say.

“Yes, everything. Even how short your hair is. Teachers would actually go desk by desk and check how long your hair was and pull you out of class if your hair was too long,” Zihao says.

“Would the school punish you if you dated someone then?” I ask.

“Your teachers and your family will all scold you,” Chutong says. “They think it will distract from the gaokao, that’s mostly why.”

“You know, thinking on it now, I think high school was very beautiful. But I wouldn’t want to go back,” Jiaqing says, sighing. “Just looking at these old tests makes my head spin. It was too much stress. And now we’re so old already.”

A

s I talk to more and more students, I begin to sense a pattern in their explanations for the less than stellar education experience they’ve had in China.

There is the sense that there is nothing they 24

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can do about it. “Meibanfa,” I hear over and over. “There is no way.” Even though the gaokao is stressful and can be detrimental, it is the only one that can work for China.

China is a “guanxi” (relationship) society.

China is different from the United States.

There would be sketchy backdoor admissions. There are too many people in China.

They need some kind of method to handle all these people. Even if it isn’t great, their system is the one that is best suited to their society. This kind of reasoning will apply to

almost everything, not only education, but also for example, to Chinese medicine versus American medicine (Chinese people’s bodies are different from Western people, so this might be why Chinese medicine does not work for Westerners).

Li Xuefei, a Chinese major at Peking University, was one student I felt particularly connected to. Like myself, she loves literature.

One of her favorite authors is Milan Kundera. Aspiring to translate foreign literature into Chinese, she decided to pursue a Chi-

FEATURES

nese major, but plans to switch to French next year because the Chinese major does not allow for enough exposure to foreign literature. I am pleasantly surprised to meet someone who seems to actually be pursuing a passion, but she too feels that the rigid testbased educational system is necessary.

“There are more people in China, so the resources are limited. If we use your method and try to apply for schools, there will be lots of problems. For example, say you are admitted, but I am not. I will wonder, if there

illustration by CHRISTINA ZHANG are not scores as standards, whether it was unfair to me. Especially in China, I will think perhaps you used your privilege. So everyone agrees in the end, that although a comprehensive ability is important, although we need creativity… for the fairest way, they will agree to use the score as the final standard,” she said.

In my very first conversation, with Xiangyuan and Lai, Xiangyuan had similarly connected the difference in the admissions to

the broader difference between the two societies.

“Both societies’ have different societal systems. America has a democratic system,” Xiangyuan said then. “Why can’t China have that system? We can borrow some ideas, but we can’t walk that exact path. It really doesn’t work for China. Why? If you think about it, China has a billion people. It would overload the system. Not only that, there’s a large portion of people who don’t have much chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

25

FEATURES education. They don’t really understand what democratic power is. So they have no way of using democratic power.”

Many students seem to feel more or less content, or at least, not unsatisfied, with the efforts of their government for the time being.

Problems take a long time to fix, they say, and China is still a developing nation. It will take significant amounts of time to address all the issues, and the system they have is working best for their specific situation.

Some do see democracy as a future possibility, but with the caveat that they are not sure what form a democracy for China would take or how they would get there. A recent study, called “What Kind of Democracy do Chinese Want?” from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, found (unsurprisingly) that the majority of Chinese youth are rather lukewarm about the idea of democracy. They liked to give answers like: “can’t generalize, has to be in context of whether it is appropriate for China’s current conditions.”

Those kind of answers seemed to hit the mark. Recent China scholars have pointed to an increasing pragmatic approach in Chinese

It seems like this is the fear that holds these students, arguably at the top of their generation, from fully endorsing an American style, liberal democracy.

“As I understood more and more things, and thought it over, in the end I felt that the Chinese Communist Party does some things really well for China. It would be very hard for another political party to come in and do things better. They wouldn’t necessarily be able to do anything better,” Xiangyuan had said with such confidence and self-assurance, sounding almost professorial. He adds that he has already become a member of the Party. iana Gong, an undergraduate law major at Peking University, studied abroad at Columbia Law School for a semester and found herself more disillusioned with America after her time there. Growing up, Diana’s father had always spoken of the American political system as the best system (he was unable to immigrate, because he “screwed up his grades”), while her mother was more traditional Chinese in outlook. But after she went and visited, she felt that her father had idealized America, that it had

D

That’s one of the things Americans do. I don’t know how you feel about the word American exceptionalism – the feeling of many people is that even though America has its problems, it’s still the best, whether in culture, or other things,” says Diana. “I get the feeling of superiority. politics since Deng Xiaoping’s movement to focus China on economics and modernization in the 80’s. Many have been hopeful that such focus on pragmatism would eventually lead to democracy. But in a paper titled “How can a Chinese Democracy be Pragmatic?”, SorHoon Tan, a professor of philosophy at the National University of Singapore, concluded that “both historically and in its current practice, Chinese deliberative politics is more authoritarian than democratic. […] Genuinely democratic deliberation or Deweyan social inquiry would require considerably more decentralization of power than the CCP seems comfortable with.” She also noted that “If democracy proves less educative than Dewey believed, if the people continue to behave like Lipmann’s ‘bewildered herd,’ to prove themselves to be incorrigibly selfish, shortsighted, narrow-minded, and belligerent, then the results could be disastrous for China.”

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VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

many of its own problems as well.

I explain that Americans sort of believe that a democratic society is the ultimate goal for most nations.

“That’s one of the things Americans do.

I don’t know how you feel about the word American exceptionalism – the feeling of many people is that even though America has its problems, it’s still the best, whether in culture, or other things,” says Diana. “I get the feeling of superiority.”

The funny thing is, exceptionalism was the feeling I was getting from the Chinese too.

And it turns out I wasn’t the only one. While I was in Beijing, in July 2013, a controversial and much discussed TED talk given by Eric X. Li, titled “A tale of two political systems”, which championed the Chinese political system was released. In 2012, he had written a New York Times Op-Ed titled “Why China’s Political Model is Superior”, and in an inter-

view at the Aspen Institute, he argued that there “is Chinese exceptionalism just as there is American exceptionalism. And, second that the American idea is fundamentally borne from Judeo-Christian theological roots, concepts that are entirely alien to the development of China. Ergo, American notions of democracy -- as an end in and of itself -- will not work for a country like China.” Sound familiar?

I wonder if it’s possible to be composed of two worlds that both assert that they’re unique and different from everybody else.

I

find myself having a similar debate about the two political systems over hotpot dinner with an economics major at the Capital University of Economics and Business, Zhang Yuchen, and my second cousin. Like all the other students, he is very friendly, showing me around his campus and treating us to what he said was the best boba milk tea he’s ever had.

But Yuchen also says he doesn’t really like America and also asks me which country I would defend if a war broke out between America and China. I tell him that I can’t answer that question (though I think I would truthfully have to say America). He asks if I think government supervision is a good or bad thing, and I tell him that I think less is better.

“That’s probably because you grew up in America,” he says. “I always thought that if we had America’s method of administration, people would be unsafe. Do you feel like your life isn’t as safe in America?”

This is a question that Lai has asked me before too, since she is planning to study in American graduate school. Her concern was because of the Boston marathon bombing and school shooting. I try to explain that I generally feel quite safe in America, though I acknowledge that there have been a few big incidents lately. Yuchen attributes this to the laziness of the American government to take care of its people. “Sure, my meaning is just, on America’s freedom, the way they create it, we should learn from it, but on their administrative parts, there are a lot of problems,” Yuchen replies.

This is then again circled back to the education system, just as Xiangyuan connected the two, but in the opposite direction. “I think right now this [education system] is a good thing, because if China is like America, then our economy would likely not be as great. I said before that some people who worked too hard in high school get burned out and don’t do anything in col-

FEATURES lege, but there are also a lot of people who are the opposite, they then work very hard.

We need these kinds of people to improve China. If we had America’s educational system, we might not even have these kinds of people, because there are very few people born with the desire to work hard.”

D

espite the dichotomy drawn between Chinese and American, everyone agrees that their generation is much more open-minded than the previous generations in China. A vertical difference, instead of a horizontal one, as one student put it.

There is more tolerance of gays (in comparison to previous Chinese generations, not so much America). Overseas travel seems to be a trend as well, with students venturing abroad to Egypt and Israel and Laos and Taiwan, in addition to the United States, and learning French and Hebrew and German.

