China Hands Fall 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

THE OCCUPIERS Out of the Classroom and Into the Streets

25 UNDER 25: RISING CHINA HANDS TO WATCH feature, 24

THE ART OF STORYTELLING life & culture, 37

INTERVIEWS WITH GARY LOCKE AND JERRY YANG opinion, 40 VOL. 3 ISSUE I | FALL 2014

What’s Online chinahandsmagazine.com

Economics & Finance DON’T SAY YOU’RE A CHINESE COMPANY: HOW LENOVO GREW AS A GLOBAL BRAND Christian Rhally reports on Lenovo’s business development strategy and how the company plans to establish itself in various international markets. Although it is a Chinese company, Lenovo has attempted to shed this image in its global marketing campaign, a move it believes will expedite its expansion. Lenovo’s strategy of rebranding by acquiring American companies is a trend that is increasingly seen in US-China M&A deals.

Opinion SAVOR THE “UNSAVORY” Yifu Dong reviews Unsavory Elements, a book that tells unusual stories of foreigners in China. Through reading these unique experiences, readers catch a glimpse of foreigners’ lives in China as well as Chinese attitudes towards them.

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

RETHINKING CHINA’S “EXPLOITATION” OF AFRICA James Williams analyzes Sino-African relations and China’s increased economic activity in Africa, arguing that much of the criticism of China’s “exploitation” is unfounded. Through interviews, Williams concludes that, despite some shortfalls, China’s role and involvement in Africa is fundamentally a positive one.

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VOLUME 3 ISSUE I | Fall 2014

WHAT’S INSIDE

Table of Contents 5

Words from our Editors

Features YUPEI GUO AND YUMI KOGA

6

War, History and Education

Politics & Diplomacy NATHAN WILLIAMS

10

Watching from a Distance

TIANCHENG ZHENG

11

Trouble on the Road

EMILY FENG

14

The Occupiers: Out of the Classroom and Into the Streets

Economics & Finance JEAN YOUNG KOO

20

Dams and Dollars

CLAREY ZHU

21 23

Growth Potential

DHRUV AGGARWAL

Capitalizing on Progress

Features DAN FENG

24

25 Under 25

33

The Silent Dream

Life & Culture MIGUEL PAREDES

36

A Question of Character

YVONNE YAN

37 39

The Art of Storytelling

ANDREA SMITH

Thinking Small

Opinion FORREST LIN SCARLETT ZUO SCHUYLER SCHOUTEN YIFU DONG

40 41 42 43

Serving the Bilateral Relationship: Interview with Gary Locke Out of Character: Interview with Jerry Yang The Value of History Learning to Remember: Review of Louisa Lim’s The People’s Republic of Amenisa: Tiananmen Revisited

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 Schwarzman Scholars Program, YaleChina Association, and Asia Society for their support of this publication.

EXCLUSIVELY SPONSORED BY

chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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China Hands EDITOR IN CHIEF David Yin, Yale ’15 MANAGING EDITOR Teddy Miller, Yale ’16 DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORS Yi-Ling Liu, Yale ’17 Forrest Lin, Yale ’16 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Dhruv Aggarwal, Yale ’16 Yifu Dong, Yale ’17 Joe Giammittorio, Yale ’16 Jean Young Koo, Yale ’17 Erwin Li, Yale ’16 EDITORS AT LARGE Helen Gao, Yale ’11 Daniel Sisgoreo, Yale ’11 Dilong Sun, Yale ’15 HARVARD BUREAU CHIEF Alex Foote, Harvard ’15 PRINCETON BUREAU CHIEF Melissa Yin, Princeton ’16 ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Jennifer Lu, Yale ’16 ILLUSTRATORS Zishi Li, Yale ’18 Sherril Wang, Yale ’17 Christina Zhang, Yale ’17

PUBLISHER Kenan Jia, Yale ’16 OUTREACH DIRECTOR Christian Rhally, Yale ’16 Phil Wilkinson, Yale ’16 Zara Zhang, Harvard ’17 WEBSITE DIRECTOR Alex Fu, Stanford ’17 MARKETING DIRECTOR Zona Zhang, Yale ’18 EVENT DIRECTORS Qi Xu, Yale ’18 Chuhan Zhang, Yale ’18 FINANCE & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Diana Wang, Yale ’18 BUSINESS MANAGER Daniel Yuan, Yale ’17 CHINA HANDS JOURNAL Anna Lu, Yale ’17 Zheyan Ni, Wesleyan ’15

BOARD OF ADVISORS Stephen Roach, Deborah Davis, Jessica Chen Weiss, Nancy Yao Maasbach, David Wertime cover illustration by SHERRIL WANG 4

VOLUME 2 ISSUE II | Spring 2014

STAFF

Dear readers, As China Hands concludes its second year in print, we continue to reflect on our mission and seek to improve our quality. As editors, we never cease to be amazed by the standards of student submissions we receive, which affirm our belief that some of the most important insights on China are being formed by our own generation and deserve a platform. By focusing on original reportage, we strive to provide a unique perspective on important issues facing China and the future of US-China relations.

In the past few months, we have deepened existing relationships and formed new partnerships with organizations and institutions. We are excited to announce our sponsorship from Schwarzman Scholars, which shares our vision for promoting international exchange, for our annual 25 Under 25 feature. Another partnership with Asia Society has helped us learn from its educational initiatives and extend our distribution to 100 American high schools in 28 states. David Wertime, co-founder and co-editor of Tea Leaf Nation, has also given us invaluable advice as the newest member of our distinguished Board of Advisors.

Under the leadership of Alexandra Foote and Melissa Yin, respectively, our Harvard and Princeton bureaus have grown and contributed to the diversity of perspectives presented in this magazine. This issue also features writers from Duke, Notre Dame, and even a high school junior!

In addition to our presence on Facebook and Huffington Post, we have started publishing on WeChat and Flipboard China to broaden our reach to Chinese readers.

In this issue, we are proud to showcase a number of remarkable features that give direct voice to the student perspective. In particular, we are excited to announce the second annual 25 Under 25 highlighting a group of rising stars in the field, who are nominated by their peers and selected by a panel of esteemed judges. We are also proud to feature a pair of reflective pieces on how students are taught the Sino-Japanese War in both China and Japan, respectively, as well as one student’s journey to discover a deeper meaning behind the phrase “the Chinese Dream.”

In our Politics & Diplomacy section and cover story, we discuss the significance of the student demonstrations in Hong Kong. In the Economics & Finance section, we analyze Chinese involvement in the Israeli high tech industry and the Great Inga Dam project in Central Africa, both potential avenues for meaningful US-China cooperation.

Our Life & Culture section exhibits two new perspectives on age-old Chinese traditions: one on how the digital age has had an impact on Chinese characters, and the other regarding a student’s experiences with pingshu, the Chinese art of storytelling. Finally, in the Opinion section, we are proud to share interviews with former US Ambassador to China Gary Locke, as well as Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! and avid calligraphy collector. 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.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

WORDS FROM THE EDITORS

Yours truly,

David Yin Teddy Miller EDITORS OF CHINA HANDS chinahandsmagazine.com | CHINA HANDS

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War, History and Yupei Guo and Yumi Koga reflect on their views regarding the history of the Sino-Japanese War in China and Japan, respectively Never Forget National Disgrace Yupei Guo

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arly on the morning of September 18, 2011, I was among over a thousand weary high school students shuffling to line up on the modern, suspended track at Beijing No. 8 High School for the weekly flag ceremony. The chill had just begun to settle in, only to disperse soon after sunrise.

Every student had an inkling as to what the ceremony would be about. It was the 80th anniversary of the Mukden Incident, commonly known in China as the “September 18 Incident.” On September 18, 1931, the Japanese army initiated its invasion of the northeastern provinces of China. Japan soon occupied the area known as Manchuria, and, six years later, launched all-out war.

A student took the podium and gave the widely anticipated speech. She passionately urged her fellow students to “stare at history in the eye”, “protect China’s dignity,” be grateful for the sacrifices made for peace and, finally, “never forget national disgrace (wu wang guo chi)” – a Chinese idiom that reminds people of their troubled past like a tolling bell.

The crowd of high school students burst into thunderous applause, as some of the elderly teachers were seen wiping their eyes and gently trembling. The memory of national disgrace hangs onto each generation of young Chinese like a fresh wound, affirmation of that excruciating period of war and suffering.

Even though such a scene cannot be more commonplace in China today, such a gathering on the 50th anniversary of the September 18 Incident would have been unimaginable. In fact, it was only after the student riots in the late 1980’s that the Communist Party adopted a different stance on its history education. As Louisa Lim, author of People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, points out in her book, after 1989, historical events were no longer characterized by class struggle, communist values or revolutionary tendencies; they began to be painted in a more patriotic, emotional and sympathetic light. China was no longer the most powerful and potent dragon of the East that could brush off intruders with a sweep of its tail; it was vulnerable and feeble, brutally torn apart by foreign forces. The only remedy was courage, assiduity, intelli-

Continued on page 8 6

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illustration by Christina Zhang

Education w

Facing the Facts…and Each Other Yumi Koga

T

his March I visited China for the first time on a service trip. I taught first year middle school students for four days at a school in Fujian Province with fellow classmates from Yale. The students there were excited to talk to American college students, but the fact that I am Japanese attracted more attention.

A thirteen-year-old boy named Jian Yingpeng came up to me and showed me a couple of Japanese phrases he learned from comic books. Every time he talked to me in Japanese, a crowd would gather around us while some boys pushed him and taunted him in a dialect that I could not decipher. Clearly, it was brave of him to show interest in Japan because, as others had told me, many Chinese children considered Japan as an enemy.

Before my departure, Yingpeng presented me with his drawing, entitled “Peace Dove,” featuring a white pigeon and a flag consisting of one half of a Chinese flag and one half of a Japanese flag. He also gave me a flute which, according to his friends, was his favorite toy. As he handed me the drawing in front of the class, he said nervously but earnestly, “China does want to become friends with Japan again, but we still want to express anger.”

Yingpeng’s words struck me deeply. First, I was surprised that he outspokenly expressed that China and Japan should be friends, because that is not how many Chinese and Japanese people feel about the relationship. In the 10th Japan-China Public Opinion Poll 2014 Survey, conducted by Japan’s Genron NPO and China Daily, 86.8% of Chinese respondents have an unfavorable general impression of Japan, lower than the 92.8% from 2013, but significantly higher than any other previous year. In comparison, 93.0% of Japanese respondents have an unfavorable opinion of China, the highest level in recent years.

Despite Jingpeng’s brave gesture of goodwill, I was sad at his readiness to express anger. However, I believe that instead of directly confronting me, he simply wanted me, as well as other Japanese people, to think about how to react to the anger of the Chinese people.

That anger towards Japan, even 69 years since the end of World War II, clearly still persists in China. Similarly, despite the fact that most Japanese were born after the war, the history of the war also still exerts a large impact on the mentality of the Japanese people. In my opinion, the collective feeling which the Japanese youth share about the war is a sense of frustration: we cannot really relate to its history, but we still have to face the anti-Japanese atmosphere in the neighboring countries Japan invaded more than 70 years ago.

Continued on page 9 chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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Features features Continued from page 6 gence and patriotism, just like it was for the people who banded together to fend off the invaders.

Lim argues that this is essentially an emotional tactic, a conscious move to align the patriotic sentiments and pent-up indignation of the Chinese people with the ideology of the Communist Party. While China’s loss was

guerilla missions and the latter in only one major battle. The arbitrary power of the CCP over such commemorations suggests a degree of politicization of the ultimate sacrifice – while all martyrs deserve equal reverence, the careful pruning of the list of “officially recognized” martyrs certainly testifies to a restatement of political control .

This manipulation of public sentiments has its roots in education. According to Zhao

“Whether the critics like it or not, the younger generation will eventually determine the country’s relationship with Japan according to their own principles, values and standards.” heavy, the Party elevates it to a new level of national sentiment by organizing and designating days of “disgrace” for events such as the “September 18 Incident,” the “July 7 Incident” (known in the west as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident) and December 13, the date on which the Japanese started the six-week long Nanjing Massacre. This more sympathetic, emotional approach forms the basis of much of the collective nationalist sentiment that renders valid patriotic protests and marches. This approach also inculcates a general despise for former transgressors like Japan and even the United States, a country that has arguably done more good than harm to China in recent history. Occasions that serve as reminders of national disgrace are opportunities to direct public attention away from internal social and political challenges and toward the expression of deepseated common anger toward an out-group.

This disgrace of the past also illustrates the collective vulnerability of the Chinese people and the necessity of turning to the CCP for leadership and guidance.

This year witnesses the CCP’s newest introduction of “Martyr’s Day” to its campaign on National Disgrace. While some believe that it is merely the Chinese counterpart to the Remembrance Days of other countries, such as those of some South American and Commonwealth states, others perceive it as the CCP reaffirming its monopoly on deciding who is a martyr.

Despite a significant increase in mentions of the Doolittle Raiders and Nationalist heroes, the recognition of martyrs remains heavily slanted towards the Communist side.

Particularly, it greatly extols the New Fourth Armies and the Communists’ Eighth Route, the former having participated in various 8

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Lijian, a citywide renowned history teacher at the prestigious Beijing No. 4 High School, the reinterpretation of a collective national trauma like the Sino-Japanese War is just as indicative and evocative as the tragedy itself.

The explanation of historical events by the regime and the response generated by the people both shed great light on the shifting mindset of the Chinese people and the regime.

Textbooks and exams play a major role in shaping the students’ knowledge of the war. Battles and military leaders are featured in the curriculum and are occasionally the sources of exam questions and prompts. In the past decade, details of the Sino-Japanese War have been covered on the National College Entrance Examination, and students take care in memorizing them all. However, under the name of historical remembrance the students actually “remember” very few concrete, objective historical facts, but instead keep in mind an array of biased details.

For instance, even after a recent textbook reform, the history textbooks still give little credit to Nationalist efforts in the Sino-Japanese War, and thus few students ever learn about their contributions.

From a recent survey involving 133 firstyear high school (10th grade) students in Beijing No.4 High School, Zhao found that although most students had a decent grasp of the defining characteristics of and reasons for the Sino-Japanese War, less than five students correctly named major battles of the War fought by the Nationalist army, which were not introduced in middle school textbooks, and only 22 students could give close estimates of the number of casualties on the Chinese side. In addition, and perhaps rather embarrassingly, students could only name

General Zhang Zizhong among the heroic band of more than 200 other Nationalist military leaders and officers who gave their lives in the fight against the Japanese.

Although the majority of the Chinese population still harbors hatred for Japan, both due to the heinous crimes committed during the war and the unapologetic attitude some Japanese people maintained afterwards, many young people in China now have a far more favorable opinion of Japan. Growing up alongside heavy-handed, propagandistic films and textbooks, which most 10th grade students in Zhao’s survey named as their major source of information about the history of the war, many Chinese youth also have access to newer elements of Japanese pop culture, most notably anime, manga and pop music.

Each year, the scores of anime conventions held in major Chinese cities inevitably suffer a barrage of denunciation for “amnesia of disgrace” or even “treason”. Yet whether the critics like it or not, the younger generation will eventually determine the country’s relationship with Japan according to their own principles, values and standards.

Zhao, however, remains worried about the nation’s sophisticated heritage in their hands. In his survey, the majority of students forgot to mention the National Anthem when asked to list the names of the songs composed for the Sino-Japanese War. The Chinese National Anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” was written just before the SinoJapanese War to boost the morale of the beleaguered Chinese people. On National Disgrace Day, students all over China sing this song in remembrance of the martyrs: Brave the enemy’s fire. March on! March on! March on!

Hopefully, such occasions will serve as more than a reinforcement of meticulous details of national shame and excessive overflow of self-victimizing sentiments. National Days of Disgrace should prompt more serious, objective, profound reflection – why and how did such atrocities happen, and how do we avoid them in the future?

Recent additions of Nationalist and international efforts against fascism into the textbooks are laudable, but far from enough; a better history curriculum needs to completely set aside politics and provide an objective and comprehensive account of the war. After all, the youth of China deserve to know the whole truth about their country’s past.

Only with this knowledge can they shape a brighter future.

Yupei Guo is a sophomore at Yale University.

Contact her at yupei.guo@yale.edu.

Features features Continued from page 7 I almost feel that the burden of the history of war is now something that Japanese people are born with. In general, the Japanese people interpret and express this frustration differently depending on the their generation, political beliefs and, most importantly, education about the war.

