April 2015 News China

Hunan Buyers Club: Battling Big Pharma

SOCIETY

Unhappy Endings: China's Unwitting Divorcees

CULTURE

Yu Xiuhua: The People's Poet

BREAKING DAWN Will new management turn the Forbidden City into the Louvre of Asia?

$4.99 www.newschinamag.com

Volume No. 080 April 2015

ECONOMY

EDITORIAL

Published by China Newsweek Corporation Publisher: Liu Beixian Executive Director: Liu Beixian Editor-in-Chief: Wang Xiaohui Editorial Office Managing Editor: Zheng Zhonghai Advisor: Liu Dizhong Senior Editor: Ruan Yulin Copy Editors: Jack Smith, Alex Taggart Lead Writers: Yu Xiaodong, Li Jia Editors: Wang Yan, Yuan Ye, Xie Ying, Sun Zhe, Du Guodong First Reader: Sean Silbert Address: 5th Floor, 12 Baiwanzhuang South Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, China Post Code: 100037 Tel: 86-10-88395566 Fax: 86-10-88388045 Email: readers@newschinamag.com www.newschinamag.com Art Department Art Director: Wu Shangwen Art Editor/Designer: Zhang Dawei Publishing and Development Office China Newsweek Corporation President: Wang Xiaohui Chief Executive: Fred Teng Tel: 1-212-481-2510 Fax: 1-212-481-2503 Address: 820 2nd Ave, 3B-C, New York, NY 10017, USA Email: readers@newschinamag.com Toronto Office Director: Xu Changan Address: 51 Halstead Drive, Markham, ON Canada L3R7Z4 Tel: 1-905-604-6150 Fax: 1-905-604-6170 Email: canada@newschinamag.com Marketing Director: Wang Chenbo Account Manager : Ren Jie Tel: 86-10-88388027 Circulation Manager: Yu Lina Tel: 86-10-88311834 Advertising Director: Gao Weiwei Tel: 1-212-481-2510 Marketing Promoter: Jerry Meng Tel: 1-212-481-2510 New York Office: Wang Yongzhi, Ruan Yulin, Deng Min Washington Office: Zhang Weiran, Diao Haiyang Los Angeles Office: Mao Jianjun San Francisco Office: Liu Dan Houston Office: Wang Huan London Office: Zhou Zhaojun Tokyo Office: Wang Jian Paris Office: Long Jianwu Bangkok Office: Yu Xianlun Kuala Lumpur Office: Zhao Shengyu Moscow Office: Huang Xiujun Manila Office: Zhang Ming Berlin Office: Huang Shuanghong Sydney Office: Zhu Daqiang Brussels Office: Shen Chen Astana Office: Wen Longjie Rio de Janeiro Office: Mo Chengxiong Johannesburg Office: Song Fangchan Jakarta Office: Gu Shihong Kathmandu Office: Fu Yongkang Legal Advisor: Allen Wu ISSN 1943-1902