“I think that modern young people have similar thoughts to me, very independent.

They try not to copy other people – they’ll have their own ideas. I think, before, our parents’ contact with other worlds was small.

They only had contact with their surrounding family. Now it’s different because everyone’s thoughts are livelier and they have embraced more things. China has become more open to the world. So now, opinions are more interesting,” Zhang Lei said.

The increased prosperity and improved economic conditions afford today’s youth the opportunity to be more individualistic and optimistic. They have more choices. There are a number of students who, in spite of all the talk of Chinese students lacking passion, do pursue their own interests.

Yet there are some who still worry that all this change and modernization also means excessive Westernization and a loss of Chinese culture. It’s an anxiety that immigrant parents often have about their children, which tends to cause their children a lot of stress – like myself.

Lang Jialing, a materials science student at Tsinghua University and my cousin’s old high school deskmate, seemed to be the most concerned about Westernization. He’s dark skinned, from Dongbei, also known as Manchuria, and he has tutored and worked with children in more rural, poorer areas of China.

“Now with China’s rapid development, everyone values Western ideals. They don’t think of Chinese traditional culture’s many strengths. Young people think less of old traditions and don’t like to practice them. This year Christmas seemed like a more popular

holiday than Chinese New Year for young people. This is a really bad phenomenon. I think becoming more open and liberal is un-

I

ronically, the improved economic conditions seem to mean that there is in fact less choice than the students might like.

Ironically, the improved economic conditions seem to mean that there is in fact less choice than the students might like. There is more opportunity, but there is also extraordinary competition for these new opportunities, and so the pressure to obtain a good job pushes many students into certain paths that seem more stable, like government positions or bank jobs. derstandable, but I also feel like we’re losing our culture very quickly. China also has few good authors right now, and their influence is diminishing. I just think that our generation needs to seriously reflect a bit,” says Jialing. My cousin enthusiastically agrees.

Jialing adds that Koreans used to be influenced by Chinese culture and are now more influenced by America instead.

Sun Yuman is a Chinese major at Peking University, and Xuefei’s roommate. Studying Chinese means that traditional Chinese culture is especially important to her, she says, but she also loves traveling and learning about different cultures. She participated in an exchange program in Taiwan last semester and found the experience changed her perspective on Chinese society. She believes that China is not necessarily becoming more westernized, but rather more open and international, and this is all still compatible with traditional Chinese culture.

“I feel like there’s this tendency to either worship western culture or fiercely defend our own culture. My viewpoint is more moderate. I think society will naturally adjust itself,’” said Yuman.

There is confidence that China will be able to gain from the best aspects of the modern world, while at the same time maintaining its precious traditions. It sounds a little bit like the opaque “democracy with Chinese characteristics” I have heard often about, and again I am skeptical. But it also sounds a little bit like what I often declare about my own Chinese and American identities, that I am composed of two worlds and that I balance and maintain the characteristics of both.

There is more opportunity, but there is also extraordinary competition for these new opportunities, and so the pressure to obtain a good job pushes many students into certain paths that seem more stable, like government positions or bank jobs. China’s job market for new graduates is at its lowest since 2010, and while students talk of more choice and freedom, there is still a high level of societal pressure to be successful and earn money and social status.

“Even though many people say that Chinese people have become more and more open, actually I think many of them are conservative. For example although we stress that you have to show your talents, it’s not a shame, at the same time we always stress you have to be modest and you cannot show off. Although we say that you choose your own values and we say that you can pursue your own interests, we also say that you have to consider your parents, you have to consider your responsibility for your family,” Xuefei says in the Peking University café.

“Once I visited a retired teacher in the PKU philosophy department. He says tradition is just like the stream. What’s underwater you may not realize, but actually it’s in fact every way of your life. On the surface, you think you take many new ideas and you think you are changing, but other than that you’re still holding your traditional values.”

CLAIRE ZHANG is a junior at Yale University. Contact her at

claire.zhang@yale.edu.

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illustration by KAREN TIAN 28

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Tongzhi Culture Rachel Leng reports on the broader significance of the Chinese gay rights movement

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n a Beijing restaurant, I sat down to lunch with two men and two women who have been married for more than three years.

All four individuals are tongzhi in “sham marriages” (行婚xinghun) with each other in which gay men marry lesbians for the sake of public and familial appearances.

Kevin (all names have been changed), 29, and Paul, 35, met in 2005 and dated for more than three years before succumbing to family pressures to get married. Paul posted a message on an online forum for gays and lesbians to contact each other, calling for “sham wives.” Several lesbian couples responded, and after meeting with them, the men decided that Nancy, 26, and Anna, 28, would be a good fit. For five months, they went on multiple double dates to learn more about each other’s personality and lifestyle habits.

Then they paired up for marriage: Kevin with Nancy, Paul with Anna.

By entering into sham opposite-sex marriages, all four individuals believed they could relieve family pressures and avert public suspicion about their homosexuality, but still secretly continue their same-sex relationships. They live with their same-sex partners, but meet their legal spouses once every few months to see family back in their respective hometowns. To them, this is a blessing, as it makes it less likely for their parents to make surprise visits.

Nonetheless, at personal risk of having their scheme exposed, the couples revealed their disillusionment. They complain about having to consistently lie about their “happy married life” to friends, family, and colleagues, their disenchantment with heterosexual marriage, and the frustration of not being able to legally live together as same-sex couples. In short, they resent that an intolerant Chinese society had pressured them into an undesired heterosexual marriage.

Given contemporary China’s prejudice against homosexuality, it may come as a surprise that same-sex relations were widespread in Imperial China. A wealth of historical documents reveals that same-sex practices were accepted as part of social hierarchy in classical China’s patriarchal society, where privileged males dominated their social inferiors, such as their wife, concubines, and servants. It was only since the founding of the People’s Re-

public of China in 1949 that the Communist Party tried to eradicate all non-marital relations, establishing the nuclear family as the bedrock of socialism.

The Chinese State saw non-heteronormative behaviors, especially sexual behaviors, as threats to their moral authority. Accordingly, homosexuality was pathologized and criminalized under the “hooliganism” law (流氓罪 liumangzui) in the 1957 Official Penal Code.

Although numbers are uncertain, researchers estimate that more than 70,000 people, mostly men, suspected of homosexuality were convicted under the pretext of “hooliganism” and sent to prison, labor reform camps, electric therapy, or executed during the first six months of the Strike-Hard (严打yanda) campaign in 1983.

Recent decades have seen some legal improvements: in 1997, the “hooliganism” law was abolished; in 2001, homosexuality was removed from the nation’s list of mental diseases. Nonetheless, same-sex marriages or civil unions have no legal basis, and discrimination against homosexuals is still widespread.

Many gay and lesbian Chinese stay closeted their whole lives, marrying heterosexuals and having children. This phenomenon has become so prevalent that the wives of gay men have been termed “homowives” (同妻 tongqi) in colloquial slang, and sociologists estimate that there are more than 16 million of them in China.

“I have no desire to make my gay inclinations public knowledge,” Paul told me. “I have seen other people suffer discrimination from their peers and employers for being homosexual, and I do not want to risk that. I have heard bad stories about people being detained and beaten up by the police, or being harassed, and that also deters me” from coming out.

Like many politically sensitive issues, the words used to talk about them carry a double meaning. Tongzhi (同志) literally translates as “same will,” but means “Comrade,” and is also slang referring to homosexuals. The term was first used in Imperial China to refer to people with the same ethics or ideals. It gained enhanced political connotations when Sun Yat-Sen, known as the national founder of China, used the label in a famous quote on his deathbed calling upon his followers to con-

tinue the revolution to overthrow the Imperial dictatorship. When the Communist Party came to power, they appropriated tongzhi as a general address term which all revolutionaries used to refer to one another regardless of class, gender, or other socioeconomic markers. During this time, “tongzhi” was made equivalent to the Soviet term, evoking the socialist ideal for an equal society.

In 1989, the organizers of Hong Kong’s first Gay and Lesbian Film Festival first re-appropriated tongzhi as a localized term referring to same-sex desire. This usage gained popularity and soon spread to Taiwan and Mainland China; tongzhi was considered a gender-neutral, desexualized, and culturally compatible term free from the stigma of homosexuality in Chinese societies.