Japanese history education, particularly on the topic of World War II, is approaching a turning point. The Liberal Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has long criticized the “self-torturing view of history (jigyaku shikan)” in the current school teaching of the war. This view arose from the ideological control exerted by the Allied occupation of Japan, commonly known in Japan as the General Headquarters (GHQ). Since the GHQ, headed by the American general Douglas MacArthur, left-wingers have dominated the ranks of Japanese scholars and teachers.

At its core, this self-torturing view of history faults the Japanese war machine for committing atrocious crimes against the peoples of neighboring countries during World War II. The best-known example is perhaps the Nanjing Massacre, in which the Japanese army murdered an estimated 300,000 innocent Chinese civilians. Currently, the history textbooks in Japan use the statistics of death figures from Chinese sources, largely ignoring the estimates of Japanese scholars.

The Japanese government contends that this is not a fair approach to history, though such claims are often met with strong reactions from China and South Korea. Moreover, the right-leaning Abe administration intends to create laws mandating new guidelines and official approval systems on history textbooks. These measures, potentially breaking away from the self-torturing view of history, clearly aim to restore patriotic values among children. The Japanese government also expressed its intention to review and possibly amend the Neighboring Countries Clause, which is the current official guideline reminding the authors of history textbooks to take into account the sentiments of neighboring countries, such as China and South Korea.

Even though the government used the word “review,” Chinese and South Korean media have hinted that Abe is in fact trying to eliminate the Neighboring Countries Clause altogether. Despite protests abroad, Abe’s view on history education is slowly gaining ground in Japan, as reflected by the rightward trend in Japanese public opinion in recent years.

In my view, however, the current Japa-

nese education on pre-war and World War II history should be “self-torturing” in order to remind us about what Japan did to other countries. It is reasonable for the GHQ to intentionally emphasize Japan’s guilt because the strict control of information and overwhelming propaganda of the Japanese wartime government had a long-lasting impact on Japanese misperceptions of the war.

Hando Kazutoshi, a well-known journalist, writes in his book Showa Postwar History: 19451989 (Showashi: Sengo Hen) that it was only when the GHQ broadcasted a radio program called “The Truth Is As Follows” after the war that he and his countrymen learned about the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. I also do not think that changing the approach to writing history textbooks will make me feel more proud of the Japanese identity, for the act of loving one’s own country should be natural. I do not believe that the Japanese government should ever try to make me proud of being Japanese.

Some Japanese youth, particularly those who are actively debating politics on popular Japanese websites like Nichannel, seem to support Abe’s stance on getting rid of the self-torturing view of history. Opinions such as “Now is the time to restore our pride as Japanese!” can be seen everywhere from posts on Facebook to comments on YouTube. Since the Liberal Democratic Party won the election and became the majority in government in 2012, the so-called netouyo, or “right-wingers on the Internet” whose attitude is not only conservative but also anti-China, has been gaining influence. Even though the 10th Japan-China Public Opinion Poll 2014 Survey shows that only 9.6% of respondents believe that opinions expressed on the internet accurately reflect public opinion towards Japan-China relations, a substantial portion of those active in online discussions are young people who will influence public opinion in the future, so it would be negligent to ignore the trend.

Exacerbating the situation is the fact that the majority of young people in the two countries are receiving diverging educations about the history of the war. Such disagreement over education policy is bound to inflict more negative impressions between Japanese and Chinese people. Among the Japanese respondents to the 10th Japan-China Public Opinion Poll this year, 41.1% believe that the Chinese media’s anti-Japan coverage is a source of negative opinion, and 42.9% agree that China’s anti-Japanese education is a barrier to the development of bilateral relations.

It is possible that unfriendly attitudes on

both sides, as well as the Chinese government’s control of information, are leading some Japanese to think that it is not worth heeding China’s stance on history education.

Moreover, the shift in Japanese education of war history, if continually pursued, will only push China to increase its distrust of Japan and intensify its own anti-Japanese education.

This vicious spiral of antagonism of education and hostile impressions will be greatly amplified if the Abe administration decides to eliminate the Neighboring Countries Clause mentioned earlier.

If the current public education in Japan and China only produces hostility and distrust, the Japanese and Chinese people will have to find other ways to understand each other, and the lack of communication between the Japanese and Chinese people is a serious challenge. In the aforementioned survey, only 21.1 % of Japanese respondents have Chinese friends, and 14.3 % have been to China, while only 3.1% of Chinese respondents have Japanese friends and 6.4% have been to Japan. Thus, most of the impressions people have do not come from direct experience but rather from the media and school textbooks, both manipulated by government authorities. As tension mounts between Japan and China over political affairs, people on both sides become even more susceptible to such willful manipulation of public opinion.

Nonetheless, hope abounds. After four days at Yingpeng’s school, I visited the city of Xiamen in Fujian Province. I was excited to talk with people at the local market because it was a great chance to practice my Chinese. Most people didn’t realize that I was not Chinese until they heard me speak, but quite often I couldn’t help feeling nervous about revealing that I was Japanese. I was worried that they would change their attitudes toward me upon knowing my nationality.

However, none of the people I talked to during my visit showed any discomfort or hostility; rather, they were still welcoming, and some of them even spoke slowly so that I could understand better. I was glad to realize that I worried too much. Yes, many people to whom I talked probably disliked Japan as a nation, but direct communication can only diffuse the tension. People in Japan and China should see more of each other and open themselves up to conversations. Like Yingpeng, we should say, face-to-face, that we want to be friends, no matter what our teachers, our media, or our governments tell us.

Yumi Koga is a sophomore at Yale University. Contact her at yumi.koga@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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In this Section

Trouble on the road

p. 11

The Occupiers: Out of the Classroom and Into the Streets p. 14

Politics & Diplomacy Watching from a Distance Nathan Williams explores how China will confront the Islamic State

illustration by Christina Zhang

O

n July 4th, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State, announced his intention to “liberate” the Muslims of Western China.

The ISIS leader even went so far as to include the Chinese province of Xinjiang in a map of planned Islamic State conquests, leading many to wonder whether or not China will become involved with the growing crisis in Iraq.

Unlike the majority of western powers, China has successfully managed to avoid becoming militarily entangled with conflicts in the Middle East, prioritizing economic engagement over political affairs. According to Jon Alterman’s Gulf Analysis Paper for the Center for Strategic and International relations, China – despite its rivalry with the United States – has allowed the United States to continue to act as the primary 10

Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

peacekeeping force in the region. Not only this, but with American boots on the ground in Iraq for the majority of the last decade, China has also been able to expand its investments in the Iraqi oil industry with little risk to Chinese citizens.

However, due to the rising unpopularity of United States involvement in the Middle East amongst American citizens, the United States government has become cautious when discussing its presence in the region, particularly Iraq. As a result, China may now be forced to use its own military to defend its economic interests from the Islamic State.

Most urgently, the Islamic State endangers Chinese economic interests in the Middle East. China has sent over 10,000 laborers to work in Iraqi oil fields over the past few years. Chinese oil companies – now the

largest source of foreign investment for the Iraqi oil industry – have invested billions of dollars in developing the Kurdish and Rumaila oilfields. So far, though, the Islamic State has yet to break Kurdish resistance in northern Iraq or invade its southeastern region. However, given the lack of an organized Iraqi military ground counterattack, the Islamic State remains free to expand into new territories, which could come to cost the Chinese billions of dollars.

The even more urgent concern for Beijing, beyond securing Iraqi oil intersts, is that the Islamic State could soon present a major threat to the Chinese homeland as well. The roots of this danger are found in Xinjiang Province itself, where civil unrest has been on the rise.

Over the last few decades, the relationship in Xinjiang between the Uighur people

politics & diplomacy — a Turkic ethnic group — and the Chinese authorities has steadily worsened following an increase in discriminatory initiatives launched against the Uighur community.

Government actions in this category range from a ban on Islamic headwear and clothing on public buses to the planned “resettlement” of the Uighur people. The Chinese government has even limited the number of Uighurs allowed to embark on the Hajj pilgrimage and prohibited fasting during Ramadan for government employees.

Many within the Uighur community have begun to organize public demonstrations and even take violent action against the Chinese government in response. Towards the end of July, almost one hundred people were killed in a series of clashes between Chinese government forces and unidentified Uighur groups in Kashgar, a large city in Western Xinjiang. Reacting to banners calling for jihad against the government — a sign of a dramatic increase in Islamist activity — Chinese forces were deployed to Kashgar, where they continue to maintain “rule of law”.

Given the widespread resentment among Uighur towards the Chinese government, as well as recent civil unrest, the Xinjiang region appears uniquely vulnerable Islamic State advances. With both Iran and Paki-

stan between China and the Islamic State, though, the possibility of a direct invasion on Chinese soil remains slim.

The geographical separation does not mean China is completely safe; the Islamic State does not have to attack the area in order to bring chaos and conflict to Western China. According to Wu Sike, China’s Special Envoy to Middle East, over a hundred Uighur have enlisted with the Islamic State.

Should these insurgents return to Xinjiang with weapons and combat experience, the possibility of organized terrorist attacks made against China will increase dramatically.

The economic and security problems that arise with an Islamic State victory in the Middle East are not the only pressures on the Chinese government to involve itself militarily. Despite the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), its forces remain largely untested. The last confrontation the PLA had with an organized military force was during the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, where Chinese forces were embarrassingly pushed back by the smaller yet more experienced Vietnamese military.

In launching an effective campaign against the Islamic State, the PLA could send a message, both to its people and to western military forces.

As of now, China – although publicly stating its support for U.S. military action against the Islamic State – has yet to become directly involved militarily itself. According to Harvard Professor and lecturer of Chinese politics, Nara Dillon, China will try its best to continue maintaining neutrality in the region. If the last decade has taught the international community anything, it’s that foreign intervention in the Middle East is costly both financially and politically. Until the threat from the Islamic State becomes a direct domestic threat, the Chinese government will try its best to stay out of the Iraqi crisis.

Nevertheless, as the Islamic State continues to advance and the future of the new Iraqi government remains unclear, increased western intervention may arrive too late to undo the damage done in the region. Coupled with rising domestic tensions in Xinjiang province, the uncertain outcome of the predicament presented by the Islamic State may force China to step out of the shadows of neutrality and into the center of Middle Eastern sectarian conflicts.

Nathan at

Harvard

Williams University.

is a freshman Contact him at

nathanlukewilliams@college.harvard.edu.

Trouble on the road Tiancheng Zheng discusses the obstacles Chinese citizens face while applying for visas and traveling abroad

W

hen Zhang Qian returned to the imperial court of the Han Dynasty in the 2nd century BCE, he became the first Chinese diplomat to venture into the “Western Regions,” today’s Central Asia. While at court, he entertained his audience with tales of grandeur, adventures, and smooth travels.

Today, however, the passport of a well-traveled Chinese citizen – decorated with its endless colorful visa stickers and customs stamps – tells quite a different story; there’s now a certain unwillingness to admit Chinese citizens at international borders.

How does the Chinese passport fare compared to the passports of other countries?

According to the Henley & Partners (H&P) Visa Restrictions Index, 2014, an indicator of the number of countries a citizen can

visit without a visa, China is ranked 83rd, tied with Comoros and Jordan whose citizens can only visit 45 countries freely. The top tier includes Finland, Germany, Sweden, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom, the citizens of which can travel to 174 countries without a visa. In total, 170 countries in the world have more popular passports than China. This condition places China in the lowest quarter in terms of travel freedom, a pathetic position compared the country’s economic might and global influence.

We could view the same issue by looking at the specific countries Chinese citizens can visit without a visa. According to a report from the Bureau of Exit and Entry of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, among the territories that admit Chinese cit-

izens without the requirement of a visa are: the Maldives, Jeju Island of South Korea, Saipan Island in the West Pacific Ocean, China’s Asian neighbors and African countries with close ties to Beijing.

Last summer, I visited Britain and France.

Both countries require visas for Chinese citizens. The inconvenience started with the planning. Travel plans must be made well in advance in case the visa application is rejected. Although the embassies recommend that air tickets be reserved but not paid for, ticket prices usually skyrocket closer to the travel date. Therefore, visa application causes uncertainty in planning, which in turn leads to huge financial costs.

The inconvenience went well beyond the planning stage, though. The real art of applying for a visa lies in the preparation chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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politics & diplomacy of supporting documents. Usually, meticulous planning helps. For a Schengen visa, for instance, the applicant must provide a confirmed round-trip air ticket and the confirmation of accommodation.

Some countries have vague guidelines for the requisite documents. Last summer, when I renewed my student visa at the American consulate in Shanghai, I was carrying my transcript, my enrollment confirmation, my parents’ income statements, tax documents, bank account statements, and even proof that we owned the house we live in. In the end, the interviewer dismissed me with two cavalier questions and approved the visa without looking at any of the documents I prepared.

Apart from procuring supporting documents, applicants have to confront other types of nuisance. Hefty application fees, the subjective moods of interviewer, and absurdly long waiting times can all add to the woes of Chinese travelers.

Yinan (Eva) Song, a seasoned traveller and a recent Yale graduate who double-majored in Political Science and Art, has developed a creative response. Song worked on a graphic design project on her own Chinese passport, which led to a series of inquiries that eventually culminated in the production of an interactive and informative website that explores the status of the Chinese passport, in general.

In her passport, Eva “collected” an assortment of visa stickers. She juxtaposed the immigration stamps and zoomed in on certain pages to create a kaleidoscopic visual effect. Through her project, Eva asked herself: why do Chinese citizens have to endure inconveniences when they travel?

Why is the Chinese passport so frowned upon across international borders?

One reason that so few countries are on the Chinese citizens’ visa-free travel list, according to Eva Song, is the lack of mutual commitment on the part of the authorities involved. If one country imposes visa restrictions on the citizens of another country, the latter finds no incentive to do anything different. Regrettably, the Chinese government requires visitors from most major developed countries to apply for visas. Understandably, these foreign governments impose the same restrictions on Chinese travellers.

Illegal immigration is another area of concern. According to a retired French immigration officer, one third of the illegal immigrants in France entered the French territory legally but overstayed their stip12

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photographs by Eva Song ulated time. Keeping in mind the widespread domestic dissatisfaction with food security, environmental degradation, and health care, one can only find more incentives for Chinese citizens who wish for a higher standard of living to move abroad.

Unsurprisingly, immigration officers take heed by implementing extra steps to evaluate their visa applications.

Differing political ideologies factors in, as well. According to Eva Song, countries are much more reluctant to grant visa-free entry to citizens coming from a nation with a different ideological background. While

citizens in democratic countries enjoy relatively friendly entry policies, there are much more restrictions on citizens trying to cross ideological boundaries, not just physical ones.

Perceived socioeconomic status is yet another possible contributing component.

Generally, people welcome citizens of countries who are able to bring consumption, investment, and wealth. Looking at the GDP per capita data of China, it is not hard to conclude that, viewed as a monolithic entity, China does not offer a great deal of purchasing power.

politics & diplomacy

Additionally, the stereotype of rowdy Chinese tourists who disregard social norms wherever they go probably exacerbates their image. Spitting, poor manners, and vandalism are typical bad habits Chinese tourists are accused of exhibiting when traveling abroad.

Yet, the winds are changing. A decade of economic growth has delivered rising incomes, which make travelling for leisure more common for Chinese people, and promises even more. According to the Economist, one third of Chinese tourists now organize their own itineraries and increasingly allocate more time for shopping. The UN World Tourism Organization also ranks the total spending of Chinese tourists the highest among tourists of all nationalities. Rich Chinese buyers have earned their reputation by splurging money on foreign luxury goods which they regard as status symbols for status. Walking in Galeries Lafayette, a duty

free shopping center in Paris, it is not surprising to see long lines of Chinese tourists in front of boutiques of famous brands.

So will luxury consumption pave the way for a worldwide review of the Chinese visa policy? There are promising signs. The American government has already started to simplify its visa application process. Now, it is possible for some applicants to have an online interview. Moreover, approved visas can now be picked up from multiple bank branches of the applicants’ choosing, rather than from just the embassy or consulate.

Across the Atlantic, the British government is now well aware of the adverse impact of its restrictive, costly, and time-consuming visa process compared to the more generous Schengen visa offered by its EU neighbors.

As a result, the Chinese tourists visiting Britain last year were only one ninth of those visiting France, although those who did stay in Britain stayed longer. Given China’s re-

cent strong economic performance and the burgeoning Chinese demand for foreign goods, we may soon witness a period of fundamental change in the status of the Chinese passport.

Despite the optimistic signs, this process will invariably take time. First, it takes years to foster trust, shatter stereotypes, and revamp a preexisting system. Economics do not make up the entire story. The nexus of macroeconomic, political, and cultural factors that have bedeviled the Chinese passport will likely continue to remain a major roadblock in realizing an egalitarian vision of cross-border travel.