CN11-5826/G2

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

China’s bold new environment law will likely remain hamstrung

O

n January 1, China’s new environmen- the public has a basic constitutional right to a livtal protection law came into effect, able environment. Although China’s new environmarking the first time that China has mental law recognizes that individual citizens and incorporated environmental protection into its leg- social organizations have a right to access to “enislative efforts to foster social development. vironmental information,” the right of litigation Under the new law, companies that cause pol- is limited to a handful of government-recognized lution will be subject to harsher punishments and social organizations, effectively excluding the matougher fines. The law also stipujority of the general public from lates specific measures to safeguard participation in the supervision of The new law the public’s right to environmental the government’s environmental fails to address information, and to protect from protection efforts. retribution those who report polFinally, the new environmental some major issues lution. law does not address the lack of behind China’s However, despite this progress, independence of environmental deteriorating the new law fails to address some protection authorities at the local environmental major issues behind China’s detelevel, a major contributing factor situation. riorating environmental situation. behind China’s environmental Firstly, as the new law has been problems. As local environmental given no special jurisdiction, it may conflict with protection bureaus continue to rely on local govexisting laws, including the country’s agriculture ernments in terms of personnel and finance, their law, forestry law and water law, which fall under implementation of the new law may continue to the administration of different ministries. As the be hamstrung. Despite tougher punishments and environmental law does not take priority, other higher fines for polluting companies stipulated in ministries will be able to challenge perceived con- the new law, local environmental authorities still tradictions between the laws. need the approval of local governments to impleSecondly, the new law does not address the issue ment punitive measures. As polluting companies of power structures within these agencies, jeopardiz- remain an important source of local revenue, local ing the effectiveness of the law’s implementation. A governments lack the incentive to implement the major issue with China’s environmental problems new law seriously. is that the institutional framework regarding enviTo address these problems at their root, China ronmental protection is fragmented, with a variety needs to place environmental protection at the of agencies having overlapping authority. Although core of central policy. In doing so, China would the Ministry of Environmental Protection is often elevate the status of its environmental law to form held responsible for all environmental issues, its part of the country’s Basic Law. Moreover, it needs power is actually rather limited, as other agencies, to reshuffle the environmental and related agencies such as the Ministry of Land and Resources, the to establish a unified and effective environmental Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Ag- protection institution to coordinate environmental riculture, the National Bureau of Oceanography authorities at different levels. and the State Administration of Forestry all have a Besides legislation, more systemic institutional major stake in environmental policy. reform is required to effectively address China’s deThirdly, the new law does not clarify whether teriorating environment.

1

Contents

NOTHING FORBIDDEN

P12

Editorial

01 China’s bold new environment law will likely remain hamstrung

politics

10 Anti-Graft Campaign:

Military Discipline

Cover Story

society

28

32

Police Crisis: Stretching the Thin Blue Line Marriage Loophole : Divorced Unawares

12 Forbidden City

Grand Ambitions/Guarding the Gates/Shan Jixiang: “We are

making an effort to catch up”

2

P32

P46 NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by CFP

With a multi-million dollar refit, the Palace Museum is hoping to become a world-leading institution worthy of its millions of annual visitors

Contents

P60

P28 feature

culture

36 Paid-for Romance:

Love Virtually

56 Poet Yu Xiuhua:

In Her Own Words

international

visual REPORT

OUTSIDE IN

40 WWII Anniversary:

Parade Diplomacy

60 Modeled Role

environment

64 Tempting Tainan: Southern Belle

43 Exported Waste:

Trash Talk economy

46

50

Black Market Pharma: Adjusting the Dosage Cab-hailing Apps: In The Driver’s Seat

sports

54 Wang Hao:

The ‘Nearly Man’ of Ping Pong

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

P64 P56

Commentary

72 Free Trade Zones serve domestic and international agendas 04 MEDIA FOCUS 05 What They Say 06 NEWS BRIEF 08 Netizen Watch 53 China by numbers 66 real chinese 67 Flavor of the Month 68 ESSAY 70 CULTURAL LISTINGS

3

NewsChina, Chinese Edition

Oriental Outlook

February 2, 2015

February 2, 2015

Lost In Nanjing

Unbearable Cancer

In just over a year, Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, has become the front line of China’s anti-graft campaign, following the fall from grace of its mayor and Party chief. Both “bulldozer” mayor Ji Jianye and highprofile Party chief Yang Weize have left a strong individualist culture in the officialdom of the 2,600-year-old former national capital. Their respective downfalls have brought the city and its residents to a crossroads, and finding a suitable direction for development will be a difficult test for their successors. Over recent years, the city’s lack of a clear plan has proven to be a significant hindrance to its development, particularly compared to booming nearby cities like Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Rethinking the city’s advantages and disadvantages, Nanjing’s politicians have been warned to refrain from the common practice of seeking quick-fix solutions in pursuit of immediate benefits during their tenure.

Caijing January 19, 2015

Smog Still Rampant Following the continued deterioration of China’s nationwide air quality in recent years, Chinese governments at different levels have begun to realize the importance of combating pollution. 2013 turned out to be the year with the highest number of smoggy days across China since 1961 – of 74 key Chinese cities, only three met air quality standards. Within the last year in Beijing, a city frequently blanketed with smog, a series of measures were unveiled relating to industrial upgrading and strict control of vehicle numbers and high-polluting enterprises in areas surrounding the capital – Beijing closed nearly 100 more major polluting enterprises than planned. Nevertheless, the current complicated economic conditions and high targets for pollution control have made the contradiction even more acute. To meet ambitious air quality goals, scientific energy-saving and strict prevention and control measures are reported to be under consideration.