In China, the appropriation of one of the most respectable titles at the heart of Communist ideology rendered Chinese homosexuals the ability to undermine government censorship and repression. Tongzhi established an indigenous social identity uniquely grounded in China’s cultural and political history. Tongzhi is now most commonly associated with homosexuals. Nonetheless, the term still resonates with the revolutionary intent for an equal society, and is regularly used in the state-run media as a title for Communist Party officials.

The dual meaning of tongzhi highlights that while the term may specifically point to the homosexual community, it also implicitly refers to all Chinese people.

“Sham marriages” offer tongzhi a middle ground: by marrying each other, gay men and lesbian women can superficially fulfill the requirement of heterosexual marriage, yet still pursue their homosexual relationships. Today, it is common to find “sham marriage” sites like ChinaGayLes.com that unite gay men and lesbians.

To find a good match, tongzhi list information about their location, employment and/or financial situation, same-sex relationship status (whether they are already in a long term relationship), and whether they are looking to have a child. Nonetheless, the reality that many Chinese tongzhi have to resort to such conceit to conceal their homosexuality raises important issues with regard to sexual and human rights in China.

“There is just too much pressure for people chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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POLL Public Support of Gay Marriage in China 2009

30%

2013

52%

Number of people who said they supported gay marriage in a national poll conducted by Li Yinhe

to marry and have children that it is difficult and too disgraceful, to think about comingout in public,” Paul warned. “Even if I don’t mind whether people look down on me, and even if my parents eventually accept my homosexuality because they love me, people will mock them. I can’t put my parents through that shame… Even though a sham marriage is only a temporary and imperfect solution, it is better than coming-out.”

Interestingly enough, the main advocates of pro-gay initiatives are typically the parents of gay children or heterosexual university students, rather than homosexuals themselves. In 2003, Shanghai’s Fudan University offered China’s first undergraduate gay studies course that was very popular and attracted an overflow in attendance. A China chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays (PFLAG) was established in 2007 and has been active in advocating for LGBT sexual liberalization.

Several gay publications have sprouted up together with other gay-themed businesses, restaurants, and shops, increasing the visibility of tongzhi in Chinese popular culture and society. In recent years, the Mr. Gay China Pageant and the annual Tongzhi film festivals have also attracted widespread attention across contemporary Chinese society, particularly amongst youth.

In June 2012, the fourth annual Shanghai LGBT Pride festival was praised in an editorial by China Daily, a State-run newspaper, as a “showcase of the country’s social progress.”

Although gay-themed events and venues still consistently get shut down by the authorities, the Shanghai Pride festival has been quite successful in increasing awareness of the Chinese homosexual community. Most local tongzhi do not actually take part in these gay pride events, and so the festival’s relevance to the Chinese homosexual subculture remains contested. The festival primarily caters to and is attended by Westerners in Shanghai and university students.

“I have heard it is a really big event,” Kevin said, referring to the Shanghai Pride festival, before lamenting that it is “just too risk to expose my homosexuality. Even if I participate and say that I am straight and merely 30

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Number of people who said they were supportive of gay marriage in a poll on Sina.com advocating for LGBT rights, I think people will [be] suspect.”

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he heightened coverage of same-sex marriage debates in the U.S. has affected pro-gay marriage initiatives in China, but it is often the language of universal human rights that is most-invoked in the Chinese gay rights movement.Li Yinhe, a renowned sociologist and sexologist, has been an outspoken advocate for legalizing same-sex marriages, proposing several resolutions to amend to the marriage law during the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2008. These proposals appeal to the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights and Article 33 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, which stipulates that “All citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law” and that “the state respects and protects human equality.”

In 2012, Li launched an influential campaign that emphasized how the Chinese government should use the approval of same-sex marriage as evidence of its effort to protect human rights, gaining the upper hand against the United States. The main campaign slogan stresses that a “ban of same-sex marriage violates the constitutional principle of equality.”

In February 2013, more than 100 parents of tongzhi children signed a letter calling for the legalization of same-sex marriage to be made legal in China in response to two lesbians being harshly by a government official when they applied for marriage in Guangzhou. The letter, which was posted online, appealed to morals by framing a plea for acceptance of Chinese gays in terms of human rights.

An ongoing poll on Chinese portal Sina. com shows that a majority of over 71,000 respondents favor amending China’s Marriage Law to allow for same-sex marriage. Although Chinese Internet users are generally younger, more educated, and thus more liberal than the population at large, the opinions reflected in this poll are predictive of an emergent social trend supporting tongzhi rights in China.

N

ancy expressed great optimism about the future of gay rights. “I believe that with the rapid rate of social and economic development in China … homosexuality will become acceptable as good people in society, especially since the West is progressively embracing same-sex love.”

In an environment that marginalizes – at times violently – all non-heteronormative behavior, the mobilization of heterosexual support for gay rights in China has been an unexpected vehicle to channel broader discontent about civic and political rights in China. The trend of heterosexual youth involved in the tongzhi movement has become so widespread that the term zhi tongzhi (直同志) or “straight tongzhi” has been coined.

“All tongzhi realize that on some level, the government is the reason why gay love is currently socially unaccepted. It will be very progressive for the Chinese State to allow for homosexuality, and they don’t lose much political power,” Nancy said. “It is probably just a matter of time. It will no doubt be a huge achievement, not only for homosexuals but also for all the activists out there hoping to instigate change and more freedom in the Communist government. This will be a very positive step in that direction.”

In societies, as in psyches, what is repressed is eventually revelatory and manifest in highly visible forms. Academics have remarked that descriptions of social change in China are often associated with the metaphor of revolution. Gary Sigley, a scholar on contemporary Chinese politics and culture, holds that “China is in the throes of a new and very modern revolution, in the form of its own belated ‘sexual revolution.’”

In this view, the tongzhi revolution represents “a moment when Chinese citizens, especially the younger generation, embrace the ‘progressive’ sexual mores of the modern” and increasingly Westernized world. In the introduction of the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance’s State of Sexual Freedom Report, Barnaby B. Barratt tellingly states that just as political liberalization implies enhanced political autonomy for citizens, so too does sexual liberalization presuppose that individuals will gain greater scope to conduct their sexual lives according to personal desires. The politics of China’s sexual revolution reach far beyond the bedroom.

RACHEL LENG is a PhD candidate in the Department of East Asian Studies at Harvard University. She is a 2013 25 Under 25 honoree of China Hands magazine. Contact her at rleng@fas.harvard.edu.

IN THIS SECTION

China’s Perfect Game p. 31

A Day at the Met p. 34

Among the Faithful p. 35

Life & Culture China’s Perfect Game James Badas reports on baseball in China photo by CHRIS PETERS

T

he perfect game is one of the most improbable feats in baseball, let alone all of sports. 204,931 games have been completed in Major League Baseball dating back to 1876. Over this period, only 23 perfect games have been tossed.

With the 2014 season underway, the MLB is seeking to accomplish a feat even rarer than a perfect game – a feat that has yet to be achieved in its illustrious 137-year history. The feat in question? A Chinese-born player taking the field in the MLB. BASEBALL’S ROOTS IN CHINA Baseball has a history in China that dates back very nearly to the origins of the game. Exchange students from China who attended Yale University over a century

ago introduced America’s pastime to their native country. The Chinese people embraced the sport and bangqiu 棒球, which literally translates to “stick-ball” in Mandarin, appeared to have a bright future in China.

That hope and promise was extinguished in the 1960s, thanks to the Cultrual Revolution’s sweeping impact on the country. Mao Zedong banned the sport for its Western roots and influence, leaving a once loved sport to go unrecognized by an entire nation of Chinese people.

Even when the sport was reinstated after Mao’s death in 1976, baseball was fighting an uphill battle. Basketball had taken flight thanks to Mao’s love of the fast-paced game – a love that reignited in China as recent as this past decade when 7’6” Chinese superstar Yao Ming shone in the Na-

tional Basketball Association.

With basketball at the forefront of Chinese sporting culture, along with soccer and table-tennis, the unfamiliar and somewhat strange game of baseball lagged behind in the background. As recently as 2011, an estimated 300 million Chinese were playing basketball compared to a measly four million who were grabbing their gloves and taking the diamond.