For now, one can only wonder how liberating it must have felt for Zhang Qian to travel freely across the Western world.

Tiancheng Zheng at

Princeton

University.

is a sophomore Contact him at

tzheng@princeton.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

13

The Occupiers: Out of the Classroom and Into the Streets Emily Feng elucidates student perspectives on the demonstrations in Hong Kong

photo by Pasu Au Yeung

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eptember 22, 2014, would have been like any other day, if not for the thousands of students who streamed into the square of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, instead of filing dutifully into their Monday classes. The students sported yellow armbands, shouted “Reject fake elections!” and clutched in their hands the signature umbrellas which would in the next few days, come to symbolize the movement that captured global attention: Occupy Hong Kong.

More than 13,000 university students joined the class boycotts that day, and secondary students joined soon after.

Only four days after the boycott began, Hong Kong police used pepper spray on the students and other participants. They detained three student leaders as they led boycotters in retaking a public square in front of the Hong Kong government headquarters.

Angered by these police actions, a civil society group, Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) initiated a civil disobedience campaign to occupy the central business dis14

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trict of the city.

In the early hours of September 27, occupiers peacefully took a stand in one of the busiest financial centers in the world, a world that then witnessed the birth of a social movement. It is a movement that, against all odds, has ignited worldwide support, infuriated investors, and posed the most serious challenge to Chinese political control since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Hong Kong students of all ages form the nucleus of the movement. The Hong Kong Federation of Students, a group of eight student unions in Hong Kong, has been instrumental in marshaling university students and professors who were behind the first OCLP campaign this July, in which volunteers collected nearly 800,000 signatures as part of an informal “referendum” on Hong Kong’s 2017 elections. Since the class boycotts in September, secondary students - led by student group Scholarism with the deceptively diminutive Joshua Wong at the helm - have joined the protests, along with university pro-

fessors, teachers, and, belatedly, labor unions.

The source of the movement may strike some as surprising: why is it that those who have lived under a particular system of order for the shortest amount of time feel the most compelled to change it?

Whether out of youthful idealism and energy or a deep sense of social responsibility, this kind of determined political activism is entirely at odds with the narrative that adults have been spinning about today’s youth in both US and Chinese cultures. Older pundits bemoan the decline of political participation among twenty-somethings and summarily declare that, in the age of the selfie, this imagined generation of youth knows more about the newest iPhone than it does about electoral reform, spends more time online than it does with people, and has forgone any notion of social commitment for more narcissistic pastimes.

In the US, we have our millennial generation. China has its balinghou to denote those born after the 1980s, and Taiwan has

politics & diplomacy its “strawberry generation.” Yet, as Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s civil disobedience campaign have shown, greater China’s youth have challenged these preconceptions by demonstrating a deep commitment to political activism. This politicization of the youth has a huge amount of potential to achieve political reform from within the famously repressive Chinese Communist government.

So, why are students so important to Occupy Hong Kong’s campaign? How have they participated in bringing an obscure activist organization into the global spotlight?

What might students be able to tell us about the significance, of Occupy Hong Kong? To answer these questions, I set out to understand the movement by talking to the students themselves.

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he roots of Hong Kong’s civil disobedience campaign can be traced back to 1984, when Hong Kong was still a colonial territory of the United Kingdom.

That year, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and China’s General Secretary Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Among other things, the declaration set 1997 as the year for a “handover” of sovereign rule of Hong Kong to China.

Importantly, the agreement also promised that “the current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged” for at least 50 years.

The conceit of “one country, two systems” has always been both temporary (it is set to expire in 2047) and fragile. In 2007, the Chinese government informally promised to allow Hong Kong to freely nominate and elect its Chief Executive, Hong Kong’s top political office, in 2017. However, in a sudden reversal, Beijing published a controversial “white paper” calling for more direct governance of Hong Kong and asking the Hong Kong judiciary to be “patriotic” in their work. Despite initial protests in Hong Kong, Beijing finally declared that all 2017 chief executive candidates would first have to be approved by a committee appointed

by Beijing.

In reaction, Occupy Central levied a series of demands. On one level, the actions of the group can be seen as a rejection of Beijing’s attempts to more strictly and directly govern what it perceives as a highly valuable Chinese territory. On another level, they are also a pointed critique of Hong Kong’s highly stratified economic development and unequal distribution of wealth.

However, the campaign is not just a crit-

icism of Hong Kong’s shortcomings; it is a statement and reaffirmation of the city’s civil liberties and cultural richness. The city’s active press, independent judiciary, and vocal citizens stand in contrast to the political rigidity of the Chinese Communist Party’s tight grip on the mainland. The tidal wave of public participation can be attributed to both the Hong Kong public’s desire to cement Hong Kong’s political liberalness and its condemnation of Beijing’s encroachment on the “one country, two systems” policy.

Beijing has responded to Hong Kong with indignation of its own. An October editorial published in the Chinese state newspaper People’s Daily stated that the “extremely small number of ‘Occupy Hong Kong’ people have, for their own self interest, ignored the law” and in doing so had “destroyed the foundations of society in Hong Kong.”

What precisely these foundations are is what is being so hotly contested in the protests. Is Hong Kong ”just a city” of greater China or something more, something meaningful all on its own?

O

n the morning of May 4, 1919, student representatives from thirteen universities gathered at Peking University, enraged by the unfair terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Like their future counterparts in Hong Kong, they planned an occupation to protest the terms of the treaty.

And like their future Hong Kong peers, the “May Fourth” students called upon their peers and fellow citizens and garnered widespread public support. They left an enduring

historical legacy, even if their immediate demands fell on deaf ears.

In 1976, students poured out en masse to commemorate the death of Zhou Enlai, and to subtly voice a host of heterogeneous complaints: rural urban inequality, educational access, and dissatisfaction with China’s top leaders. Only two years later, university students spearheaded the overflowing of discussion and public expression in the fateful “Hundred Flowers” movement.

A student at the time, Wei Jingsheng, wrote a particularly famous essay called “The Fifth Modernization,” which rings almost prophetic in light of Occupy Hong Kong.

“What is true democracy?” Wei wrote. “It means the right of the people to choose their own representatives [who will] work according to their will and in their interests. Only this can be called democracy.”

Most famously, it was again idealistic students, now joined by intellectuals and laborers, who occupied Tiananmen Square in 1989. Spontaneously sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang, the Chinese premier in 1986 who spoke out on the side of students during the 1976 protests, the root cause of the 1989 protests foreshadowed some of those of Occupy Hong Kong: a quickly privatizing market economy had left significant portions of the population behind. Rather than negotiate with the protesters, the Chinese government chose instead to violently erase the square occupiers, as well as the memories of their demise. “Hong Kong is dramatically influenced by 1989 democratic movement. It was during that moment so many HK people lost

photo by Sonotoki chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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Features& diplomacy politics action in May to the hurried and opaque passage of a trade service treaty with mainland China. “Is Xi Losing Control of its Peripheries?” a Diplomat article asked shortly after the Hong Kong civil disobedience campaign began. As in the Occupy movement, Taiwanese students held bright yellow sunflowers in lieu of bright yellow umbrellas, recycled their trash, and had professors continue classes in staged teach-ins in front of Taiwan’s legislature. Upon witnessing the events unfolding in Hong Kong months later, one observer wrote later that it was as if “Taiwan’s tale is being written into Hong Kong’s.”

Consequently, Hong Kong students have been able to gain and mobilize local and global support. How students will use their social capital is another question. The organic, leaderless features of the movement as it stands today have made its civil disobedience components both flexible and resilient.

The current model may, however, prove ineffective when channeling mass participation into specific policy reforms.

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photo by Pasu Au Yeung their last faith to Chinese Communist Party,” a Hong Kong journalism student wrote to me.

This history of student protest and cultural reverence for students has left potent legacies from which today’s Hong Kong protesters have drawn inspiration. One part marketing, one part historical awareness, Occupy Hong Kong has cleverly meshed pop culture with protest. Whether by singing “Do You Hear The People Sing,” a musical reference to the real-life 1832 Paris Uprising or invoking visual analogies to the hunger strikes and square sit-ins of 1989, Hong Kong’s students have situated their present struggles within a continuous narrative of student activism, idealism, and public support.

This potent mixture of naiveté and idealism has not skipped over Hong Kong’s own

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civil disobedience campaign, and recognition of the young protesters’ intentions won the student boycotts of September 22 widespread favor. Even those skeptical of the movement as a whole have grudgingly admitted admiration of the student protesters. A Chinese student, who had been studying for a graduate degree in Hong Kong for the past two years and wished to remain anonymous, wrote me: “I must say that sometimes I, as a graduate student undergoing past year in China, might think they are too naive to negotiate with CCP (Chinese Communist Party). But I really appreciate their actions. They are biting the bullet and marching toward darkness.”

More recently, Hong Kong’s civil disobedience campaign has elicited comparisons to Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, a student re-

ontrary to its reputation now, Occupy Hong Kong did not actually start with students. The original founders of the OCLP movement are middle-aged men: Benny Tai, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, Chan Kin-Man, a sociology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Chu Yiu-ming, a Baptist pastor who sheltered Tiananmen Square activists to avoid persecution in 1989. Yet, the initial influence of the three men has been eclipsed by the rising political stardom of student leaders like Alex Chow and Lester Shum, leaders of the Hong Kong Student Federation.

In particular, Joshua Wong, a fiery spokesperson and leader of the secondary student-group Scholarism, has taken the international spotlight. Wong led the charge in 2011, when he was merely 14, to block a move by mainland China to add “moral and national education” to Hong Kong’s mandatory curriculum. Beijing eventually dropped their proposal to include a national history requirement which Hong Kong citizens wrote off as political indoctrination and brainwashing after more than 100,000 individuals gathered in the city’s streets to protest the measure.

In those protests, a few enterprising demonstrators even fashioned a “Goddess of Democracy,” a direct allusion to that of the 1989 Tiananmen Square occupiers. In its most recent incarnation, the Goddess of Democracy has been channeled into Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Goddess,” a reference to

politics & diplomacy the symbol of the protests and a popular tool used to shield demonstrators from tear gas.

So what are students and their leaders asking for this time? Perhaps a unifying characteristic of mass social movements is that they are never truly about what the protesters profess to demand. The universal demands of all of the demonstrators has been the ability to freely elect their chief executive in 2017 and the resignation of Hong Kong’s current chief executive, CY Leung. Like their predecessors from May Fourth, Tiananmen, and Taiwan, though, today’s demonstrators in Hong Kong are mainly concerned with the present and future distribution of economic gains and opportunities.

A Hong Kong student named Zhiyang summarized the grievances of his generation: “Locals find a growing sense of losing control over their own city...the influence of China in Hong Kong is visibly increasing day by day from political governance to urban landscape. The failure to establish a real democratic suffrage mechanism, which once promised to Hong Kong, is the last straw to trigger the act of desperation.” Students like Zhiyang have been careful to frame the civil disobedience movement as an action of last resort, taken in an effort to protect Hong Kong.

Since 1997, Hong Kong has only seen its socioeconomic classes diverge. Nearly one fifth of Hong Kong’s citizens live below the poverty line, even though the island has the highest number of billionaires per capita

in the world. It’s Gini coefficient, a variable which measures relative inequality, has steadily risen to 0.537 in the last forty years, making Hong Kong one of the most unequal societies in East Asia. Poor residents and migrant workers sleep in “cage homes,” while the rich inhabit some of the most expensive real estate in the world. In a significant parallel with housing protests in mainland China, rising property values have been a uniquely effective catalyst for widespread political mobilization in Hong Kong.

Crucially, much of the inequality Hong Kong’s citizens have witnessed has been perceived as the effect of mainland interference.

On the Hong Kong stock exchange, the top six stocks are those of Chinese corporations and state-owned enterprises. In a move symbolic of the financial interests against which Occupy Hong Kong has been aimed, the “Big Four” accounting firms in Hong Kong took out a paid newspaper advertisement the day of the July 1 protests this summer.

The city’s residents complain that they hear utterings of Mandarin on the street more frequently than do Cantonese.

In the face of these largely economic pressures, Occupy Hong Kong protestors have been politically ill-equipped to voice a shared vision for the city’s future development. What has resulted is a building frustration that the exercise of their political rights has not translated into real results. “I have participated in the Occupy with tens of thousands of other people. I support true

democracy because I have witnessed many bad budgets got passed and the discontent of being represented by a chief executive that I have no part in electing,” Serruria Leung, a Hong Kong university student, told me.

Moreover, Occupy Hong Kong has shown her that there are many others who share her views. “My opinion has become stronger throughout the protest, as I see that many more citizens share the same view and that they are reasonable and well-respected.”

Seen another way, Occupy Hong Kong is also an echo of the deep anxieties Hong Kong experienced during the 1997 handover to China. The fear is that with the gradual erosion of the Hong Kong’s political freedoms will be the concomitant acceleration of widespread social and economic inequality and the reduction of a great city to a bland commercial space. A journalism graduate student, Mengyang Zhao, described to me his perception of mainland Chinese citizens: “Most mainland people don’t know Hong Kong. To them, Hong Kong is an ideal place for shopping spree. No one takes time to study its history.”

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here are Hong Kong citizens who doubt the authenticity of the civil disobedience campaign’s young protestors. More cynical observers have labeled the fervor as a kind of misplaced nostalgia. “I don’t think students have a particularly special bond with the movement but a more simplified understanding of Hong Kong,” a

photo by Sonotoki chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

17

politics & diplomacy graduate student at Hong Kong University named Tony told me. “Young students tend to have a stronger sense of local identity and less ties with their origins in the Mainland.

In the meantime many of them tend to romanticize the colonial governance prior to the handover as they barely experienced that era. I’d venture a guess that there are a few extra elements contributing to students’ campaign (besides rooting for democracy): identity-expression, false nostalgia, and idealism.”

Others have dismissed Occupy’s demands to be empty threats issued by petulant whiners. Ding Wang, a Chinese graduate student studying abroad in Hong Kong wrote to me that “the majority of mainland Chinese students feel that the Hong Kong students just don’t want to go to class...Actually, my own personal view is that Hong Kong is like a disobedient child who wants to run away.

When I was little I heard many of my friends threaten to run away, but how many actually carried through?”

Despite its warm reception in Western media, Occupy Hong Kong has not actually attracted the widespread support of Hong Kong’s own citizens. The continued occupation in the center of Hong Kong has disrupted the city’s public transportation lines, forcing some to walk home each night.

Thousands of students and workers no longer turn up to their requisite classrooms and offices, opting instead to sleep on the streets with the protesters. Investors and corporate entities have braced themselves for a decline in stock prices and business, and have accused students of ruining the financial reputation of Hong Kong. And, of course, there are the speculations – a result of a mixture of Chinese state propaganda and a deep sus-

picion of ardent political activity – that the Hong Kong students are being manipulated by foreign interests.

“Of course I support the students and their intentions. But I worry for them. I think a lot of people used to support them, during the boycott, when it was just students peacefully assembling outside. Now it’s not just students, it’s Occupy Central with Peace and Love, and they are disrupting the financial life of the city. Many Hong Kong citizens do not support them anymore because they are impeding daily life,” a graduate student in economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong told me. “I’m afraid that they’re being used,” she concluded. When pressed to identify to who might be using the students, she admitted, “I don’t know. I’m just being suspicious and careful for the students.”

An assistant professor at China Baptist University of Hong Kong and a former undergraduate student at Hong Kong University fired back at such student detractors on social media later that night: “People who still complain about the protestors disrupting their ‘normal’ life: Do you realize what HK will be like if we don’t fight for democracy now? Think of the disruptions of a life without freedom of expression and justice. If we don’t make our voices heard now, they will never be heard. And to people who suggest the protestors stop: If you have better strategies, carry them out. If not, be grateful for what our youngsters are doing for YOUR city, YOUR life. Or else, congratulate yourselves for being apathetic and lead a life of intellectual and political slavery.” His online diatribe attracted a variety of sympathy and criticism.

The message hints at a larger trend emerg-

ing from the protests: the realization of a politicized youth who would take to the streets in order to reclaim political rights for all.

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n October 6, the world held its breath, then collectively released a sigh of disappointment as planned talks between Hong Kong government representatives and student leaders of the civil disobedience leaders were called off. The students who I talked to remained largely hopeful despite government signals that talking at all was now off the table. “Once someone has determined to take up an active citizen role, it’s hard to revert it,” Serruria wrote me. But she added an ominous conditional: “Unless they get gunned down or heavily oppressed after the campaign.”