4

According to the World Cancer Report 2014 published by the World Health Organization, the number of people diagnosed with and dying from cancer has been on the rise since 2012, with China topping the tables for new reported cases and the overall death toll. A survey conducted by the Union for International Cancer Control across 42 countries showed that although cancer patients in developing countries were generally more likely to be pessimistic about their recovery prospects, the proportion in China was 43 percent, higher than the global average. More than 24 percent of cancer patients in Shanghai were found to be suffering from depression. For a long time in China, relatives and doctors have been focusing virtually all their attention on the illness itself, rather than providing emotional support for the sufferer. Psychological problems resulting from cancer are beginning to draw attention from hospitals and counseling centers as well as related organizations, but China is still in dire need of people and institutions equipped to improve quality of life and ease mental pressure on cancer patients.

China Economic Weekly January 25, 2015

WeChat Goes Commercial WeChat, the ubiquitous Chinese smartphone app that now has over 400 million active users, has gone from a simple instant messaging tool to the de facto means of online communication and social networking in the country. Since its debut, the app has attracted a growing number of people with diverse services including dating, shopping, finance and much else besides, changing the paradigm of many traditional industries. However, WeChat itself has so far been cautious about commercializing. While its developer, Internet giant Tencent, has emphasized that turning a profit is not currently the goal of the product, advertisements began to appear within the app’s interface on January 25, 2015. Nowadays, a growing number of users are moving from PC to mobile devices, but no mobile Internet products have yet managed to achieve genuine sustained commercialization, most notably Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent.

While WeChat is certainly not alone in its quest to crack the mobile profit model, it will likely serve as a litmus test for the whole Internet industry.

Southern Review January 25, 2015

‘New Normal’ Middle Class Starting from the 1990s, the middle class has become a cultural phenomenon in China, as well as a socio-economic one. Following rapid economic growth in recent years, China’s middle class has been gradually expanding, but the lack of a generally accepted official definition makes this difficult to measure. A sizable proportion of the middle class in China are plagued with housing, vehicle and credit card worries. Nowadays, China’s middle class are concentrated in big cities, but their effectiveness in enacting social change remains to be seen.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Illustration by Wu Shangwen

“Some believe‘the farther to the left, the safer the country,’while others believe‘the farther to the right, the more just the country.’Both sides are at an extremity, which fuels hostility and further narrows the space given to mutual understanding.”

Cao Lin, chief commentator of the China Youth Daily, calling for rational debate over mud-slinging.

“Don’t prod my wound, OK?” Star director Jiang Wen responding to a question about China’s censorship system during the 2014 Hong Kong International Film Festival.

“A good Chinese netizen should not only dare to support the Party - they should actively propagandize the Party to enhance the power of its values.”

An Xuanping, a commentator with nationalist daily the Global Times responding to the one-note online criticism of the government and the Party.

“Don’t be hostile to the rich and powerful.

A healthy society should encourage legal wealth creation. Farmers will not get rich by killing their landlords.”

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, joining other super-rich Chinese protesting increased taxes as a means to narrow the country’s income gap.

“It is a sign of progress that many local governments have weakened or canceled GDP indexes as measures of economic development.

However, we have to note that to completely ignore GDP is to go to an extreme.”

Tsinghua University economics professor He Maochun calling for a rational perspective on GDP data without completely sidelining it.

“When it comes to dealing with foreigners, especially Americans, many experts and academicians, baptized in neoliberalism, have grown accustomed to‘thinking of the other, never of oneself’for fear of offending Uncle Sam.” Jiang Yong, a researcher with China’s Center for National Strategy Studies, opposing China giving too much ground to the US in bilateral relations.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

“Drowning in tests, examinations and performance assessments, teachers are struggling to focus on teaching.”