CONFUCIUS WOULD LOVE BASEBALL Whatever uphill battle the MLB faces in developing the sport in China, Jim Small, the Vice President of MLB Asia, points out that the league has some cultural advantages that cannot be overlooked. Small is well-versed not only in Confucianism, but in how Confucianism may be baseball’s

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LIFE & CULTURE best chance for success in China.

“You think about all the things that make baseball great: there’s no clock, everything’s in threes, the idea of sacrifice, the timelessness,” says Small from his office in Tokyo. “It all fits perfectly with Chinese culture. I think Confucius would have been a great baseball fan.”

Whereas the National Football League finds it especially difficult to pitch an almost-exclusively American game to the Chinese, Small points out that baseball has yet another leg up. The Chinese do not view baseball as America’s favorite pastime. When they think of baseball, they imagine it as an Asian sport that is not only rich in Chinese history, but also gaining in popularity in neighboring Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

While these advantages can be seen simply as nice talking points that do not necessarily translate to world-class talent on the field, they have been helping with one of Small’s main objectives of bringing context to the game. Since the start of the new year, Small has received some confirmation that the league is in the midst of making great strides - an undisclosed sponsor recently chose the MLB over the NBA in a contractual battle.

rated into the physical education programs of over 150 schools across five top-tier cities, the program introduces baseball to eight to twelve year old students. In building the ever-important brand of MLB in China, Small says, the best players in these schools can play on intra-scholastic teams.

The students are decked out head-to-toe in attire fit for a Major League ballplayer, and learn about the team and the region the team is from. A middle-school student in Hangzhou would for example study the Rangers as well as Texan history.

Furthermore, the MLB television program, This Week In Baseball, was aired weekly in Mandarin on about 13 stations across the country, with a potential audience of 450 million people. The World Series and All-Star Game were broadcasted annually to an equally large audience. At the end of the 2011 Major League Baseball season, the show was replaced by a new program - the MLB Player Poll.

The MLB employs a final tactic called the Road Show, a portable complex of blow-up batting cages and miniature fields.

Since 2010, the Road Show has helped 2.5 million people across 20 Chinese cities feel the seams of a baseball in their hands and know what it is like to crack a pitch right

According to Small, the ultimate goal is to establish baseball as a popular commodity and not as a foreign concept. And yet, in a country of 1.35 billion people, where virtually no one knows what the game of baseball is, where do you start? You start from the bottom-up, bringing baseball education to China’s youth.

PLAY BALL! Small appears confident that the MLB will be able to gain further traction in China. But how exactly will the league go about doing this? According to Small, the ultimate goal is to establish baseball as a popular commodity and not as a foreign concept. And yet, in a country of 1.35 billion people, where virtually no one knows what the game of baseball is, where do you start? You start from the bottom-up, bringing baseball education to China’s youth.

Play Ball! is a grassroots initiative the MLB instituted in the fall of 2007. Incorpo32

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at the sweet spot of the bat.

Not to mention, baseball received a helpful boost from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. To demonstrate itself as a true superpower capable of Olympic grandeur, China built facilities worthy of Olympic competition such as the Wukesong Baseball Field. Equipped with an appropriate venue, the MLB hosted its first set of games in China in March 2008 - the MLB China Series. The two spring training games between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres in were extremely popular, and welcomed near-full capacity crowds.

WHERE ARE YOU TAKING MY SON? “So when are you going to get your Yao Ming?”

Everyone working to expand baseball in China has no doubt heard, and will continue to hear this line over and again.

Nothing sparked greater Chinese interest for an American sport than the arrival of Yao, the monstrous basketball player from Shanghai in 2002.

The executives of the MLB understand that if they could identify a baseball player of even half Yao’s caliber, all efforts to promoting baseball at the grassroots level would be no longer be necessary – the game would instantly skyrocket in popularity.

However, in a sport where 90 percent of minor league players--from the top colleges and high schools and baseball-crazed countries--are unable to crack the Major League Baseball, Small and his crew are aware that this task will not be easy.

This is where Rick Dell comes in. Dell, who was head coach of the College of New Jersey for almost three decades years, resigned from his post in 2007 and boarded a plane to China, where he currently serves as the Director of Game Development for the MLB in China. Dell’s job is to develop the talent base necessary for a Chinese player to break into the big leagues.

In 2009, Dell introduced the MLB Development Centers in China, starting with one in Changzhou and another in Wuxi.

The centers are effectively baseball boarding schools for talented student-athletes who could potentially be shaped into world class players, providing the best sporting resources and rigorous academics.

These centers, however, teach more than just baseball. The program makes three promises to anxious parents of potential student-athletes: by the end of their stay, their children will be able to speak English proficiently, have received a worldclass education, and become highly talented athletes.

“The Chinese value education and we make sure that we mainstream our student-athletes into the education of the host institution,” says Dell. “[Academics] is not the side bar. It’s the main course.”

Without promising high-level academics, there is no doubt that the MLB’s efforts would flop miserably in a land where parents are intent on making the absolute best decisions for their only children.

“These players are lining themselves up

LIFE & CULTURE

“These players are lining themselves up to go to universities in the United States, possibly Taiwan, and certainly China,” Dell adds. “If you went out there saying we’re just going to sell baseball, I don’t think we’d be very popular at all. to go to universities in the United States, possibly Taiwan, and certainly China,” Dell adds. “If you went out there saying we’re just going to sell baseball, I don’t think we’d be very popular at all.”

According to Dell, the process is similar to his days of college recruiting in New Jersey. “The first couple of years are difficult,” he says. “But once you begin building that history, it gets easier. People start looking for you.”

How long will it take to reach that point?

When will the program come to fruition in terms of producing MLB-level talents? The Development Center’s first class is now at the seventeen to eighteen year old range and Small fully expects to have players heading to America to play in the minor leagues within 12 to 18 months. Will they be hitting the home runs though?

“Are these guys going to play in the Major Leagues? It’s hard to say,” says Small.

“The failure rate in baseball, you know you fail seven out of ten times as a hitter and you go to the Hall of Fame. It’s just a sport built around failure.”

“If things go right, you can see some of those [minor leaguers] in the major leagues within four to five years,” Small prophesizes. “I guess our horizon would be somewhere between six and ten years to see someone in the Major Leagues.”

ALREADY PAYING DIVIDENDS The Chinese have already noticed an uptick in performance on an international level.

The World Baseball Classic, an MLB-created international baseball competition that is contested every four years, has grown in importance, especially after baseball’s current omission from the Olympics.

Despite China’s medal-driven ambition associated with the Olympics, the Chinese national team has shown marked improvement over the three World Baseball Classics to date. The inaugural WBC saw China lose all three games in pool play in lopsided fashion - in aggregate, China was outscored 40–6. In 2009, however, under current New York Mets’ manager Terry Collins, the Chinese stunned Chinese Taipei 4–1.

This victory over its neighbor sparked discussion on how baseball could provide another avenue for the Chinese to prove themselves. Current manager John McLaren, who held the reins at the Seattle Mariners and the Washington Nationals, and has coached some of the world’s biggest names from Alex Rodriguez to Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki, witnessed yet another triumph in the most recent WBC. McLaren says that few moments could rival his emotions during the 2013 competition. McLaren watched first-hand as his ragtag group, led by third baseman Ray Chang defeated Brazil 5-2 before falling to Japan 5-2.

This win, with a foreign team and customs, meant to the all-American baseball traditionalist, just as much as any of the games that he has coached in the past.

“It was quite a ride, I’ll tell you. You don’t forget memories,” says McLaren.

“My memories with the Toronto Blue Jays, the Seattle Mariners, Ichiro, Griffey, A-Rod, all them guys…this is right up there with all that in how much it meant to me.”

Baseball may never become the number one sport in China. But for those who play it, what baseball has already provided is the unity that can only be derived from being together on that sacred field of dreams.

It’s what makes an American manager from Texas, who has coached at the very highest levels of the game, proud to refer to himself and his Chinese players as “us.”

It’s what makes teammates cry together over a victory that did not earn them a trophy or even save them from elimination.

It’s what makes baseball China’s perfect game.