The possibility of violence has worried many observers of the Occupy Hong Kong protests who fear the mainland Chinese government will make the same decision it did in 1989. However, twenty five years later, the Chinese government has evolved more subtle tactics than blunt force, including encouraging divisive factions, planting seeds of inner disagreement, and creating a negative public image.

All the while, the Hong Kong protesters remain buffered by the protection of global scrutiny. “The fact that Hong Kong can win global support for its fight for democracy – from New York to Singapore – already means a victory for a long march for Hong Kong’s democracy,” George Chen, Financial Editor of the South China Morning Post, told me.

In the short term, most onlookers and protesters have nursed split views on the potential success of Occupy Hong Kong. Despite their outward idealism, most students

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politics & diplomacy

photos by Sonotoki concede that the demands of Occupy Hong Kong – direct election of Hong Kong’s chief executive and the resignation of current chief executive C.Y. Leung – will go unrealized.

“Personally I am quite pessimistic,” Mengyang confessed to me.

In the course of writing this article, I myself watched the footage of thousands milling around Hong Kong’s still relatively orderly streets day after day. I watched as Hong Kong authorities and students agreed to talks, only to have government officials call them off. Less than two weeks later, pro-government forces tore through makeshift street barricades and beat one of the protesters.

In the beginning, I held out hope that such massive and continuous occupations would shift the balance in favor the Hong Kong protesters. Later, as I clicked through pictures of a bruised Ken Tsang, the protester beaten by police, I slid towards cynicism.

Throughout, however, I have always remained in admiration of the spirit of Hong Kong’s protesting students. The oncoming challenge will be to sustain the level of political engagement and fervor the Occupy movement has inspired, despite the disappointment from immediate losses. Galvanized by her students’ activism, Hong Kong

professor Denise Ho penned an open letter to her young charges, writing “It is less a fear for your arrest, or bodily injury... More than this, I am afraid of what happens when the world you hope to create does not come to be.”

I believe that Professor Ho’s deep concerns will, thankfully, be proven wrong. The enduring legacy of Occupy Hong Kong will be a politicized and savvy young generation, with the know-how to orchestrate mass social movements. None of the Hong Kong students I talked to were blindly idealistic; instead, they were pragmatic about what they could realistically achieve.. Indeed, many protesters are all too aware that their immediate actions will not guarantee free elections in 2017.

The cognizance of student power and rights has, however, inspired the energetic and well-educated to push for a commonly shared vision of a better future. Actual execution will take strong leadership and more than just protests, but students have taken the all-important first step. Gemma Yim, a 21 year-old Hong Kong student movingly told the New York Times her mixed feelings. “I’m sure it’s impossible to have such things at this moment, because we are fight-

ing against the Chinese government,” she admitted. “But after this week, I have become aware of the power of dreams.”

Meanwhile, protesters continue to occupy the streets of the city, enlisting enterprising social media apps like FireChat (which in conjunction with hundreds of other phones can create its own WiFi network) to counter government restrictions on information flow.

Bolstered by a long heritage student activism and emboldened by public attention, the Hong Kong students have the tools to communicate their message. Political reform is a slow undertaking, but news travels fast. To take advantage of the power of information, the political activists of our generation will themselves become digital warriors.

One student I wrote to, Chris Ng, a Hong Kong law student, succinctly gave voice to the flame he hopes future waves of students can carry forward: “The Umbrella Revolution has given us great hope, less in the short run but more in the long run, because we have a large group of quality citizens that are ready and will pursue democracy for Hong Kong.”

Emily

Feng is a senior at Duke University. Contact her at emily.z.feng@gmail.com.

chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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In this Section

Growth Potential p. 21

Capitalizing on Progress p. 23

Economics & Finance Dams and Dollars Jean Young Koo asks what US-China cooperation on the Grand Inga Dam project could mean for the relationship in Africa

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istorically, Africa has been a land of opportunities for warring superpowers attempting to secure their political influence and economic profit. Recently, however, there seems to have been a shift in the dynamics of African economic development. For the last two decades, the G2 powers—the United States and China—have peacefully maintained their presence on the continent and kept a kind of competitive equilibrium. The launching of the Grand Inga Dam project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, however, has finally given the two powers an opportunity to actually converge their interests and cooperate.

Up until this point, China and the United States have tended to operate in different sectors within the African economy, avoiding direct competition. Yun Sun, a fellow with the East Asian program at the Stimson Center, mentioned that whereas the “American approach is more comprehensive, ranging from economic relations to capacity building, to democratization to peace and stabilization… China is more interested in economic engagements and has contributed relatively less in other issues in Africa.”

As a long-established power in Africa, the United States has been involved in more extensive efforts to promote democracy and development. USAID currently operates twenty-seven regional missions and has assisted African nations with $8.1 billion of aid in 2012. Economic ties have also been strong; in 2013, American goods and services export to Africa reached $50 billion, a record number and a 40% increase in the last four years. Also, even more recently, President Obama announced his commitment to allow American firms to invest $14 billion in Africa.

The Chinese government, on the other hand, has rather insisted on its “checkbook diplomacy,” frequently offering economic aid and investment to African countries as part of its diplomatic outreach. And China has indeed invested a significant amount in

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illustration by Zishi Li Africa; during the 2006 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Hu Jintao promised a $3 billion loan package and $2 billion of buyer’s credit to Africa. Similarly, in 2012, China offered to double the amount of aid to Africa and established a $5 billion China-Africa Development Fund to provide starting capital for Chinese firms in Africa.

To many in the international community, however, the two nations are perceived to operate in a directly competitive atmosphere. Weiyi Shi, a PhD candidate at University of California, San Diego, notes, “In spite of greater economic cooperation, the US and China are… perceived and perceive themselves as strategic competitors on the continent.” China did just surpass the United States and became the continent’s largest trading partner five years ago. Also, it

is widely accepted that the United States-Africa Leaders Summit, held in August of 2014, although officially launched for the improvement of bilateral trade, investment, and security, was actually an effort to assert American preeminence in the region.

With the building of the Grand Inga Dam, the relationship between the two countries may now begin to transform.

While it is true that, according to Yun Sun, “the US-China cooperation on the dam [has] yet to materialize and we have not seen concrete plans or information on how it will happen,” if all goes according to plan, this project will be the world’s biggest hydropower initiative. Located in the Congo River within the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Grand Inga Dam, estimated to cost $80 billion USD, is projected to pro-

economics & finance duce a third of electricity used in the entire African continent.

The goal of building the dam is to fuel the economic development of a number of African nations through a large supply of cheaper renewable energy. South Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo signed a treaty to cooperate on the building of the dam in May 2013, and the DRC is now in the process of selecting developers and investors to lay the foundations of the project.

One notable aspect of the project is that USAID, representing the American government, is willing to directly partner with Chinese firms, including the China International Water and Electric Corp and Sinohydro, to raise $12 billion for the Inga Dam as

part of an initiative called “Power Africa.”

This unexpected cooperation is projected to be a positive influence on the initiative.

Weiyi Shi commented, “When the US and China work alongside one another… it is possible that the US will provide the environmental safeguard and public relations finesse that most Chinese corporations still struggle with these days.”

Yun Sun is hopeful about the development of Sino-American relations through the Grand Inga Dam project, and expects the two nations to “grow mature and refrain from viewing their interactions as zero-sum.

There is a rising interest in both the US and China to discuss the possibilities and prospects for cooperation in Africa. For ideas to

translate into actions takes time, but that is the right direction things are evolving towards.”

In Africa, where developmental efforts are crucial, there is plenty of room for cooperation. As Hu Jintao has noted his commitment to African integration process and Obama his plan to “strengthen [African] regional trade and global markets,” the continental integration of Africa with bilateral efforts of United States and China is no longer an unrealistic hope, but a viable prospect.

Jean Young Koo is a sophomore at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact her at jeanyoung.koo@yale.edu.

Growth Potential Clarey Zhu explores the world of Chinese investment in Israeli high tech

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fter China’s Bright Food acquired 56% of Israel’s largest food producer, Tnuva, in May, the burgeoning Chinese-Israeli connection in high tech and venture capital finally aroused public attention. The “Start-up Nation”, as Israel was called in highly popular 2009 book on the topic by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, now eagerly seeks foreign investment from China to sustain its high-tech inventiveness, while Chinese firms are scaling up manufacturing and pouring billions of dollars into Israeli startups and venture funds.

All this has happened very recently. “In 2014, I think China will be number one,” says Avi Hasson, Chief Scientist of Israel’s Economy Ministry. “Three years ago they were at zero.”

This tightening of the Chinese-Israeli business bond is largely due to the complementary nature of the two economies. Israel has a very developed economy, mainly driven by high tech. The country has the highest ratio of university degrees per capita, the highest number of scientists and engineers per capita, and the largest number of startups per capita in world, hence, the nickname “Silicon Wadi.”

As a summer intern at a top-notch venture fund based in Jerusalem, I worked with Israeli entrepreneurs and talked to locals

on a day-to-day basis. I was always amazed and humbled by their constant motivation and efforts to create something new. It seems that adventurousness and resilience are embedded in every Israeli’s personality, which helps this young state survive despite serious, long-running geopolitical conflicts, and even thrive with almost no natural resources and less than half of the population in the New York metropolitan area.

The tiny population does, however, pose a challenge to Israeli startups. Israelis, despite leveraging the global Jewish community, are not able to scale up and sustain startup ideas in the long run. Startups in Silicon Wadi do not get nearly as much venture capital on average as their counterparts in Silicon Valley. They often come up against what is described as the “valley of death”, the gap between the first stage and the final stage of funding.

Jon Medved, serial entrepreneur who has also invested in more than 100 Israeli startups, said, “Today, if you’re not global from day one, you’re losing it. That is one of the advantages we have in Israel; we don’t really have a domestic market. Our companies either go global or they go nowhere.”

Traditionally tethered to western markets, in recent years Israeli companies have strived to tap into emerging markets in the

Far East. Naftali Bennett, Israeli Economy Minister, stated that Israel was shifting its economic resources to “China, China, China”, given that the country has a solid manufacturing base, a strong urge to invest abroad, and the determination to boost innovation and technology.

As China’s “population dividend” is predicted to end by 2015, one major way for it to battle increasing labor costs is through technological innovation. Its flourishing consumer power and production strength, however, have not been able to transform it into a booming technology hub as of yet. To work towards that, China is seeking collaboration with Israel through direct investments and acquisition transactions.

Beyond the obvious match of demand and supply, there is great esteem in China for the Israeli economic miracle, and Chinese and Jewish cultural and historical connectedness also contributes to potential close cooperation.

In the past two decades, two-way trade between the two countries has increased 200-fold, making China Israel’s third largest trade partner after the EU and the US. Amir Gal-Or, a Beijing-based managing partner of Israel-China investment firm Infinity, believes there will be a 20-30% annual rise in the number of Chinese acquisitions of Israeli firms in coming years, chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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Economics & finance while investments in Israeli firms could double annually.

As ambitious a newcomer as China is, however, the US will still remain the ma-

DAQ, currently listing more than 90 Israeli companies valued at $40 billion. American financial institutions carry out a lot of the relevant M&A deals. There are also mul-

“Beyond the obvious match of demand and supply, there is great esteem in China for the Israeli economic miracle, and Chinese and Jewish cultural and historical connectedness also contributes to potential close cooperation.� jor partner of Israel in startups and venture capital. More than 85% of the capital invested in Israeli high tech is originally from the US, and a fair amount of capital invested in Israel comes from the venture arms of large American corporations like Cisco and Intel. The homerun for Israeli startups is mainly to go public on NAS-

tiple tech training exchange programs and venture challenges held between the Silicon Valley and Israel every year. It seems that the US will still remain Israel’s main force in terms of foreign investment in the near future, while China will increasingly stimulate the Israeli market, potentially shaking up the Israeli startup and venture

capital scene in the long run.

One question yet to be asked is, with Chinese domestic startups and venture capital market still in their budding stages, how can cooperation with Israel impact the industry in China? Many Israeli venture capitalists have lived, studied, and worked in the US, but almost no one speaks Mandarin or has a thorough understanding of China. The barriers go beyond language and communications difficulties, though, as intellectual property rights, cyberspace censorship, different customer bases, and differentiated approaches in business all come into play.

Adventurous leaders with multicultural understanding are crucial to bridging these gaps and helping realize the full potential of Chinese investment in Israel high tech, but if they are enough remains to be seen.

Clarey Zhu is a junior at Yale University.

Contact her at clarey.zhu@yale.edu.

Zvi Roger/ Wikimedia Commons Matam (from Hebrew: Scientific Industries Center) located at the southern entrance to Haifa, Israel, is the largest and oldest dedicated HiTech park in Israel.

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economics & finance

Capitalizing on Progress Dhruv Aggarwal analyzes the social ramifications of China’s tax revolution

I

n 2011, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, responding to public opinion, raised the monthly income tax exemption threshold, the minimum level of income above which a person must pay income tax, from 2000 to 3500 RMB. The exemption threshold was 800 RMB a month in 1980.

The fact that while the tax exemption threshold has increased by over 300 percent, the income of the average Chinese person has shot up by a staggering 2700 percent over the same period is the truly remarkable phenomenon at the heart of China’s tax revolution. Many commentators have emphasized that increases in exemption limits indicate the Chinese government’s responsiveness to popular dissatisfaction with taxation. This view, however, ignores the fact that, with rapidly rising average incomes, more and more Chinese people fall into taxable categories This flooding of the middle class has offset the increase in the tax exemption threshold.

The rise in general prosperity is no doubt a largely urban phenomenon. Most rural households are exempt from income tax, since their family members are agriculturalists. The rise in per capita income is also starker in the urban sector. McKinsey and Company predicted in 2013 that 75% of Chinese urban consumers would earn between 60 and 229 thousand yuan by 2022. In 2000, this number stood at 4%.

For this high-powered, mostly young demographic, a yearly income tax exemption level of 42,000 yuan is unlikely to mean much. The concentration of taxpayers in urban areas also allows the Communist party to focus on retaining its grip on power – with most rural inhabitants exempt, and urban consumers seeing an exponential rise in incomes, no section of the population could conceivably have major grievances against taxation.

All is not as it seems, however, with China’s taxation system. First, the collection and valuation of taxes itself is questionable. As with all data collected in China, the level and growth of income in the top tier of urban society is contested.

Thomas Piketty, the French economist and author of Capital in the 21st Century, has writ-

photo by 11x16 Design ten about China’s tax structure in comparison to that of other developing countries.

According to him, the Chinese government needs to be more transparent in the way it releases its tax data. “In particular,” says Piketty, “the government should publish annual income tax statistics by income bracket and by region.”

Piketty’s reference to region is worth noting. Particularly prosperous urban regions, which are mostly found the east of the country, are home to increasingly affluent young taxpayers. Yet while these people are the new backbone of the country’s tax system, they also happen to be considered the greatest potential threat to one-party rule. With higher incomes translating to higher tax sums under China’s progressive tax system, these urban youngsters may start demanding more from the authorities than just ceaseless economic growth.

Throughout history, authoritarian regimes have faced their greatest tests in cosmopolitan metropolises, with their educated and wealthy young populations the most likely challengers to governmental authority.

The protests of Tiananmen and the recent upheaval in Hong Kong suggest that the

concentration of dissent can often be in the country’s most wealthiest cities and among its most aspirational youth. This “paradox of plenty” may be something that Chinese policymakers and tax authorities need to consider in the future.

The fact still remains that China has seen its income tax revenues skyrocket, accounting for 0.1% of GDP in 1986 and 2.5% in 2008. By 2015, this number is expected to further swell to 10% of China’s GDP. The country’s generous exemption limits have been offset by the wealth advancement of its citizens. By resisting the tendency displayed by other Asian countries like India to keep expanding its classes of “exempt” incomes, China has steadfastly increased its tax-toGDP ratio. As it continues its transition from being a purely manufacturing-based economy to a consumption-based economy, China would do well to ensure that its tax code stays in touch with the changing socioeconomic profile of its citizenry.

Dhruv Aggarwal is a junior at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine. Contact him at dhruv.aggarwal@yale.edu.

chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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25 Under

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Rising Stars in US-China Relations In 2013, China Hands became the first magazine to profile 25 young individuals and their outstanding contributions to US-China relations. This year, we are humbled and excited to present you with the second edition of “25 Under 25: Rising Stars in USChina Relations” featuring an entirely new list of honorees. Always mindful of our goal to promote mutual understanding and exchange, we hope the narratives of these 25 students and young working professionals will inspire members of our readership to chart similar paths, and to ultimately think critically about all US-China related issues at hand.