JAMES BADAS is a freshman at Yale University. Contact him at

james.badas@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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A Day at the Met The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Maxwell Hearn speaks with Scarlett Zuo

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oday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds one of the largest collection of Asian art in the Western world, with over 35,000 objects that date back to the third millennium BC. But just forty years ago, the Met barely had an Asian art presence. “In 1971, the only Chinese art on view at the Met was the ceramics around the great hall balcony, and a room of early Buddha sculptures and the big mural,” recalls Maxwell “Mike” Hearn ‘71, the Met’s Douglas Dillon Chairman of Asian Art. Things changed when Douglas Dillon, former Secretary of the Treasury, joined the Met as president in 1970. According to Hearn, Dillon initially had no real interest in Asian art, but “he recognized that the Met could not afford to ignore Asia, and [that Asian art] was the weakest department in the museum.” Dillon became personally involved with building up the Chinese galleries, hiring renowned art historian Wen Fong to recruit staff members and expanding the collection of Chinese paintings and calligraphy. As a result of his efforts, the Met now boasts ten curators specialized in various aspects of Asian art.

According to Hearn, the support of New York collectors was also key to the success of the Met’s Asian collections. “In 1981, we opened the Astor Court, and the Dillon galleries on either side. As soon as we did that, a man named John Crawford, who had the greatest collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy in private hand, said, ‘At last, a place big enough for my collection!’ That situation has been replicated over and over again.” This kind of response from the New York art collecting community, coupled with Dillon’s intense commitment to expanding the Chinese art collection has transformed the museum.

Hearn describes how Chinese art is meaningful to the US public, “I think Chinese art, like Chinese culture, offers a very different perspective on the world. To the degree that art belongs to all people, it is a way of enlarging who we are and how we understand the world.”

The son of a businessman, Hearn’s journey into Chinese art was serendipitous at best. Although he had taken an introduction to art history class at Yale, it was only during

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photos by SCARLETT ZUO his sophomore summer that he visited the Nelson Gallery in Kansas City - which holds one of the world’s greatest Chinese collections - and fell in love with Chinese art. “I got so moved that I ended up taking a seminar on Nan Song Shan Shui (“Southern Song Dynasty landscapes”). The teacher, Dick Barnhart, was very eloquent, and we talked a lot about Zen. He was a chain smoker, so as we looked at these misty landscapes, the room would fill up with cigarette smoke. It was very atmospheric and I was completely won over.”

After graduation, Hearn had no idea what to do with his art history degree, so he started working on a friend’s farm. Meanwhile, he wrote to Barnhart’s teacher, Wen Fong. “When I met [Wen Fong], after thirty minutes, he said, ‘Would you like to work at the Metropolitan Museum?’ To which I said no, because they had no Chinese art.”

Wen Fong insisted that Hearn try the job because “things are going to change.” After working at the Met for three years, Hearn studied Chinese language in Taiwan for two years and earned his PhD from Princeton.

He then returned to the Met in 1979, where he has remained ever since.

“The very gratifying thing is that the Met now can show Chinese art at the same high

level that people expect to see in American art, European art, or Greek and Roman art,” says Hearn. “I feel very proud of the fact that we have works of art that are worthy of China. I hope our visitors from China will feel very proud to see their culture represented here at a high level.”

Recently, Hearn curated “Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China,” the Met’s first big contemporary Chinese show.

“One of the motivations for doing the show was really to say Asian art has a future and a present. I wanted people who are really fighting the tradition, or transforming it in novel ways. But you recognize in their work that they are still Chinese artists, and that they know something about their own past and are using it.”

Hearn says that three sentences from Qiu Zhijie’s triptych selected from 30 Letters to Qiu Jiawa in the show best summarized his vision: “You need to go back in the past often.

But don’t try to leave the present.

The future they say is just imaginary.”

SCARLETT ZUO is a sophomore at Yale University. Contact her at

tong.zuo@yale.edu.

LIFE & CULTURE

Among the Faithful Anna Russo reports on Christianity in China

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here are more Chinese in church on a Sunday than there are in the whole of Europe,” says Professor Chloe Starr, an Assistant Professor of Asian Christianity and Theology at the Yale Divinity School. “Some places are beginning to see and to understand that Christianity isn’t a global North thing any more, its a global South thing, numerically, geographically.”

China’s spiritual life is not dominated by Le Shan’s laughing Buddha, Taoist Temples, or a zeal for the Communist party. The numbers reported by the Chinese government are often extremely low, but current estimates of the number of Chinese Christians--both Protestant and Catholic-- vary from the government provided statistic of 25 million to larger estimates of 60 million or more. What makes these figures even more striking is that every single one of those reported as Christian practices regularly. For Serene Silin Li, a freshman at Yale from Beijing, “being Christian is the way of living. It’s just our lifestyle. I never really thought about it.”

A facet of life so fundamental to Serene, and the one thousand other Christians that sit by her side listening to the Sunday ser-

mon in the Beijing International Christian Fellowship’s theater, is shrouded in mystery to Americans. How can we continue to believe that Christianity belongs to the “global north” when millions of Chinese like Serene and her family are making contributions to their own unique strain of the Christian faith?

The story of Chinese Christianity isn’t a recent one; it is one that the Western world has been ignoring for over a millennium.

The Nestorian Stele, an 8th century stone tablet serving as the first evidence of Christianity in China, proclaimed that Christians had reached Xi’an, the capital of the ruling Tang Dynasty, in 635. Here, they continued establishing churches and spreading their faith within Tang China for two hundred years until Emperor Wuzong declared in 845 that all religions disseminate and forfeit their assets to the state. Its modern incarnation began after British contact during the First Opium War in 1842. Although Christian influence in ancient China may have played a minor role when compared to the great indigenous influences of Buddhism, Taoism, and the divine right of the ruler, Christianity has been very much present in the groundwork and history of Chi-

nese society. It is not a foreign influence that has recently invaded a new land, but rather an indigenous force that is now experiencing its largest wave of revival.

The Christian revival is not simply a byproduct of China’s market revolution. Rather, it has been building steadily since China first came into major contact with the West in the mid-1800s. In 1850, Christianity was already a shaping influence on Chinese politics, with Hong Xiuquan--the self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus--leading the Taiping Rebellion and establishing a Christian state in the surrounding areas of Nanjing that was destroyed a decade later by a coalition of British and Chinese forces. For the next century, with the help of missionaries, indigenous Chinese Christianity slowly evolved until the shock of Maoist control and the Cultural Revolution.

Ironically, Mao’s reign and destruction of all religious institutions was arguably the greatest contributor to the recent Christian revival in China. Professor Xi Lian, a Professor of World Religion at the Duke Divinity School, speaks of a “crisis of belief,” explaining that the inspiring Communist ideology served as “almost a religious sort of promise of a new

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LIFE & CULTURE heaven, a new earth, a new kingdom, a new society of justice, equality, and liberation,” that was subsequently crushed during the violence of the Cultural Revolution and later, for intellectuals, during the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. Professor Lian explains that Christianity as a faith was positioned perfectly to fill the gaping void of trust and faith that the Cultural Revolution so devastatingly created, saying “its system of values, with its sense of the dignity and worth of individuals, and with its doctrine of love,” was attractive to a population who felt as if they needed to rekindle both a sense of individuality and community after an immense betrayal.

attractive set of beliefs. Chinese Protestantism is gaining a growing contingent of youth and college student believers, who find that Protestantism provides them with direction in their battles for human rights protections and democracy. Especially after 1989, when the government crushed progressives’ dreams of a more democratic China, the urban, educated elite have turned to Protestantism as both an outlet for frustration as well as a guiding tool for comprehensive societal change. This popularity among China’s younger generations bodes for a growing Christian influence in the years to come, compounding on the already entrenched church-going population, rural el-

The Christianity that has developed as a strain unique to China reflects these emotional needs at the close of the 20th century. Chinese Christianity is exceedingly Pentecostal and exuberant, reflecting the need for an outlet for religious zeal that was previously directed at the Communist party and Mao as an individual.

The Christianity that has developed as a strain unique to China reflects these emotional needs at the close of the 20th century. Chinese Christianity is exceedingly Pentecostal and exuberant, reflecting the need for an outlet for religious zeal that was previously directed at the Communist party and Mao as an individual. This exuberation manifests itself in Serene’s church through the use of rock-pop worship teams who perform hymns on stage in front of the whole community. For Serene, who has already individually released an album of Christian pop songs, participation in these worship team performances makes her feel most connected with her faith.

The Pentecostal nature of Chinese Christianity is reflected in the popularity of faith healing. The belief in faith healing captures the ways in which Christian faith has responded to a disappointing state: when the state cannot provide adequate health care, the Chinese people have turned to faith healing to maintain a sense of security. According to Professor Lian, Chinese strains of Christianity are also characteristically messianic, which may reflect a 20th century yearning for a miracle to elevate China back to its former glory.

In the past twenty years, China has transformed into a country hardly recognizable when compared to its early 20th century turmoil or its post-Mao crisis of belief. However, young people born after the death of Maoist zeal are still finding Christianity a very 36

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derly women.

But it would be an exaggeration to put so much emphasis on the scripture itself. For Serene, her church community of worldly, liberal young adults is one of the greatests draws for her in Church participation. “I just like being there and working with these people, she says. “They are all working in society right now. They are so humble and hardworking.”

Serene’s Christian community has supplied her with a group of intellectuals with international experience and a passionate love for Jesus that keeps her coming to Church even after a long day at her rigorous music conservatory in Shanghai. For Serene, Christianity has absolutely nothing to do with politics; it is simply a personal relationship between her, her faith, and her church community.

Yet, this private relationship may not extend to all Chinese Christians. China has had a long history of religion influencing politics: Chinese emperors held power by the “mandate of heaven,” whereby popular spiritual belief that the emperor is no longer in god’s favor would cause a dynastic change. To some extent, protestant youth are using the same spiritual basis to incite change in Chinese society. The parallel extends with regard to state control of religion as well. In ancient China, the emperor occupied a status between mortals and gods; he was deified to the point that he maintained complete religious control. China, whether as a remnant of its

ancient past or of a continued influence of centralized Communist power, still reserves the right to religious oversight.

The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the Three Self Patriotic Movement, both established in the early 1950s, are government regulatory agencies that control Catholic and Protestant churches, respectively. All churches must register with their respective governing body or risk being shut down by the local authorities. According to Professor Lian, beyond the name “state-controlled church,” there is not much difference between the practices of registered and unregistered churches. It is largely a precautionary device to prevent citizen assembly under the radar of the government. In light of Muslim Uighur rebellions in the Northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region and Buddhist self-immolation protests, the Chinese government is keen to the power of religious protests, and is reluctant to give up control over the growing Christian revolutionary contingent.

However, as reflected in many other aspects of Chinese society, the government is steadily losing control of its previously strict regulatory abilities. Unregulated “house churches” are emerging via bribery and relaxed local official government oversight.

The research of Professor Fenggang Yang, Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University indicates that there may be more young people attending house churches than state-controlled churches, creating an underground community of young, educated Chinese who assemble to discuss Christianity’s potential revolutionary ideas.

With two great world forces, Christianity and China, coming together, it is hard to neglect that great change is brewing. How this great body of unique Chinese Christianity will influence the structure of the Church worldwide we cannot know, nor can we predict the force of organized youth in using the teachings of Protestantism to drive China in a more democratic direction. Or, it may just be one more way in which the world is getting flatter. As a daughter of born-again Chinese pop-stars growing up educated in a conservatory in Beijing, it may be difficult for Serene to find commonalities on this side of the globe. But when she asks herself, “Why do we like to be practicing religion?” her answer, “Because it makes us happy,” is universal.

ANNA RUSSO is a freshman at Yale University. Contact her at

anna.russo@yale.edu.

LIFE & CULTURE

Playing from the Heart Michelle Peters writes on the Western classical music scene in China

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n recent years, there has been a revival in interest in classical music in China that is aiming to shake China’s traditional emphasis on technical superiority and instead emphasize emotion.

Chu Yi-bing, a world-renowned cellist who founded the China Cello Philharmonic, an allcello chamber ensemble, recalled that as early as eleven that his music, however technically sharp, was missing a deeper spirit. “I realized that although I could play the notes better than the German music students, they could tell the historical context and emotional narratives that formed the basis of these notes.”

Born into a musical family (both his parents were professors at the Central Conservatory of Music), Chu studied at the Paris Conservatory and went on to become the principal cellist of the Basel Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland.

According to Chen Xi, a violinist who attended the Yale School of Music, “whereas in the US, teachers care about your personality of interpretation, in China, we care about technique more.” These differences, according to Chu, can be attributed to deeper cultural distinctions. “Traditional Chinese culture advocates that we do not tell anybody what we are thinking in our hearts,” says Chu. “Our culture has told us not to share our feelings and emotions with strangers.”

The China Cello Philharmonic aims to challenge that tradition, and imbue its music with emotion that can be shared with the audience. “We are a group of people who are willing to express ourselves, who are willing to share the most valued and most sensitive feelings of our heart,” Chu says of the ensemble.

“That’s why we are making huge earthquakes everywhere we play. People cry and tell us that they are for the first time being moved for nothing in their life.”

Another aspect of Chinese culture that Chu must reconcile in his musical teaching is how Chinese tend to act in groups. He points to Chinese paintings as a parallel to music: “In, Chinese painting there is never a shadow in the picture; likewise, in Chinese traditional music, we don’t have harmonies…and for us Chinese, having two ideas is not okay. In the chamber music, I constantly need to tell my young Chinese students to not do the same thing as the person sitting besides them.” He argues that chamber music requires a different style of thinking, the ability to be an indepen-

photo by LEON LEE dent voice within a larger group.

Tianyu Zhang, a clarinetist at the Yale School of Music, believes that the one-child policy may also be affecting classical music in China. While research into the psychological effects of the policy has not shown consistent results, many believe that China is now dealing with a generation of entitled “little emperors” doted on by their parents. Only-children tend to be more selfish, and in the music world, become more focused on being a soloist in the orchestra. On the other hand, the one-child policy, pragmatically, could also prove beneficial to classical music’s advancement in China.

With only one child, parents may be better able to support the financial burdens associated with musical pursuits, such as instruments and expensive private lessons.

According to Xinyi Xu, a violist at the Yale

School of Music, the continued expansion of the Chinese economy could be key to supporting the development of classical music. In the United States, many music organizations are struggling because of the stuttering economy and lack of support for the arts. The Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy in July 2012 and the New York City Opera closed a year later due to lack of funding. The opposite is taking place in China. Xu points to her hometown of Hangzhou, where the city government, thanks to a thriving economy, has recently founded a philharmonic orchestra.

Chu and many like him believe that “Western classical music has a golden future in China.”

MICHELLE PETERS is a sophomore in Yale University. Contact her at

michelle.peters@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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SEEING WITH A BRUSH Lucy Wang

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paint to understand the world. We all have mental images for everyday things but is is only when I paint that I am forced to see all the intricacies of an object or person. Thus, I paint things and people I want to know more. My grandparents have become these mythical people in my life, whom I see only on those rare occasions when I go to China. By painting them in their home environment with their most frequent facial expressions, I wanted to create a closeness that I didn’t have with them in real life.

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IN THIS SECTION

Modern Family

p. 41

World View p. 42

Social Stability p. 43

Opinion INTERVIEW

Lawful Change NYU’s Jerome Cohen speaks to Forrest Lin

JEROME COHEN

P

rofessor Jerome Cohen ‘51 LAW ‘55 is one of the most renowned China hands of his generation. Currently serving as Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law, he is an expert on Chinese law and founded the US-Asia Law Institute at NYU. Over his storied career, he has mentored two of the most influential political leaders in Taiwan and in 2012 helped advise Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng after escaping house arrest. I sit down with Professor Cohen to discuss some of his career highlights, as well as the prospects for political and legal reform in China.

During his time at Harvard Law School in the 1970’s, Cohen taught Ma Ying-jeou, the current President of Taiwan, and former Vice President Annette Lu. I ask Cohen what it was like to watch his students’ political careers develop after Harvard. “It was a tense time in Taiwan. The government of the Republic of China in Taiwan realized at that time [late 1978] that the United States was about to recognize the People’s Republic of China on the mainland,” Cohen describes. “[The ROC government] was determined to stamp out any dissent or agitation.”

Cohen recalls a conversation with Lu already well known for her pro-independence outlook - before her graduation, where they discussed whether she should return to then authoritarian Taiwan. “She wanted to go back to Taiwan to take part in political developments there, knowing it was a crucial stage.” He describes joking with her about very real possibility of her being punished politically for her political

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activism. Lu would go back to Taiwan, where in 1979 she delivered a speech criticizing the government at an International Human Rights Day rally that led to her imprisonment by the government.