China Hands is also proud to announce this feature’s exclusive sponsorship by Schwarzman Scholars. Founded by Blackstone’s Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder Stephen A. Schwarzman and inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholars aims to educate future world leaders about China. Beginning in 2016, up to 200 scholars will be selected from around the world each year to develop their leadership skills through a oneyear Master’s Degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing. During the program, students will travel throughout China to explore themes related to their academic concentrations and professional interests, and will have the opportunity to pursue internships at prominent institutions, corporations and nonprofit organizations. For more information on admissions and beyond, please visit www. schwarzmanscholars.org It has been incredibly rewarding for China Hands to engage with an organization with like-minded goals and complementary methods, and this magazine is thankful for the Schwarzman Scholars sponsorship of this year’s 25 Under 25 feature. We wish all interested future leaders the best of luck when applications open in 2015.

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Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

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Our 25 honorees hail from all over the globe, from Beijing to Boston, and Perth to Toronto. They represent 19 institutions of higher learning. They are activists, scholars, and entrepreneurs. One is a second lieutenant in the United States Army. Another is an intercultural comedian. And in the traditionally male-dominated world of foreign policy, 14 on the list are female. These are rising stars in US-China relations to look out for.

ABOUT THE JUDGING This past summer, China Hands began soliciting nominations for its second list of rising stars regardless of field or endeavor. As of January 1st, 2014, all applicants were required to be 25 years of age or under. We received more than 80 nominations by late August, which were initially screened by the magazine’s editorial board and then forwarded to our esteemed judging panel for a final evaluation.

Candidates were then assessed on their academic achievements, extracurricular and professional experiences, and leadership potential (defined as demonstrated capacity to contribute positively to the US-China relationship).

For their judging efforts, insightful commentary, and words of advice, China Hands expresses its gratitude to: Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center Robert Daly; C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations Elizabeth C. Economy, Director of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies Mark Elliott; Global Director of Admissions for Schwarzman Scholars Robert Garris; former President of the US-China Business Council Robert Kapp; and YaleChina Association Executive Director Nancy Yao Maasbach. all photos submit ted

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Audrey wozniak Wellesley College B.A. ’14 | Austin, TX “It’s fascinating how music can help people relate to each other and give insight on the local culture, especially somewhere like Xinjiang,” says Audrey Wozniak, recent Wellesley graduate.

Wozniak’s work in US-China relations intertwines the worlds of culture, music and communication. As the winner of the prestigious Thomas Watson Fellowship, she is currently in Xinjiang conducting research on muquam—a mixture of Uighur folk, dance, and classical music. This research project is fully-funded and will be comparative, as Wozniak will also travel to Azerbaijan, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Indonesia to examine the roles of music traditions in local culture, as well as their intersection with international relations.

Her interest in Xinjiang also extends far beyond the realm of music. Having worked as an intern for ABC News’ Beijing bureau, and as a 2013 Albright Fellow at the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs, Wozniak has been deeply involved in international relations and

Features foreign-based journalism in China. She first visited China in 2009, when ethnic riots began to break out in Xinjiang.

“As a 16 year old, it was shocking to see that all foreign media was shut down, and that the government could use media to control flows of information and shape public opinion,” she remarks. “That’s when I became interested in studying everything I could about Chinese political affairs.”

In her senior year at Wellesley, Wozniak researched the linguistics of Chinese online censorship, and published her findings in the International Relations Council Journal.

Earlier this year, she presented her paper for the Association of Chinese Linguistics.

Much of the study centered around the ways in which Chinese web users manipulate language online to avoid censors.

Freedom of expression in China is a topic that Audrey feels strongly about, but also something that she understands the tenuous implications of. “Being allowed to freely disseminate information is something that should not be compromised,” says Audrey. “Although talking to people here [in Xinjiang] about news that is not being reported and cannot be reported makes me

feel what I can only describe as a huge sense of injustice, it fascinates me and motivates me to learn everything I can about it.”

Ashley Rivenbark

Yunmo (ben) Wang

Rivenbark currently serves as a teacher at the American Study Center in Ningbo, Zhejiang, where she leads English classes for middle school and high school students. Over the years, she has become involved with a number of unique education initiatives, including the design of a martial arts program as an intern for Hua Dan, a well-established Chinese NGO dedicated towards improving conditions for migrant workers and their children. To connect these international experiences with her local community, Rivenbark has chaired leadership positions for the University of North Carolina’s Study Abroad and Cultural Ambassadors program. She received the US State Department Critical Language Scholarship this year for her outstanding work.

A researcher at Eurasia Group, Wang has dedicated his early professional career towards providing insightful analysis for major businesses and government organizations. In previous internships with China Policy in Beijing, and the Henry L. Stimson Center, he has investigated issues such as trends in China’s energy industry, and China’s peacekeeping presence in Africa.

He hopes to further understand the global effects of China’s rise on emerging economies through proactive academic and policy research. As an undergraduate, Wang also founded the Tufts chapter of Global China Connection, one of the organization’s most active networks.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B.A. ’14 | Charlotte, NC

Tufts University B.A. ’14 | Nanjing, China; Toronto, Canada

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Features Catherine Laporte-Oshiro

Chenxi (Chex) Yu

Oxford University M.S. ‘14, Ph.D. ‘17 Yale University B.A. ‘13 | Larkspur, CA

Princeton Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs M.A. ‘16 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B.S. ‘14 | Zhuzhou, China

Having graduated from Yale University in 2013, LaporteOshiro is now a Rhodes scholar pursuing a PhD in International Relations and a Master of Science in Contemporary Chinese Studies at Oxford University. Her interest in China has been shaped by numerous educational and professional experiences, including internships at the Women’s Foundation in Hong Kong and the US Foreign Commercial Service in Shanghai. LaporteOshiro’s research at Oxford centers around the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as well as their implications for US-China relations.

As a research assistant for the China Center for Health Economics Research, Yu wishes to someday work with international development agencies to coordinate China’s own development. Beyond conducting public health research in rural India and China, she has interned for the World Health Organization (WHO), where she analyzed the WHO’s data on influenza vaccines and authored a 50-page proposal for developing the organization’s worldwide innovation and access tracker.

Chen is also the founder of TEDxBeijing, the first-ever Mandarinspeaking version of the conference series in the city.

Cristina Garafola

Christine Keung

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies M.A. ‘13 Hopkins-Nanjing Center Grad. Cert. ‘12 Hamilton College B.A. ‘11 | Sparta, NJ

Harvard Business School M.B.A. ’18 Wellesley College B.A. ‘14 | Temple City, CA

Garafola considers herself to be a leader who is continually active in bringing ideas and people together. She is currently a Research Assistant at the RAND Corporation, and has worked at the US Department of Treasury, the US Department of State, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the past, Garafola has written on China’s civil-military relations and her current research concerns China’s influence over Asia. She is particularly proud to have been a co-founder of the China Society in Washington, D.C., a group of over 150 Chinese and American professionals that meets for monthly events.

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Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

Born in Rome and raised in Hong Kong, Shanghai and California, Keung has immersed herself in a number of international agricultural and environmental projects. Among these was when she conducted independent research on groundwater usage in the Loess Plateau on a fully subsidized grant from the National Science Foundation.

Her findings were later presented at the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies Conference and Global Awareness Society International Conference. Keung is now a Research Fellow at the US Department of State’s Fulbright Program and is stationed in Shaanxi Province, where she studies waste management in urban areas. She plans to attend Harvard Business School upon her return to the US.

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Features

Emily Schell

Ziyao (Eric) Wang

Brown University B.A. ‘16 | Burke, VA

Harvard University B.A. ‘15 | Xuzhou, China

Currently a junior at Brown University, Schell is committed to fostering understanding between China and the US through educational exchange. Having been a US Department of State Youth Ambassador to China, Schell was also Teach for China’s Brown Campus Ambassador and a Curriculum Development Intern at Stepping Stones, a renowned NGO in Shanghai that develops education platforms for migrant worker families. In addition, Schell is a research assistant for Brown’s Education department, where she examines cross-cultural differences in Western and Chinese forms of learning.

Gavin Newton-Tanzer Columbia University ‘11 | Easton; Sandy Hook, CT Newton-Tanzer is the President and Co-founder of Sunrise International Education, which provides extracurricular programs for over 100,000 high school students in China. Prior to his time at Sunrise, he pioneered several successful enterprises in this field, including China Pathway, a service for Chinese students hoping to attend American universities, and UExcel International Academy, an international education services group.

While studying at Columbia University, he founded Global China Connection and has managed hundreds of global youth programs worldwide, including at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

At Harvard University, Wang serves as the President of the Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association and the Harvard China Forum, platforms he hopes can further promote international exchange and communication. Wang has also worked as an analyst in several sectors of finance, including private equity with Primavera Capital in Beijing, and investment banking with Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. He hopes that these experiences will enable him to become a leader in the business realm of US-China relations.

marin toscano

University of Colorado Boulder B.A. ‘12 | Lyons, Colorado Toscano is a dedicated food activist and environmental enthusiast. While at the University of Colorado Boulder, she studied sustainable development with a geographic concentration in China. This interest led Toscano to intern for GSEAN, a Chinese environmental NGO based in Chengdu, Sichuan, where she researched community-based eco-practices at Chinese organic farms. Now on a Fulbright Research Grant, she has spent ten months in Kunming, Yunnan, and four months in Beijing investigating China’s food industry. One of her projects, a series of “Food Talks”, involves informing people about common misconceptions regarding food safety and culture in China.

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Features Jesse Appell

Jiru xu

Brandeis University ‘12 | Newton, MA

Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government M.A. ‘16 Tsinghua University LL.B ‘14 | Nanjing, China

For intercultural comedian Jesse Appell, stumbling upon the Chinese language—and by extension Chinese comedy—was a turning point in his life. “As I understand Chinese more and more, other things about Chinese culture have opened up to me,” he says.

“I started by learning characters, but as I learned them, I found I could start reading and writing about interesting things like comedy...it’s a cool process to discover things I don’t yet understand.”

Since graduating college in 2012, Appell has lived in Beijing for over two years. Commissioned as a Fulbright Research Fellow, he has studied and performed traditional Chinese Xiangsheng (crosstalk) comedy under the tutelage of master comedian Ding Guangquan. “Ding Laoshi had super high standards and he was the only master in China who taught Xiangsheng to foreigners,” Appell says, “I came to realize how performers see the art forms in addition to learning the forms themselves.”

This rare formal schooling in Xiangsheng has helped Appell stand out as a unique comedian when touring the US. His original content, which also includes stand-up and improvisational comedy, has been broadcast on BBC and PBS, in addition to receiving millions of views on Chinese television and Youtube. He is currently traveling

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Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

through the US and Canada for his tour: “The Great LOL of China”.

Appell is a big proponent of producing original content, despite obstacles in China’s entertainment industry. According to him, because many Chinese studios lack faith in creating original content, they prefer to localize other country’s works, leaving little room for creativity. Combined with being a foreigner in China, where the situation is “like what ChineseAmericans faced in Hollywood in the 1950s”, Appell tells us that even though opportunities can be limited, this doesn’t bother him. “It’s fun because I’m one of the few that gets to create content on foreigners that’s not tied to it being foreigner-specific,” he says “It’s just funny [for everyone].”

For Appell, the value of original comedic content thus lies not only in changing the landscape of Chinese entertainment, but because it’s what he loves. “The question I always ask myself is how to be unique...I want my material to be very specifically me.”

As for his future hopes, Appell dreams of growing both his Chinese and US audiences. After all, he remarks, “Building a world where China and America live together will take more than creating business and political relationships. What better way is there to connect with someone than to laugh

Now a Master’s student at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Xu hopes to become a leader in transcultural communication. To this end, Xu has worked for the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games for five years, serving as Goodwill Ambassador during the city’s bidding back in 2009. Xu is also the champion of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Voice of the Future competition, which led to her joining China’s delegation to the 2011 APEC CEO Summit as a youth delegate.

While in attendance, she was tasked with presenting to delegations and media from over 20 countries.

John Buckley Cornell University B.A. ‘14 | Providence, RI An aspiring diplomat, Buckley has centered his academic and professional work around security strategy, dialogue, and communication. In addition to researching Sino-Russian security policy in Central Asia at Cornell, he has worked as an East Asian Studies research intern at the American Enterprise Institute, and as a student journalist at CNN International’s Beijing Office. Buckley is also the founder of Rice Magazine, a student publication focused on Asian affairs, and he was the Vice President of Internal Affairs for Cornell’s Asian/Asian-American Student Union (CAPSU).

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Features joseph riley

James Williams

Oxford University M.A. ‘15 University of Virginia ‘13 | Etowah, TN

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B.A. ‘16 | North Andover, MA

A Second Lieutenant in the US Army, Riley is currently pursuing graduate study in International Relations as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He has researched Chinese security issues while working for various government organizations, such as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Defense Intelligence Agency. As an undergraduate, Riley was a Jefferson Scholar and Truman Scholar and studied for two summers in China as part of the National Security Education Program. His current thesis research examines the way in which US-China economic interdependence influences bilateral strategic bargaining and crisis management.

Williams is the Director of this year’s Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit. From teaching English classes in Nanning, Guangxi, to interning at a social justice-minded private equity firm in Chengdu, Sichuan, Williams has focused largely on the development side of US-China relations. He has extended this interest to his fieldwork in Ghana and South Africa, where he conducted research into BRICS-Africa economic ties. Williams is now teaching a semester-long course on Sino-African relations at UNC.

mark jia Harvard Law School J.D. ‘16, Oxford University M.Phil ‘13 Princeton University B.A. ‘10 | Lexington, MA “I’ve always been drawn to the role of a public intellectual,” says 2011 Rhodes Scholar and current second-year Harvard Law School student Mark Jia. “I want to be someone who doesn’t just pursue truth for its intrinsic value, but aims to influence society on the level of ideas.”

An aspiring legal academic, Jia describes his journey into US-China relations as a comparative one. “My fascination with U.S. constitutional law was really the starting point from which I started asking questions about [Chinese] legal developments,” he remarks, citing how knowledge of one system can help inform an understanding of the other side.

Perhaps the best illustration of parallels between US and Chinese law is Jia’s own academic research. While at Oxford, his dissertation addressed cases in which the Chinese government responded to activism connecting constitutional argumentation with mass grievances. This phenomenon of popular constitutionalism, Jia notes, was originally a U.S. idea. Jia’s writings have been featured in prominent news outlets like the Huffington Post and Foreign Policy, and he hopes to publish his current work in

academic legal journals.

Yet scholarship on China is not without its challenges. Whereas in other academic fields researchers may pursue truth for truth’s sake, Jia states that oftentimes, “engaging too much in pursuing truth” in China studies can lead to certain sanctions, such being banned from traveling to China.

In addition, access to source material in China can be especially difficult. When in Beijing conducting his thesis research, Jia lived by his e-mail account everyday to see if he could speak with a Chinese human rights lawyer who had been placed under house arrest. “When he was allowed to leave his home, we’d have to meet at a KFC on the outskirts of Beijing,” recalls Jia. Beyond his academic work, Jia has served in a number of professional positions, including stints as a Princetonin-Asia Fellow, and research intern for the Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia Studies program. When discussing his time at Princeton-in-Asia, he tells us he taught U.S. constitutional law to undergraduates at China Foreign Affairs University. And while issues like democratic governance certainly brought controversy, Jia happily tells us

that the discussions were always frank and constructive. After all, Jia notes, the role of a public intellectual compels one to interact with people of all perspectives.

Today, Jia remarks he is humbled to study in the intellectually rigorous environment of law school, where he serves as an editor for the Harvard Law Review. He’s cautiously optimistic about China’s recent legal reforms, but hopes that he can one day influence further positive developments in Chinese law.

“Having a direct say in these efforts is difficult—the Chinese have their own law and their own rules—[so] the best role I can play is to advise, consult, and influence in terms of ideas.” chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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Features natalee pei

University of Western Australia B.A. ‘14 | Perth, Australia

Pei’s work in US-China relations focuses primarily on the nexus between business and geology. While studying at Yale University, she became a research assistant for the school’s J.P. Morgan Fellows Program, where she examined trends in global oil pricing for former Sinopec president and chairman Fu Chengyu. Pei’s professional roles as a geological engineering intern at Weston Solutions, Inc. and as a business analyst for Nicobar Nuclear Consulting Group have further pushed this interest in China’s energy sector. She is also the founder of Yale’s Xipeng China Studies Society, a group dedicated to facilitating China-focused dialogue and friendship.

Thomas is the founder of the Journal of Australia China Affairs and chairs leadership roles in both the Australia-China Youth Association and Australia-China Youth Dialogue.

He has written prolifically on subjects including US-China-Australia relations, and his works have received numerous awards and international recognition.

In addition to spending study abroad stints at Renmin, Zhejiang, and Tsinghua University, Thomas was a writer and reporter for Danwei Media in 2013. He now works as a project officer for the Australian National University Centre on China in the World, where he statistically analyzes China media publications on global affairs.

rachel woodlee

Oxford University M.S. ‘14 Ph.D. ‘17 Wofford College B.A. B.S. ‘13 | Greenville, SC Woodlee attributes much of her personal and leadership growth to her experience as a varsity athlete on Wofford College’s Women’s Volleyball team. Now a Rhodes Scholar studying Contemporary Chinese Studies at Oxford University, she serves as a Co-Convener of the Rhodes China Forum, which seeks to promote scholarly and professional dialogue about China on campus. After working at the Continental Hope Group in Chengdu, Woodlee hopes to facilitate further cooperation between Chinese and American businesses with her understanding of corporate culture.

rush doshi

Harvard University Ph.D. Princeton University B.A. ‘11 | Randolph, NJ

samuel galler

Oxford University Ph.D. ‘16 Harvard University B.A. ‘12 | Boulder, Colorado A strong advocate of civil society, Galler has spent much time leading research projects related to global health and sexual education. Beyond founding Sticky Rice Love, a Hong-Kong based youth sexual education platform, he has conducted ethnographic studies of HIV organizations for Tsinghua University’s Medical Sociology program, and implemented feasibility assessments of HIV rapid testing in Hong Kong under a US National Institutes of Health R01 grant. Galler is now a Rhodes Scholar pursuing a doctorate in International Development at Oxford university.

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neil thomas

Yale University B.A. B.S. ‘13 | Los Altos, CA

Previously a defense analyst at Long Term Strategy Group in Washington D.C., Doshi is now pursuing a Ph.D at Harvard University.

His professional work in US-China security issues began with stints at the US Department of State and Defense in 2010, and continued when he was a Fulbright Fellow at Yunnan University a year later. While there, Doshi conducted independent research on Sino-Indian relations.

As an undergraduate at Princeton, Doshi was also editor-in-chief of American Foreign Policy Magazine, and a nationally ranked collegiate debater.

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Features

xin xiang

Harvard University B.A. ‘14 Ph.D ‘19 | Guangzhou, China When Xin Xiang and her friends started CLOVER in 2009, they were only recent high school graduates. “In the past 6 years, CLOVER has grown from a student volunteer group into a registered nonprofit organization with a small core full-time staff and dozens of core volunteers.” Xin Xiang says, describing her experience as head of CLOVER, a Guangzhou-based non-profit dedicated to providing summer and year-long enrichment programs to children of migrant workers.

Xiang first had the idea of reaching out to migrant children in China’s cities after following media coverage of the issue. However, when she organized the first CLOVER summer camp for migrant children, she tells us that she didn’t have a long-term vision for the organization. “We didn’t have a plan for it to grow into anything; we didn’t even know that what we were doing was ‘education’, ‘public service’, or ‘nonprofit’.” Nonetheless, the first summer camp was a successful and an emotionally moving experience, so the organizers promised to return the next summer—and they did.

Soon enough they were working closely with local communities and looking to transform CLOVER into a more sophisticated

organization aiming to cultivate children, each of whom “loves, thinks and changes through peer-led experiential learning.” For Xiang and many of her colleagues, “there is always a feeling of being pushed to operate at the edge of our own capacities. It is challenging and sometimes stressful, but it makes us grow, as individuals and as an organization.” Indeed, while Xiang was studying at Harvard College, she felt like “living in two parallel universes at the same time.” Her routine would often consist of a Skype conference at breakfast, a day of classes, and then a series of more conferences in the evening. To re-examine her and CLOVER’s priorities, Xiang would

then take a gap year to legally register the non-profit and improve its operations.

Today, Xiang is pursuing a Ph.D. in education at Harvard University, following her graduation earlier this year with a B.A. in psychology. “I’m coming to see more and more exciting ways in which my practical experience grounds my research and my research informs my action,” Xiang tells us.

As for CLOVER’s future, Xiang is quite excited for the next series of opportunities and challenges. Reiterating her mission to empower youth, she’s hopeful that CLOVER will continue to serve underprivileged communities for years to come.

yiqin fu

xiaoyu xia

A rising journalist, Fu has written extensively on Chinese politics and media. She was a regular contributor and editorial intern at Foreign Policy’s Tea Leaf Nation, where she profiled Chinese microbloggers and entrepreneurs, and worked earlier as a marketing intern for Quizlet.com and Flipboard. Her prolific writings have won her several writing and journalism awards, such as the Gold Key for Journalism and America Voices Medal. Today, Fu is enrolled in a threeyear degree program at Oxford University, and works for The New Republic and The New Yorker.

Xia is a current Masters student in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature at Fudan University in Shanghai. Her research interests center around post-1900 Chinese sinophone literature, culture, and art. An aspiring literary critic, Xia has co-edited an anthology of Chinese novellas, published works in reputable academic literary journals, and presented papers at numerous university-affiliated conferences, such as National Taiwan University and Harvard University. Her literary academic background also includes a foreign exchange stint at the University of Chicago’s Department of Contemporary Literature and Department of Art History.

Oxford University ‘17 | Nanjing, China

Fudan University B.A. ‘13 M.A. ‘16 | Shanghai, China

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ashley rivenbark can break three cinder blocks with one hand.

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Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

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The Silent Dream Dan Feng asks her compatriots what the “Chinese Dream” means to them

A

chubby, middle-aged man with glasses pretended to read on his computer while I stared at the wall in his office in the Publicity Department of the Communist Party in Chongqing. This awkward silence followed a period of seemingly smooth small talk, or rather, was ignited by my simple question: “What do you think about the Chinese Dream?”

In 2012, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, during a visit to the National Museum of China, first described the Chinese Dream as “national rejuvenation, improvement of people’s livelihoods, prosperity, construction of a better society and military strengthening.”

Xi also encouraged young people to “dare to dream, work assiduously to fulfill the dreams and contribute to the revitalization of the nation.” Soon the phrase became the single most important propaganda slogan in China. Unsatisfied with only the official interpretation of the “Chinese Dream,” however, I traveled to seven cities in China and struck up interesting conversations with people of different professions and socioeconomic statuses about the “Chinese Dream.” After traveling for two months and keeping a diary of more than 40,000 Chinese characters, I find some episodes thought-provoking and worth sharing.

Besides Chongqing, Chengdu was also one of my major stops on the trip. Tianfu Square, the CBD area in Chengdu, is home to an imposing statue of Chairman Mao, with his right hand stretching out and pointing the way forward. Under the giant statue, I approached a man who was cleaning the streets. I introduced myself as a college student from Beijing and asked, “I’m just curious, but what do you think is the ‘Chinese Dream’?”

He looked at me, his eyes full of alert.

After a few seconds, he chuckled awkwardly. “Well, people like me,” he looked at the broom in his hand and sighed, “are in no position to answer this question.”

“But shouldn’t the ‘Chinese Dream’ belong to the Chinese people? What is your dream?”

A long silence ensued.

“I don’t have a dream.” He started to walk away but quickly added, “Just go down to the subway station. You can find

the right definition there.”

I walked down the street and finally encountered the “right definition” on a giant propaganda poster: “The Chinese Dream is my own dream,” it read. I looked back at the statue of Mao Zedong, and for a split second I wondered where he was pointing and who exactly was in the position of answering my simple question. As I headed further south to Yunnan Province, I kept asking the same question, only to receive more curious answers.

“W

hat is your dream?” I asked Cao Xunyu, a girl from the Yi ethnic group and a senior at the Lijiang Institute of Education. Xunyu was going to graduate the very next day.

“Honestly, I don’t really have a dream.”

Seeing the surprise on my face, she explained, “I have never thought about it.

Dan, you should understand that Lijiang is different from Beijing. Lijiang is poor and underdeveloped. I know students in Beijing dream big, and you all can achieve great things. But for us, the most practical dream is to go back home and help our parents do farm work.”

“So what’s your plan after graduation?”

Sensing the futility of the “dream” conversation, I tried a more practical question.

“I want to join the Communist Party!” her face lit up with excitement.

“Why join the Party?” I was surprised for the second time.

factly.

For a moment, I had a strong impulse to tell her something, but then I looked into her clear, innocent eyes. She had a right to know many more truths, but why not let her keep her own beautiful dream?

Later that day, I visited the provincial government of Lijiang, Yunnan Province.

The propaganda columns on the streets of Lijiang were quite different from those in major cities like Chengdu or Beijing.

Some of the slogans, such as “Long Live Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” and “Serve the People,” are simply too antiquated to turn heads.

In the government office I met Miss Zhang, a shy but friendly woman in her late 20s, with dark skin and big, watery eyes. “We are in charge of implementing the designed activities from above. For example, now we are organizing an essay competition. The essay topic is ‘My Chinese Dream.’”

Although the real concept of the authorities “above” may be vague, the demands of “above” are always straightforward. Whatever comes from above is to be followed.

Interested by the topic of the essay competition, I asked Miss Zhang how it went.

She shook her head in dismay and told me in a low voice, “Well, it is very hard for us to really meet the requirement from above. For example, this time, we are required to submit at least 500 essays. We have tried our best, but now we still only

“I know students in Beijing dream big, and you all can achieve great things.

But for us, the most practical dream is to go back home and help our parents do farm work.”

“You will have a lot of privileges after becoming a Party member. In our school, only the best students can join the Party, for it is the most preeminent organization in China. I would be so honored to be part of this organization!” she said matter-of-

have less than 200 essays. People are just not interested in this.”

“Why keep silent? Why not inform the authorities above about this reality?”

She shrugged, “That’s probably not a good idea. It is ordered from above, so chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

33

Features there must be a way to do it. Now, in every school there are hundreds of students aspiring to become Party members. We plan to make them write.”

I had somewhat anticipated this answer, for this technique is prevalent in China’s administrative hierarchy. As students, my Chinese schoolmates and I, members of the lowest rank in the hierarchy, know this bureaucratic tactic all too well. So I asked, “What’s the quality of these essays so far?”

“They are absolutely terrible. People are very reluctant to share or even to think about this topic. Sometimes they just keep silent, and their silence frightens me.” Miss Zhang sighed. Then she went on to explain that people mainly talked about the cliché definitions of the Chinese Dream, instead of offering their own stories and thoughts.

For me, this was not unexpected. Nearly all of the people I interviewed in the seven cities included, some without hesitation, the official definition of “the revitalization of the Chinese nation” while few offered their own ideas. They simply chose not to think for themselves. Amid a sea of dull answers, I was delighted that an elderly woman told me in an unusually frank manner that the real Chinese Dream should be marrying a good boy!

After three more days in Lijiang, I conducted my last interview in the small city with Professor Pi, a Chinese literature professor at the Lijiang Institute of Education.

She is a nice lady, always smiling and calm.

After some small talk, I finally asked the question that had kept many silent, “What do you think is the ‘Chinese Dream’?”

She smiled, “Wow! That’s a really good question to ask. Very few of our students have thought about that. It seems like there is indeed a big difference in college education between Beijing and Lijiang.”

I then explained that I actually go to school in the US. “Oh, that’s even more impressive,” she added, averting her eyes, “I hear that the education there really emphasizes on critical thinking. I wonder if you have a lot of discussions in class? Are you taught to question authority all the time? I wonder how the teachers can live with these students.”

Her frivolous and sarcastic tone suddenly made me feel uneasy, but I soon collected myself and went on to clarify that in an American classroom, critical thinking is seen as the ability to form and defend your own arguments, rather than blindly accepting or instantly rejecting what you hear or read. “Critical” is not the same as 34

Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

illustration by Christina Zhang negative, hostile, or adversarial; it is simply reflective. We don’t question all the time, but we do challenge authority whenever we feel necessary.

Upon hearing my explanation, Professor Pi smiled again and said, “Ah, I see. So that’s why you wonder what the ‘Chinese Dream’ is. I assume that you have an answer in mind already. What is it?”

I stopped for a moment. To tell the truth, I didn’t really know. That was why I started this research project. I wanted to know whether there was a “Chinese Dream” in people’s hearts. I looked up at her; now it was my turn to be silent. She looked at me with a victorious smile.

After a while, Professor Pi finally said, “You see, I never understand why some

Features more and more. Here the logic is that no matter what the government tells us to do, we do it without asking why. Usually we will gradually figure out the meaning. This is the case with the Chinese Dream you are asking about. I guess most of the people you interviewed kept silent, right? They probably have never thought about it, but they are already doing it. You see, Chinese people always champion doing more than talking.”

Professor Pi’s words resonated with part of me, because that was precisely my logic back in middle school when I was drowning in a sea of exercise questions without ever questioning the value of rote learning.

In high school, I gradually picked up better study methods, but still, when I first had a seminar class at the University of Notre Dame, I considered American classes quite inefficient: people discussed so much in class, some points relevant and valuable but others far from pertinent. I was so used to having the only right answer provided from above and then trying to figure out why it was right by myself.

In colleges all over America, the students are the ones who decide what the right answers are. Coming up with the answers is always challenging, but it makes me feel like I have more control over my life. It may still be too early for me to say which way is better, but I have a feeling that once I started thinking and deciding things for myself, I realized how much more I could accomplish. I could never be kept silent anymore.

T people always want to know why. They seem to be desperate in finding a meaning in everything. But in fact, there are so many things that have no meaning at all— until we give them meanings by actually doing them.”

She went on to explain the fulfillment of volunteer work ordered from above and handed me a small book documenting vari-

ous volunteering activities in which the students at the Lijiang Institute of Education had participated. According to Professor Pi, since students in Lijiang had limited opportunities and experiences, none of them had any idea what volunteer work was until they were told to rush to plant trees and care for the elderly in nursing homes.

“Through working, we understand it

he man in the office of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China was still staring into his computer. On the wall behind him hung a propaganda poster that read: “The Chinese Dream is my own dream.” The man didn’t even want to read this “right” definition to me. He simply feared saying something wrong.

In the embarrassing silence, I finally stood up and said goodbye to him. He did not move his lips. I walked out of his office and spotted another giant statue of Mao in the tree-lined courtyard in front of the grandiose City Hall. While Chairman Mao was pointing forward, uwnder his statue the silence was deafening.

Dan

Feng is a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame. Contact her at dan.feng.13@nd.edu.

chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

35

In this Section

The Art of Storytelling p. 37

Thinking Small p. 39

Life & Culture A Question of Character Miguel Paredes discusses developments in the relationship between the Chinese people and their unique written language

illustration by Christine Zhang

“Do you have a WeChat?” is rapidly becoming synonymous with nihao for China’s new digital generation. With social media platforms ranging from the ever-popular QQ to the twitter-esque WeiBo, the technologically-driven youth spend hours updating profiles and uploading pictures, turning Beijing’s rush hour into a sea of bobbed heads and flashing screens.

“I have a different ringtone for every platform on my phone,” jokes Yi-Xiang Liu, a doctoral student at the Harbin Institute of Technology. “With so many applications, it’s sometimes hard to tell from which one the message came.”

With this new wave of technological influx arises a cultural clash. “I find myself more and more frequently forgetting how to write even the simplest of characters,” says Yi-Xiang. All computers and mobile phones now mostly use pinyin, the Chinese phonetic system, to input characters, transforming the act of writing out characters from a daily, traditional art into an occasional, at times even troublesome, burden.

This adaptation to the digital age has resulted in a unique type of illiteracy: dysgraphia, the inability to write. For Yi-Xiang, 36

Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

the problem has reached the point that he once “forgot how to write one of the two characters that make up the Chinese word for ‘dance’,” a character that he learned to write around the age of 4, while writing a letter.

Colloquially, this phenomena is called tibiwangzi, meaning “to pick up a pen and forget the character,” a four character phrase that Yi-Xiang, ironically, looked up on his iPhone in order to write down.

The written Chinese language has been indispensible to the formation and maintenance of the unique Chinese identity, so the slow disappearance of Chinese characters worries many about the future of China as a unified nation.. When the country was united under the Qin Dynasty, the Chinese written language was standardized, further solidifying the largest state in the world. Without a mutual, unified written language, communication between regions in China would be immensely difficult, due to the country’s various spoken baihua, the regional vernacular dialects.

When the People’s Republic of China began in 1949, the Maoist regime attempted to use Chinese characters as a vehicle to strengthen China’s nationalist identity. In 1956, the Chi-

nese government issued and promoted the first round of character simplifications in Mainland China in an attempt to promote literacy. Traditional characters are often quite complex, making some almost impossible to remember. Their simplified counterparts, on the other hand, contain no more than a few simple strokes, increasing the accessibility of the Chinese language for a greater portion of the population.