Cohen would travel to Taiwan five years later to push for Lu’s release from prison.

“Ma [then Deputy Secretary General of the Nationalist Party and President Chiang Ching-kuo’s translator] set up a meeting between Lu, himself, and I at the prison hospital. For an hour and a half we talked with Annette Lu. It was the most moving conversation I ever had with ex-students in over 50 years of teaching.” Ten days after this meeting, Cohen’s pressure and a campaign led Amnesty International against the Nationalist government led to Lu’s release. In 2000, she became the vice president of Taiwan.

After moving to New York University, Cohen founded the US-Asia Law Institute. The Institute is designed to facilitate the development of rule of law throughout Asia. “The Institute works with Chinese legal institutions and especially Chinese law schools in cooperating in the training of judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and scholars in China,” Cohen says.

Every year, the Institute invites roughly 50 scholars to come complete a Master of Laws degree. The Institute also plays a role in bringing legal scholars from Taiwan to the Mainland. Cohen asserts that law professors play a crucial legal role in China because they cooperate more closely with officials than legal scholars in America. As a result, the Institute’s education and training of Chinese legal academics is fundamental in transforming China’s legal atmosphere.

I ask Cohen which is more important for China’s future development: legal or political reform? Cohen asserts that the two concepts are not divorced. “In Chinese, when you talk about law, you talk about the political-legal system or zhengfaxitong ( ), in which politics comes before law. The legal system is an important aspect of the political system, and the question is how to arrange them.”

The extent to which the Party is willing to subject itself to the authority of an independent judicial system will determine how fast the rule of law takes hold.

Cohen believes that Taiwan’s political and legal reforms - many of which were led by his two former students - offer lessons for mainland China. “I’ve become a great admirer of Taiwan’s evolution from an authoritarian dictatorship to a genuine democratic political system.” As cross-strait interactions increase, Cohen argues that Taiwan’s democratic institutions - its courts, legislatures, and free media - present a template for political development that mainland China can follow.

“It’s often said by people in the mainland, Communist leaders, and others who represent dictatorships in Asia, that Confucian culture is distinctly different from Western rights-oriented political systems,” says Cohen. “Taiwan is a refutation or counterexample of that.”

FORREST LIN is a sophomore at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact him at

forrest.lin@yale.edu. photo provided by Yale Law School

OPINION

BOOK REVIEW

Modern Family Kyle Hutzler reviews The Lius of Shanghai

T

hey were the Chinese Rockefellers.

At their head stood Liu Hongsheng, head of a Shanghai industrial empire whose family lived through China’s tumultuous war years beginning with the Japanese invasion and ending with the Communist triumph in 1949. Thanks to a unique trove of thousands of letters, in the Lius of Shanghai, it is his role as a father of nine sons and three daughters (and one of each by two mistresses) that is the center of this captivating piece of Chinese history.

“As a ruler of our house, I wish to be, to use a political parlance, a democratic leader, instead of being an autocrat or a dictator,” the elder Liu wrote to one of his sons. Historians Cochran and Hsieh’s work stands uneasily as a history, often reading more as a sociological case study of Chinese family dynamics. Liu represented a departure from the strict patriarchy that had characterized Chinese fathers, one who accepted many of the changes – business and societal – that modernity was bringing. He spared no expense in seeing his sons educated abroad in Britain, Japan, and the United States to prepare them for the futures he envisioned for them in his businesses. He also financed his daughters’ study abroad, although he envisioned no future for them in his firm after their marriages.

The book quotes extensively from the original letters, with each chapter structured around a specific member of the family and their dilemmas. Many are personal – a mother’s refusal to accept her son’s choice for wife or the Lius’ own failing marriage – but others speak to the broader challenges of their times. One of the most compelling chapters takes place while three of the Liu sons are studying at Cambridge in 1932.

As the Japanese threat to China became increasingly acute, Liu asked his sons to become British citizens to better protect their enterprises against the Japanese. The request sparked much soul searching among his sons who had experienced the best and worst natures of British tolerance, and ulti-

mately chose for patriotic reasons to refuse their father’s request.

Throughout, the two historians drive home their point that for the Lius at least, family relations could not be understood as a traditional patriarchy and call into question whether more families were in fact like the Lius, albeit without the letters to prove it. Instead, a complex interplay of alliances and influences among siblings and their mother weigh on each decision. The result is engaging – and relatable – reading, but unnecessarily diminishes the significance of the Lius’ wealth and importance. The Liu sons would play roles in collaborating with the puppet Japanese government, with American spies responsible for aid after the war, and with both sides of the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists.

The elder Liu spent most of the war years in the Nationalist capital in Chongqing and considered moving all of his family to Taiwan, where two of his sons had already set out, after the inevitability of Chiang Kaishek’s defeat became apparent. It was not for nothing that the elder Lius’ favorite English saying was “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

And yet, Liu began to lose faith in the Nationalists and chose not to go to Taiwan.

Ensconced in British Hong Kong, Liu was convinced by his family and emissaries from the new Communist government to return to Shanghai. In the newly founded People’s Republic, Liu was initially feted as a good, “national capitalist” by Zhou Enlai (as opposed to a “comprador bureaucratic capitalist.”) Before long, despite his and several of his son’s participation in official positions, Liu’s family would join other Chinese capitalists as targets of the Five-Anti campaign.

In 1953, the last of his empire would be nationalized, leaving Liu with a pension worth 5% of his assets. The man who once wrote his sons that “the communists would never be our real friends” had been proven right.

By then, separated from his wife and living with a mistress, Liu senior would die

in 1956, removing the center of gravity from a once united family. Some ultimately left China and others remained to endure the hardships of the Cultural Revolution and the reemergence of an altogether different kind of Chinese capitalism. By this point the letters, which had so richly captured the emotional confusion and uncertainty through the Chinese Civil War, had stopped, leaving the full emotional extent of the family’s fall unwritten.

There are no heroes or villains in this book. Cochran and Hsieh play it straight.

And yet there is an unmistakable tragedy.

Convinced by his family to return to the United States after graduating from MIT and Harvard Business School despite his doubts of Communist rule, one son would be unable to escape China for the United States for twenty-seven years. Writing his father before returning home, Liu Nianxin warned: History has shown that dictatorships always end up in failure. Only the democratic endures… It only takes a handful of power or money mongers to massacre the great majority of the innocent, good people. We must be extremely careful about the future.

Beyond the Lius’ extraordinary position and times in which they lived, there is something all the more significant: a family that looked to the future with optimism and was prepared to be judged by it on the merit of their own industriousness. The Lius were the China that could have been, the China that no family of princelings can ever match.

The Lius of Shanghai, by Sherman Cochran and Andrew Hsieh. Harvard University Press. 2013. $40.

KYLE HUTZLER is a senior at Yale University and managing editor of the magazine. Contact him at

kyle.hutzler@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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OPINION INTERVIEW

World View Dhruv Aggarwal interviews Andrew Nathan ANDREW NATHAN

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ndrew Nathan, the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, is an expert on China’s foreign policy and human rights issues across East Asia. In early February, he delivered the 2014 Hume Lecture at Yale on “What Drives Chinese Foreign Policy: Vulnerability or Ambition.” I sat down with Professor Nathan to discuss his career as an preeminent authority on international human rights, his experience as a Sinophile, and his thoughts on academic freedom in North Korea.

When I ask how he first became interested in China, Nathan says he “sort of stumbled into [the study of China] stepby-step” when he was an undergraduate at Harvard. He was required by the undergraduate curriculum at Harvard to pick up a social science course. “East Asian History was a course that struck me as very exotic in the 1960s. I’m here at this big university and this is really weird – so I’ll do it.” Nathan enjoyed the course and ended up majoring in Modern Chinese History at Harvard. He picked up Mandarin while attending graduate school at Harvard, where he received a fellowship to travel to Hong Kong.

After finishing his training as a political science PhD, Nathan began teaching at Columbia in 1971. This was when he became involved in the newly founded and expanding American chapter of Amnesty International. Based in New York, Amnesty formed several “adoption” grassroots groups with political prisoners from both Communist and capitalist countries.

Nathan got involved in an adoption group when he was assigned a Chinese political prisoner. Later, he was on the advisory committee when the New York-based Human Rights Watch established its Asia division.