When the authorities in Beijing attempted to expand these linguistic reforms, however, there was a sharp backlash. In 1977, the government released a second round of simplification, causing culturally minded revolts throughout the country. “The second round of characters was simplified beyond recognition,” explains Professor Hui-Ming Jin, Professor of Chinese Linguistics at the Harbin Institute of Technology, “they had no culture, no history, and for the Chinese, there’s little more important than tradition.” The Chinese government officially retracted the second round of simplification completely in 1986, which, according to Professor Jin, prevented the government from “perverting the Chinese

Life & Culture language for political needs” and championed a win for local customs and traditions.

Despite the increasing pressure to conform to new technology, the Chinese seem reluctant to let Chinese characters whither away or undergo further changes. The Chinese government is currently applying educational reforms to help counteract this linguistic anomaly. In 2013, the Beijing Educational Examinations Board announced major changes for the upcoming 2016 Beijing GaoKao, the infamous Chinese college entrance exam. The Board decreased the point value of the English section of the 2016 Beijing GaoKao from 150 to 100 points. The Chinese section, which includes a handwritten essay, increased from 150 to 180 points, shifting the emphasis from English back to written Chinese. This reform of the 2016 Beijing GaoKao was supported by

over 82% of the 222,481 respondents to a poll conducted by Phoenix Online in China, which demonstrates both the government’s as well as the Chinese citizens’ interest in preserving the Chinese language and its characters as they stand today.

Since China has opened its doors to the world, another new and rather unexpected way to preserve the tradition of writing Chinese characters appears to be emerging: teaching the language to foreigners. “Most of the foreigners that study Chinese in China begin by learning how to write characters, and when they return back home, they take this tradition with them,” says Professor Jin, “hopefully inspiring others to do the same.”

As China continues to change and its culture is forced to adapt, however, what is the future of Chinese characters for the Chinese

people themselves?

Yi-Xiang quickly writes down his name on a piece of paper and explains how it is often difficult to type on the computer. Many people have suggested changing the final character in his name, but he refuses. “My grandfather had the same character in his name, as did his father, ” Yi-Xiang explains, “it’s my family’s tradition, our heritage; I’d never change it.”

Regardless of what the future holds for Chinese characters, they are, as Yi-Xiang believes more than simply strokes or black ink.

“Reading [the characters] of my name,” Yi-Xiang says, “I see history, culture and my Chinese identity.”

Miguel Paredes is a sophomore at Yale

University.

Contact

him

at

miguel.paredes@yale.edu.

The Art of Storytelling Yvonne Yan illustrates her experiences with pingshu My introduction to pingshu, traditional Chinese storytelling, was Yuan Kuocheng’s “Journey to the West”, a classical Chinese novel popular among all ages. Since then, pingshu has become a significant part of my bedtime story. I fall asleep imagining the Handsome Monkey King angering all the gods and fighting against the deities, swinging his 17,550-pound golden rod from heaven to hell, and using his 72 transformations to overcome all challenges throughout the journey. Words come out of Yuan’s mouth like clips of movies, vivid and captivating, as if the characters appear right in front of me.

Listening to pingshu has allowed me, along with generations of Chinese, to appreciate the art of oral stories and the most powerful aspects of Chinese culture.

Most of the pingshu stories that I have listened to are drawn from Chinese history and can be broken into several classifications.

The story of loyal and law-abiding officials or chivalrous and dauntless folk heroes, for instance, is my favorite. The characters in this type of pingshu, such as the “Pure Official Bao”, help the commoners fight against evil and corruption in society, symbolizing the virtues of leniency and integrity.

Other types of pingshu also have their own characteristics: the conflicts during

the Three Kingdom Period following the Han Dynasty and the early heroes of the Tang Dynasty are typical stories of the establishment of Chinese dynasties; the widely known stories of the Yang family and the renowned Chinese hero Yue Fei both depict tales of dynasties and conflicts, relating to a specific group of soldier’s experiences in resisting barbarian invasions; the last type of story, which differs from the previous three

photos by Junfeng Yan types in both content and narration style, is about fictional legends of monsters, ghosts, or about being challenged in life. The most well known story of this type is “Journey to the West,” which depicts the arduous journey of a small group traveling to see Buddha in order to gain enlightenment.

During my brief interactions with contemporary pingshu artists, I have come to learn more about the art as a folk tradition

chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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Life & Culture

of telling stories. Since the mid-Qing dynasty, pingshu gradually became an important recreational tool for people to communicate information, share interests, and enjoy their glorious history. Traditional pingshu artists usually perform in teahouses or small theaters, where people can gather around on a nice afternoon.

Like calligraphy and many other Chinese traditional art forms, pingshu requires years of training. Such experience comes from a long apprenticeship with a master. An aspiring storyteller might have to perform years of basic chores, such as cooking for the family and cleaning the house. Most importantly, the artists must passionately devote time, effort, and talent to the business of attracting a permanent audience. The famous Pingshu artist Yuan, who retired several years ago, once characterized pingshu as “difficult mental and physical labor.” Not only do the artists have to memorize long passages, sometimes hundreds of thousands of words long, they also have to incorporate the origins of certain customs, the backgrounds of characters, the history and geography, and other enchanting facts about the stories they tell.

To help the artists narrate stories in a more exciting way, pingshu has also developed a few widely used stage props: a table, a folding fan, and an attention-catching wood (xingmu). It is incredible to imagine that riveting performances can be achieved using such simple objects. The performer usually stands behind the stable during the entire performance. The attention-catching wood, a rectangular piece of dark wood, is knocked against the table to start the perfor38

Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

mance and to highlight climactic moments of the story. The artist uses the folding fan to illustrate certain physical actions, such as brandishing a sword or reading a book.

Ironically, while modern technology has threatened the existence of traditional art forms, it has at the same time helped out pingshu in many ways. Professional storytellers can now record their stories on a variety of media, so that more people can have access to their work. The change has benefited people like me, who prefer listening to pingshu on a MP3 rather than going to a teahouse. Capturing the stories in digital form also preserves the stories themselves, leaving an important legacy of Chinese culture. Whenever I am confused about the use of a certain phrase in Chinese, I can always find an explanation in a pingshu story.

From years of experience listening to Pingshu, I have gradually come to form my own insights about the art. What is more important than narrating a story, “shu,” in my opinion, is “ping”, which means the process of appreciating and commenting. The artists need to understand the morals of the stories themselves, translate them into their own words, and comment on their significance. “Artists should not seek shortcuts, nor should the stories be tepid. Keep in mind that practice makes perfect”, Yuan said.

Through depicting brave soldiers, loyal officials, and vicious monsters, pingshu stories also convey the underlying values of Chinese culture. Liu Lanfang, the current president of China’s Ballad Singers Association has commented, “pingshu delivers a sense of

positivity, with the central theme of each story basing upon filial piety, philanthropy, and honesty.” Her famous pingshu, “The Story of Yue Fei,” was the most popular story among young people in the 1980s.

Accounting the life of a general who led the Southern Song dynasty’s army to fight against the Jin people’s invasion, the Story of Yue Fei stimulated the young and energetic to study hard, restore China’s economy, and work for the future of the country. Although the idea of being loyal to the emperor has long died out since the end of China’s feudal dynasty, feelings of patriotism have been maintained and imbued in generations of Chinese through storytelling.

At the same time, the Story of Yue Fei ends with Yue Fei being killed by Qin Hui, who is forever associated with treason in Chinese culture. People have built statues of Qin, along with three other traitors who killed Yue Fei, in front of Yue’s cemetery in Hangzhou. Even today, many express their anger towards the traitors by kicking or spitting at their statues while visiting and paying respect to Yue’s tombstone. The two main themes that all pingshu stories have in common, patriotism and the contrast between good and evil, are best combined and presented in the Story of Yue Fei. More often than not, the people who listen to pingshu stories belong to my parents’ or grandparents’ generation. They grew up in an environment in which listening to pingshu was the only thing to do everyday after dinner, and they can’t imagine not having these stories in their lives. Although I started listening to pingshu with my father when I was in elementary school, it was not until middle school that I started to fully appreciate this art.

I often go back and listen to Journey to the West, my first pingshu tale. I think about how the Handsome Monkey King challenges Buddha and other authority figures fights against villainous monsters, and defends commoners against inequality. Through his story, the Monkey King has inspired me to establish my own moral guidelines, to never fear authority and to never be condescending to others.

My generation is lucky to have many trendy options for entertainment, and most tend to spend their free time online or watching television.

I don’t. I choose pingshu.

Yvonne Lawrenceville

Yan

is School.

yyan16@lawrenceville.org.

a junior at Contact her

the at

Life & Culture

Thinking Small Andrea Smith takes a look at JUNO and China’s push into particle physics In the field of science and technology, China has consistently trailed the developed world for the past 50 years. With the proposed Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), expected to be completed in 2019, however, it seems China is ready to take steps to get ahead, at least in the field of particle physics.

Particle physics, the study of the properties of and interactions among subatomic particles, is truly on the cutting edge of scientific research. Its objects of study are hard to observe, incredibly small, and seem to behave differently than “everyday” matter.

The implications of understanding their behavior could be significant for understanding the way the universe works. For this reason, particle physics experiments currently tend to attract large investments and great minds.

JUNO is not China’s first voyage into the realm of nature’s most basic particles, but is representative of a step in the scaling-up direction. China’s previous experience with particle physics most notably includes the recently constructed PandaX Dark Matter Detector, and the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, which started collecting data in 2011. JUNO will be a continuation of the Daya Bay project. Its expressed main goal is to determine the masses of particles called neutrinos, “a fundamental question of neutrino physics”, according to JUNO spokesperson Yifang Wang.

and technology developers like the United States and Japan. Each of these countries already have in operation several particle accelerators and other laboratories used to study particle physics and neutrinos on a large scale.

Dr. Wang believes China is the ideal location for the new neutrino lab, though, because it is possible to “find two reactor complexes at an equal distance to an underground experimental site.” It is likely, he adds, that “other countries cannot find reactors and an underground site to satisfy all the requirements.”

And JUNO is just the first step. Already in the works for China is a super particle collider, planned to be completed by the year 2028. If realized, the lab will take the crown for world’s largest collider, overtaking the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is the world’s current leader, with a 27km circumference, but would be easily dwarfed by China’s potentially 52km super collider. The US and Europe have also begun developing plans for a super collider, but at this point, could not hope to complete it before 2035. China is in a rush to be the biggest and the best, but how feasible is it for the rapidly-developing country to get there?

China’s hunger to become the next international powerhouse in science is apparent.

But in its current position, it seems unlikely

“The hope is, with investment in large-scale projects like JUNO, China can begin to beat the traditional science powerehouses to the big discoveries and rely less on frantically turning out trivial results.”

Located in China’s Guangdong Province, the $330 million project will be run by an international collaboration of over 200 scientists from all over the world. According to the official JUNO website, researchers hope to reach an “international advanced level” in many different aspects of neutrino research, clearly showing China’s desire to compete on the same level as big science

China will be able to achieve this status on its own. Chinese government spending in the science and technology sector has increased drastically in recent years and is projected to surpass the United States’ total research and development funding by the year 2022.

The scientific results has not been as impressive. The National Science Foundation reports that, in terms of output of research

photo cour tesy of Argonne national laboratory

articles, China jumped from 14th place in 1995 to 2nd place in 2007, and by 2009 accounted for 9% of total world output of scientific articles. But Chinese-published papers are not cited nearly as often as USpublished papers, due to a gap in research quality. China’s focus seems to have been not on making the most innovative discoveries, but on simply making the most discoveries. A 2012 Nature article (‘China’s Budget Backs Science’) remarks that “the country produces relatively few high-impact articles, and that the majority of Chinese patents constitute minor novelties rather than genuine innovations.”

The hope is, with investment in large-scale projects like JUNO, China can begin to beat the traditional science powerhouses to the big discoveries and rely less on frantically turning out trivial results. Should JUNO become a successful endeavor, it could begin to attract worldwide attention toward China’s science programs and give China the edge it needs to work with or even ahead of the US and Europe, kick-starting meaningful scientific research and development.

In order to compete on an international scale, China needs to maintain its current research output, but without sacrificing the kind of quality that countries like the United States achieve. Investing in research projects like JUNO is a good way to start shifting the focus of Chinese research away from shortterm output goals and toward the pursuit of true scientific development.

Andrea Smith Yale

University.

is a sophomore at Contact her at

andrea.t.smith@yale.edu. chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

39

In this Section

Interview with Jerry Yang p. 41

The Value of History p. 42

Opinion illustrations by Zishi Li

Interview

Serving the Bilateral Relationship Forrest Lin talks to Gary Locke about his ambassadorship in China

G

ary Locke has served in a variety of roles in the public service, as Governor of Washington State, Secretary of Commerce, and most recently, United States Ambassador to China. Since former Ambassador Locke has been busy with various endeavors, I conduct a phone interview with him to discuss highlights of his career in public service, especially his experiences representing the US in China. From the other end of the phone comes Locke’s firm and welcoming voice.

As an Asian American in American politics, Locke is proud of his origins and aware of the special role he is playing. His family’s humble beginning in the country dates back to over 100 years ago, when his grandfather immigrated to Washington State to work as a houseboy. Locke notes that the Governor’s mansion is only one mile away from where his grandfather worked, and jokes – as he has done before in other interviews – that it took his family 100 years to move one mile. Locke voices his belief that the journey his family took reflects a quintessential experience shared

by Americans of all backgrounds.

I note that Locke attended Yale College (JE ’72) at the height of the Vietnam War, one of the most volatile time periods in recent American history, and ask if his experiences at Yale influenced him to serve in public office. Locke acknowledges that it was at Yale, amid the tension and tumult of the Civil Rights movement, as well as the Vietnam War, that he first felt a calling to help push for social change and progress.

Without a doubt, one of the highlights of Locke’s career is his ambassadorship to China.

Locke proudly remarks that it was an incredible experience to represent America in this bilateral relationship and an honor to be the first US Ambassador to China of Chinese descent. I can feel his excitement and sense of accomplishment on the other end of the line.

Locke enthusiastically recounts the increase in Chinese tourism to the US and the further enhancement of bilateral economic relationships during his tenure. Locke famously 40

Volume 3 Issue I | Fall 2014

made it easier for Chinese citizens to obtain US visas, decreasing the waiting time despite a 70% increase in demand. He believes that the boost in tourism has truly fostered more people-to-people exchange and offered great opportunities for the American economy.

In addition to improving tourism, Locke is particularly proud of increasing awareness about human rights issues during his ambassadorship, namely the management of the Chen Guangcheng case. Chen is a self-taught lawyer and human rights activist who served a sentence on charges of disturbing the peace for filing forced abortion cases against Chinese local government officials. Even after his release from prison, Chen was kept under house arrest until he managed to escape to the American embassy in Beijing. Locke led a team that negotiated for his fair treatment in China, and he is especially appreciative of the efforts of other U.S. officials at the embassy and the State Department. Locke also recounts his meetings with various human rights and activist groups all across China, including Uighurs in Xinjiang and Buddhists in Tibet.

Locke then shifts gears to another one of his accomplishments as ambassador. He is delighted to have raised awareness about air pollution in China, increasing the number of Particulate Matter (PM) indicators at US consulates all across China. These indicators, Locke says, really raised the consciousness of the issue of air pollution among Chinese people. Consequently, public opinion pressured the Chinese government to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem and to start taking measures, such as publishing air quality data, to further raise awareness and improve air quality. Locke recalls visiting many parts of China and being thanked by random strangers for letting them know what PM 2.5 is (PM 2.5 is a measurement of the density of harmful pollutant particles that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter). He jokes that today, there are more Chinese who know about PM 2.5 than Americans.

Locke’s sincerity is almost tangible when he

gary locke voices his belief that for Americans to better understand China, they need to live in China, even if just for a few months. This is why Locke ardently advocates on behalf of programs such as the 100,000 Strong Educational Initiative. He points out that most of the challenges that the US and China will face in the future cannot be solved by the Americans or the Chinese alone, so active cooperation between the two countries – by governments, by scientists, and by businesspeople – will be essential. Through the 100,000 Strong Initiative, Locke aims to continue to encourage more Americans to study in China.

Finally, I ask Locke whether he has any plans to return to public office. Locke graciously responds that while he feels incredibly fortunate to have served in such a variety of roles and has thoroughly enjoyed his time in public service, he harbors no plans ever to work in elected office again. He hopes to be involved in helping campaigns, especially the 2016 Presidential campaign, but he has no desire to regain a political position. As for US-China relations, Locke is sure to become an active and lifelong supporter in promoting bilateral relations between the two nation’s governments, businesses, and especially their people.

Forrest Lin is a junior at Yale University and deputy managing editor of the magazine.

Contact him at forrest.lin@yale.edu.

opinion Interview

Out of Character

Scarlett Zuo speaks with Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, about “Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy,” an exhibition featuring selections from his collection of Chinese calligraphy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

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n a gallery room full of massive works of calligraphy, Jerry Yang greets me with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Yang has many labels: co-founder of Yahoo!, angel investor, philanthropist…the list goes on. Few people recognize him as a passionate collector of Chinese calligraphy.

Yang offers to give me a tour of the exhibition, so I follow him into the numerous gallery rooms, softly and warmly lit to blend in with the century-old papers on the wall. He then introduces the artists and the story behind each piece as I walk down the gallery rooms with him and curator Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, who speaks highly of Yang’s knowledge of calligraphy and the quality of his collection.

The forty-five pieces on view showcase the evolution of Chinese calligraphy and its significance to Chinese culture. From Shitao’s Five Poems on Plum Blossoms, to Huang Daozhou’s Poem Dedicated to Wen Zhenmeng, to Zhao Mengfu’s The Lotus Sutra, calligraphy is utilized to depict daily life, social interactions, and religious beliefs.

One may wonder why a tech guy would fall in love with ink and brush. Indeed, one often associates traditional art with works of the Old Masters and technology with computer and smartphones – they do not seem to be-

long to the same world. However, technology has constantly pushed the progress of artistic development. New materials and tools have enabled artists to create new forms and new experiences: imagine Vermeer without camera obscura or Warhol without acrylic.

The creativity and innovative spirit of ancient Chinese calligraphers often inspire Yang.

Many of the calligraphers were edgy for their time, experimenting with different brush materials, paper, and styles, Yang says. He believes there is hardly any difference between using technology to renovate software and testing possibilities to transform an old art form.

When we look at the Writings in Praise of a Houseboat China, a long hand scroll by Li Mengyang and twelve other calligraphers in the Ming dynasty, Yang compares it to a modern-day newsfeed where people write on top of each other’s posts. “This is the original social network,” he laughs.

Yang now even occasionally practices calligraphy at home, but he admits he is not very good. He points at the cover of The Thousand-Character Classic by Wen Peng of the Ming dynasty, where Yang wrote the title on a slip in clerical script. “Now I can tell people I’m being exhibited at the Met,” he jokes. “I’m in the case!”

jerry yang At the end of our tour, Yang expresses his hope to share Chinese calligraphy with the American public. Although Chinese calligraphy is often seen as archaic and obscure, Yang sees it as a gateway to Chinese culture and history. He hopes that viewers can see calligraphy not just as decorative art, but also as a record of the creative processes and social interactions of Chinese intellectuals, as inspiring today as ever.

Scarlett Zuo is a junior at Yale University.

Contact her at scarlett.zuo@yale.edu.

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opinion op-ed

The Value of History Schuyler Schouten, a Senior Director at Kissinger Associates, argues for the importance of studying Chinese history

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S-China relations, once the province of a small group of experts in each country, now unfold through countless daily interactions in a range of fields. Whatever role you may play in a bilateral relationship of defining importance to the future, spare a thought for the past. The study of Chinese history offers a useful complement to any professional skillset.

Americans are by nature forward-looking—an outgrowth of our status as a new venture in the “New World.” This trait is reinforced by our diverse origins: where no common past beckons, a shared future seems a more natural focal point.

In China and in several of its key neighbors, the past is an integral aspect of the present. It is the guidepost against which the rise and fall of national fortunes are regularly and instinctively measured; a vital element of political and foreign policy maneuvers; and an intangible psychological aspect animating endeavors as diverse as athletics, architecture, space exploration and infrastructure investment.

No country is a rote copy of its past. Nor are Chinese people of today, living in a country networked and open to the world as never before, confined to aspiring to replicate the golden ages of their ancestors. In many respects, China is testing and debating new models and syntheses that would represent a departure from any previous era.

in, for example, the Rome of year 0 and the Italy of today. Even Mao Zedong, the revolutionary leader who set out to uproot China’s traditions, told Richard Nixon in 1972 that he had “only been able to change a few places in the vicinity of Beijing.”

Where Americans dismiss “19th-century rules” as inapplicable to a 21st-century world, many Chinese—including reformers—perceive China as subject at least in part to a cycle unfolding over dozens of centuries. Even where they seek to transcend history, they assess that they ignore its patterns at their peril.

China’s transformative champion of “reform and opening up” Deng Xiaoping regularly referenced the Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government, an 11th-century classic recounting the previous 1,400 years of dynastic history.

The basic concept of history related in such records was cyclical. Chinese dynasties thrived when they established virtuous governance and a centralized bureaucracy in the Han-Chinese heartland, and at least a form of suzerainty over the culturally-kindred areas surrounding it. From this base they would use primarily diplomacy and economic incentives to make the Chinese capital the hub of a regional system of trade and political legitimacy.

When the central government lost its aura of unchallengeable authority and mastery over events—often through a combination of environmental catastrophes, official corruption or regional fiefdoms, foreign military incursions,

“In many respects, China is testing and debating new models and syntheses that would represent a departure from any previous era.”

Yet as recent experiences with Russia and Egypt make clear, revolutions do not erase the cultural and historical patterns in which they took shape. And the basic imperatives of statecraft and social organization have remained surprisingly consistent in China over the past two millennia—much more so than

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and rebellions by heterodox religious sects— dynasties fell, and a contest ensued to restore the structure of Chinese authority and influence.

Though the dynastic system ended in 1912, a semi-official grand narrative building off it suffuses contemporary Chinese public life. It

schuyler schouten holds that the last downturn in China’s fortunes began in the 1840s, and that political, economic, and cultural endeavors in China today should all in some sense relate to bringing the cycle back around to an era of unity, prosperity, and national prestige. China’s President Xi Jinping has forecast “the great revival of the Chinese nation” following “the 170 or more years of constant struggle since the Opium Wars.” He leavens his speeches with quotations from Confucian and Legalist philosophers from a pivotal era of Chinese unification over two millennia ago.

A more systematic familiarity with Chinese history would not mean that readers are resigned to conducting their affairs on traditional Chinese terms or affirming the maximum Chinese position on contentious issues.

Americans have their own deeply-felt goals and principles, and an Asia-Pacific role widely welcomed in the region (and affirmed in recent US-China joint presidential statements).

Still, a sense of history can prove useful in intuiting the basic objectives that Chinese counterparts in any field are pursuing and the issues on which they are likely to take a tough line. It can also illuminate Chinese domestic debates, in which historical events or figures sometimes stand in allegorically for contemporary ones.

opinion For example, the complex maneuvers regarding the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands (sometimes dismissed in the American debate as “a bunch of rocks”) are inexplicable without at least passing familiarity with the medieval Ryukyu Kingdom, the Meiji Restoration, the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War, World War II and the 1971 Okinawa Reversion Agreement.

The tangled sensitivities surrounding Sino-Vietnam relations make more sense in light of northern Vietnam’s millennium as a rebellious dominion of classical China. Hong Kong’s democracy protests build on a legal tradition inherited from the British era and adopted by locals as their own; Beijing’s response, as the Economist recently suggested, is informed by a wariness of instances of domestic discord on the mainland that spiraled into devastating conflicts.

Equipped with some of this background knowledge, it is easier to understand the vital importance, and occasional delicacy, of the American role in the Asia-Pacific—and to avoid the sense of surprised indignation that too often colors US-China relations. As

Henry Kissinger advised in On China, reflecting on Chinese history and his own unparalleled decades of ongoing dialogue with high Chinese officials, US-China relations pose a new conceptual challenge for both countries.

In navigating it, “Americans need not agree with the Chinese analysis to understand that lecturing a country with a history of millennia about its need to ‘grow up’ can be needlessly grating.”

A familiarity with the Chinese perception of history can also help in identifying areas of common interest. The central importance of agriculture, water-supply, and environmental stability in past Chinese eras—and the problems encountered by governments seen as failing to provide them—indicates that environmental and energy issues could provide an area for significant cooperation. A familiarity with the upheavals occasioned by the Yellow Turban Rebellion of the 2nd century, or the Taiping and Dungan revolts of the 19th—examples of more than academic curiosity in China—would suggest that Beijing is watching carefully the recent surge of re-

ligious-extremist violence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and may be open to at least quiet cooperation to combat it.

The tradition related by Chinese history is not only the stuff of high policy; it can surface in any of the endeavors that readers are likely to undertake. As a matter of basic courtesy as well as tactical effectiveness, it helps to have a sense of how colleagues and counterparts see the world and what kind of enterprise they regard their generation as engaged in. However you seek to contribute to US-China relations, consider taking a cue from a principle embraced by classical Romans and Chinese alike—and “use history as a mirror.”

Schuyler Schouten is a Senior Director at Kissinger Associates, an international advisory firm headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Schuyler’s work focuses on policy research and geopolitical analysis, with a particular focus on Asia and the Middle East. He was principal research associate to Dr. Kissinger for his best-selling book, On China, an examination of Chinese foreign policy and US-China relations.

book review

Learning to Remember Yifu Dong reviews Louisa Lim’s People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited

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f George Orwell were still alive, maybe he would have regretted naming his book 1984 instead of 1989. But as Orwell noted in 1984, the year would not have mattered, for no one in Oceania remembered the date anymore. Likewise, very few in China care to remember about the fateful date of June 4, 1989.

Yet, somehow, I learned. Having spent a year of elementary school in the US, I had come to learn more about the events of 1989 than most of my peers at home. I vividly recall watching a documentary film called “The Gate of Heavenly Peace,” borrowed from the Harvard-Yenching Library, at a lunch party with some Harvard graduate students from China. I, 11 at the time, watched with wide-eyed bewilderment as the scenes unfolded, while the older and wiser Harvard students seemed equally baffled. Later, in my American class, my teacher even asked me to explain the em-

blematic Tank Man photo to my class.

But before leaving the US, my mother reminded me to forget about all the forbidden knowledge I had accidentally acquired and not to talk “nonsense” after returning home.

Last year, when the same Tank Man photo was shown to 100 students in four of Beijing’s elite colleges active in the 1989 student movement, only 15 of them identified it correctly. Holding this picture and conducting this survey was Louisa Lim, author of People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. Lim, courageous and insightful, invites readers to revisit the events of 1989 in their own modern setting.

The first seven chapters of the book feature profiles of people who participated in or witnessed the events as well as young “amnesiacs” who are largely ignorant of the past. The last chapter, Chengdu, describes the often-neglected 1989 protests in chinahandsmagazine.com | China Hands

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opinion the southwestern metropolis. Lim uses State Department cables and interviews with eyewitnesses to reconstruct a more complete picture of the events in Chengdu, calling to attention incidents outside of Beijing in the eventful spring of 1989. Scholars had already noted the nationwide nature of the unrest, though a complete volume encompassing the experiences of all parts of China has yet to be written.

The main goal of The People’s Republic of Amnesia is by no means a simple documentary of stories and profiles. Lim breaks free from the commonplace discussion of history and its possible alternatives. Instead, the author sees the events of 1989 as a historical turning point and a springboard for the analysis of still-developing repercussions of that momentous occasion. Along with profile interviews, Lim neatly stitches together well-known vignettes in the news and on the Internet to showcase the legacies of 1989 and analyze the problematic aspects of contemporary Chinese society.

Among these analyses, “amnesia” is the recurring theme. It is not only a symptom, but also, as Lim suggests, a survival mechanism for many Chinese. Lim captures the amnesia of typical Chinese people, especially the youth, such as the college students in the Tank Man survey. The forgetful youth featured in the book belong to the so-called “post-80’s generation” in China, the group perhaps most inclined to amnesia. Young people of the post-80’s generation usually have parents who were innocent advocates of the Cultural Revolution but were later sent to the countryside and deprived of formal education. A relatively oppressed generation, their parents understood all too well the dangers of politics and developed amnesic mechanisms themselves. In addition to their parents’ influence, the post-80’s generation grew up in an environment where political education tightened after 1989 and the Internet—perhaps the only possible source of free information in China—was still out of reach. Moreover, after graduating from college, many of them have to deal with cutthroat competition, possible unemployment, rising prices and a lack of financial support from their parents. Under such insecure circumstances, the post-80’s generation has adopted amnesia as a defensive response to avoid unnecessary troubles.

What Lim misses is the “post-90’s generation,” who grew up in a relatively more open environment with more access to free information. The outlook for them may be a bit more optimistic than Lim presents. In 44

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my high school, there were even students who commemorated the anniversary in early June by going to Tiananmen Square, dressed up in school uniforms and waving small Chinese flags. They also sent postcards of Tiananmen to teachers who had mentioned the truth about the events of 1989 in class, even if only for a brief moment.

Many of my peers of the post-90’s genera-

too much to bear. All the success the regime achieved after this dramatic historical turning point, Lim argues, came at the cost of humanity, which matters most to Lim. Humanity can be discussed in the contexts of philosophy and ideology, but for Lim, humanity can be as simple as “Facts are facts. Right is right. Wrong is wrong.” Here, Lim quotes Tang Deying, an elderly woman

“Lim, however, contends that the price is too much to bear. All the success the regime achieved after this dramatic historical turning point, Lim argues, came at the cost of humanity, which matters most to Lim.” tion are actively seeking out the truth, either out of curiosity or out of a sense of justice.

Although this ray of hope is far from mainstream at the moment, it may prove significant in the future.

Despite the underrepresentation of the post-90’s generation, Lim explains in great detail why amnesia matters amid the predominant counterarguments that abound in the official narrative of the Communist Party, as well as in the minds of beneficiaries of the current system. One forceful counterargument is voiced by Eric X. Li, a Chinese venture capitalist who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in February 2012 to argue the superiority of China’s current political system. Li does not seem to show the symptoms of amnesia; he directly confronts the sensitive topic of 1989: “The Chinese nation paid a heavy price for that violent event, but the alternatives would have been far worse.” Most people are psychologically inclined to unconsciously justify existing systems, but Li, as a beneficiary of the system, feels compelled to make his judgment explicit. Similarly, many Chinese people, even including a few of the 15 knowledgeable students who successfully identified the Tank Man photo in Lim’s survey, overtly support the current system. These people readily acknowledge that the country paid a heavy price, but given the progress China has made since 1989, it seems everything was all worth it.

Lim, however, contends that the price is

who tried fighting for an explanation after losing her son in the Chengdu crackdown. Humanity is in peril in the minds of the young people Lim interviews. Humanity seems to persist in the quiet corners of Chinese society where Chen Guang, a soldier-turned-artist who participated in the “clearance” of the Square, and Bao Tong, a top Party official who was detained before the crackdown for his wrong political leanings, struggle with faith as well as despair.

Most people in the West take for granted Lim’s stance on humanity, but in the course of human history, humanity has always coexisted with its counter-ideologies. China’s current counter-ideology cannot be better said than Li’s summary: in China political rights are seen as “privileges to be negotiated based on the needs and conditions of the nation.” In other words, while the West believes that certain political rights are God-given and inalienable, Communist ideology asserts that individual rights can be sacrificed for greater good. Lim’s argument on humanity, though only discussed at the very end, illuminates the entire book and puts forward a firm response to the amnesic counter-ideology. Amid today’s trendy discussions over China’s economy and politics, one should never underestimate the profundity of People’s Republic of Amnesia.

Yifu Dong is a sophomore at Yale University and an associate editor of the magazine.

Contact him at yifu.dong@yale.edu.

Features

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Global China Connection The 5th China Summit Global China Connection Peking University July Inaugural 6-7th 2013 centrally-organized conference

Yale University March 27–28th, 2015

Yale-China ASSOCIATION

Announcing our Yale-China 100K Strong Student Ambassadors 2013-2014 Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, New Haven

Maya Henderson

Janardhan Sutram

Yza Roque

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Metropolitan Business Academy, New Haven

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Jasmine D. Santiago

Raymond Hogan

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Long Chuan Metropolitan Business Academy

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Welcome Yale-China 2013-2014 Chinese Teaching Fellows from Changsha, Hunan

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ABOUT YALE-CHINA ASSOCIATION 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. Learn more at yalechina.org.

ABOUT THE 100,000 STRONG FOUNDATION The 100,000 Strong Foundation’s mission is to expand and diversify the number of Americans studying Mandarin and studying abroad in China. The goal is to bridge the gap between cultures, strengthen the U.S.-China economic and strategic relationship, and enhance global stability. Learn more at www.100kstrong.org

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