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topic for his Hume lecture. “There exists a widespread debate about the ‘China threat,’ and I think it is overheated,” says Nathan.

He knows about the complexities of China’s supposed expansionism, having coauthored a book, China’s Search for Security, based on his class on Chinese foreign policy at Columbia. “China’s security is under threat.

It has 19 difficult neighbors, none of which are natural allies,” he elaborates. He points to Tibet and Xinjiang, domestic instability, and food and oil problems as some of the biggest threats to Chinese security. “Most of Chinese foreign policy is to preserve the integrity of its national territory,” he concludes. Thus, Nathan does not believe China is challenging US supremacy as the global power. What China does want, however, is for the US to back off from its large deployments of military strength in East Asia. Nathan paints a picture of a threatened, rather than ambitious China, seeking to change the balance of power.

But if China is changing the balance of power, is it still feasible to be critical about China’s human rights violations? Nathan believes the West definitely still has room to be more critical of China’s human rights record. “Military force or economic sanctions are of course unrealistic,” Nathan argues. “However, the West – especially Europe – is weaker than it should be when it comes to using diplomatic methods.”

Nathan’s take on Chinese involvement with the two Koreas is fascinating and insightful. He calls Korea a “range of risky possibilities” for China. The current situation in Korea is threatening to China, according to him, as it raises tensions with Japan and the United States. However, the alternative to propping up North Korea is even worse, with China foreseeably having to deal with millions of refugees, nuclear contamination issues, and a unified, pro-American Korea in the long run. “A

unified Korea with a large military capacity and advanced nuclear technology will stress independence from China,” says Nathan. “Hence, China needs a divided Korea but a divided Korea is a problem in itself.” Nathan points to this dilemma as the reason why the Kim regime in North Korea is able to take advantage of China, and how it uses China’s support to keep itself in power.

Nathan’s personal experience researching in and travelling to China has been bittersweet. “I have been denied a visa to China since 2001 because of my book ‘Tiananmen Papers,’ and before that for five or six years because of my book on the private life of Chairman Mao,” he says. However, despite the challenges faced by journalists and fellow academics, Nathan believes academic freedom in China has increased over the years. He points to many of his PhD students who now live and teach in China.

“However, when you talk to Chinese academic, it is no secret that you know what you can and cannot say.”

Nathan stresses that communication is the primary method to maintain and foster US-China relations. “Someone at my talk at Yale asked me about the friction between the US and China and asked me what should be done. I think the answer is to keep communicating at every level,” Nathan says, pointing to bilateral contacts at the level of governments, business, students, tourists, and academics. “US-China relations requires communication and we must keep the dialogue going.”

DHRUV AGGARWAL is a sophomore at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact him at

dhruv.aggarwal@yale.edu.

photo provided by Columbia Universit y

OPINION OP-ED

Social Stability Wang Xingzui, the head of one of China’s largest NGOs, argues for a stronger Chinese social sector Wang Xingzui

G

eometry teaches us that at least three points are necessary to form a stable surface and this is true for society as well: it needs the three sectors of public, private, and social to all be strong for stability to take root. The role of the government, which collects taxes and provides public goods, is to develop the rules of interaction to safeguard equal competition and social justice, and act as an impartial judge.

The second sector is business and enterprise, which creates wealth and pays taxes. The third sector is the social sector, represented

by NGOs, NPOs, civil society organizations, and community organizations. Its role is to maintain social justice and promote social progress and stability by identifying and addressing social issues, and providing customized services to meet the individual needs of target groups.

These three sectors check and balance each other to produce a stable society, However, the social sector in China is still weak.

It is estimated that at the end of 2012, there were roughly half a million officially registered NGOs/NPOs that employed six million people, which accounted for less than 1% of total employment in China. Registered NGOs/NPOs raised 81.7 billion yuan in donations, 0.16% of China’s GDP. By comparison, in the United States non-profits employed 13 million people and contributed 5.5% to GDP, according to 2009 statistics by the Urban Institute.

In today’s China, more than half of its people live in cities while its GDP per capita has exceeded $6,000. International experience shows that this is a critical period for social transformation. On the one hand, economic development has contributed to huge accumulation of wealth and the formation of a large middle class, many of whom have the money, time, energy, and willingness to participate in philanthropy to help others

and care for the society. On the other hand, during such a period of rapid economic growth, enormous social problems such as social injustice and the marginalization of vulnerable groups have emerged. In order to tackle these issues, I believe China needs to implement the following policy changes.

The Chinese government must nurture the growth of private foundations. It can do so by expanding government procurement of social sector services to support grassroots NGOs and international initiatives. China can also develop its own service organizations and establish NGO/NPO alliances. At the same time, it must loosen the restrictions on the registration of public foundations and encourage the development of new innovative groups, such as the One Foundation and the Free Lunch Campaign led by Deng Fei. China must also reform its system of GONGOs (government-operated NGOs) and decrease their number.

In addition, China’s government has to withdraw from its current fundraising role and return to its position as judge and legislator. It must expand and amend legislations regarding the social sector, and it must encourage self-governance and self-discipline within it. One way in which this can be done is by improving social accountability.

All these, if properly managed, will contribute to the development of NGOs/NPOs and the social sector.

China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping once said that stability is the overriding priority for China. China’s experience over the past three decades shows how important social stability is to the economic development and well-being of the Chinese people.

WANG XINGZUI is a 2013 Yale World Fellow. He is the Vice President of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, one of the oldest and largest NGOs in China.

photo provided by Yale World Fellows

chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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A

L ANDMARK SCHOL ARS H IP for the

DEFINING CHALLENGES OF OUR TIME Inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholars will give future leaders firsthand exposure to China and prepare them to address the most pressing issues of the 21st century and beyond.

The prestigious program supports 200 students annually to study for a one-year Master’s degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and to undertake an unrivaled cultural immersion and exploration.

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SCHWARZMANSCHOL ARS.ORG

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Taste of China

Others serve food, we serve a taste of China

954 Chapel St. New Haven, CT 06510 (203) 745-5872 illustration by CHRISTINA ZHANG

US-CHINA

dial gue CATALYZE POLICY INNOVATION

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YALE-CHINA ASSOCIATION

Education

Health

Education was the original mission of the Yale-China Association at its founding in 1901, and that tradition continues to this day through a variety of programs.

The most well-known of these programs is the YaleChina Teaching Fellowship, through which hundreds of Yale graduates since 1909 have taken on two-year teaching appointments in China. Over the decades, we have continually updated our programs to adapt to changing conditions in China and in the United States, but at its core our work has always remained true to the values of service, learning, and deep understanding.

Yale-China has been engaged with health education in China since the early years of the 20th century when we founded medical institutions in Hunan province that remain major centers of medical education and care to this day. Current initiatives include work in nursing education, fellowships for Chinese women in the health professions, community outreach, medical student exchange, residency training, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, research ethics, and scholarship for medical students at Xiangya School of Medicine.

Arts While Yale-China’s historical roots lie in health and education programs, Yale-China has provided countless opportunities for communities in China to learn about Western arts as well as opportunities for communities in the United States to explore Chinese arts. In keeping true to its mission, Yale-China is currently researching the needs of artists with an emphasis on arts education and cross-cultural exchange. With the support of arts patrons and new donors, Yale-China is able to implement arts initiatives that feature cross-cultural collaboration among artists.

ABOUT THE YALE-CHINA ASSOCIATION Founded in 1901, the Yale-China Association is a private, nonprofit organization with more than a century of experience building relations at the grassroots level between the U.S. and China.

MISSION

The Yale-China Association (雅礼协会) inspires people to learn and serve together. Founded in 1901 by graduates of Yale University, we foster long-term relationships that improve education, health, and cultural understanding in China and the United States.

VISION

We envision a U.S.-China relationship of mutual understanding and profound respect nurtured by collaboration among individuals and institutions.

VALUES

Mutual Respect: We value direct personal relationships and two-way exchanges characterized by mutual benefit, independence, trust, and understanding.

Personal Growth and Responsibility: We encourage participants and program alumni to become leading contributors to a more peaceful, just and sustainable world.

Program Focus: Relevance, Excellence, Impact, Innovation: We focus our work on regions and sectors where there is great need. We seek to implement high-quality programming with long-term impact and significant cross-cultural interchange.

www.yalechina.org

FEATURES

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