Pan Chunlei, president of a local teacher training school in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, speaking out against the bureaucratization of his profession.

“Some officials like to make vague requests hoping it will induce others to take the initiative.

In practice, this just means they’re never satisfied with the results. ” Wang Lifang, an architecture professor at Tsinghua University, criticizing the caprice of those in charge of construction projects.

“What we should find out is not how a terrible movie or TV show got made, but how it became popular. What is it that has so corrupted the public’s sense of taste?”

Commentator Cai Hui of the Beijing Morning Post suggesting opening up China’s cultural market to improve the quality of TV and movie production.

5

Top Story

China Makes Agriculture Top Priority

On February 1, the Chinese government issued its first work guideline of the year, generally known as the “No. 1” document, focusing on agricultural issues.

Compared with last year’s document, the 2015 edition emphasizes an intention to deepen reforms and innovation in agricultural development, exploring new agricultural growth through scaled production and optimization of industrial structures.

In order to achieve these targets, the document proposes to develop multiple and diverse production methods based on regional geography and conditions, establish a batch of prestige brands, and promote reform of land transfers to protect the rights and interests of farmers.

Given that the government

has pledged to attain a “new normal state of economic development” prioritizing quality over quantity, the document also puts heavy importance on ecological protection, warning against the misuse of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as over-development of land and water resources.

According to media reports, China has made agricultural issues its top priority for the past 12 years. Analysts say that rising agricultural costs have made it impossible for China to stimulate agricultural development with financial support alone, and that it would be more effective to further activate the market by introducing new technologies and promoting supporting industries and services related to agriculture.

Targets:

Raise the Three Rates: land productivity, labor productivity and resource utilization rate Achieve the Three Developments: resource conservation, intensive farming and sustainable development Achieve the Three Multiplies: multiply land, multiply agricultural methods and multiply operations

Methods:

Strengthen structural re-adjustment Promote technological development Introduce new circulation of agricultural products and improve the pricing system Better coordinate resources in domestic and international markets Encourage social services for agricultural development and broaden farmers’income streams Deepen reform of rural finance, land transfer and legal construction

People

Jack Ma No Longer China’s Richest

Li Hejun

6

Hurun, China’s Equivalent of Forbes, issued its 2015 Global Rich List on February 4, indicating that Li Hejun, founder of leading solar photovoltaic supplier Hanergy Holding Group, has overtaken Alibaba founder Jack Ma to become China’s richest person.

According to Hurun’s data, Li possesses 160 billion yuan (US$25.4bn) in assets, moving him up 108 places from his 2014 Hurun ranking, and putting him at 28th worldwide.

The rapid growth in his wealth has been attributed to his engagement in thin film

power, which analysts have identified as a significant growth sector due to China’s heavy emphasis on developing a green economy. According to Hurun, Hanergy, listed in Hong Kong, now holds stock valued at US$13 billion. The billionaire Li also owns a number of unlisted companies in the fields of hydropower and solar power.

With 155 billion yuan (US$24.6bn) in assets, Wang Jianlin, real estate and cultural industry impresario and owner of Wanda Group, placed second on Hurun’s China rich list, followed by Jack Ma, who owns 150 billion yuan (US$23.8bn) in assets thanks to Alibaba’s record-breaking listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Industry

Air Crash in Taiwan

China Issues 2014 Report on Internet Security

43 out of 58 passengers and crew were killed when a TransAsia Airways aircraft crashed into a road bridge and became submerged in the Keelung River in Taipei. 28 mainlanders were among those who lost their lives.

The tragedy happened at 10:54 AM, February 4, 2015, only three minutes after the plane took off from Taipei Songshan Airport for Kinmen.

The aviation safety committee of Taiwan published records Business

Qualcomm Fined for Monopoly China’s 14-month monopoly investigation into American semiconductor company Qualcomm has concluded, with the latter being fined 6.1 billion yuan (US$975m) and promising to alter its patent fees targeting Chinese producers.

The investigation began in November 2013 when the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which oversees pricing in China, accused Qualcomm of misusing standard essential patents and charging excessive patent fees.

Holding a large number of telecommunication patents, Qualcomm has established a controversial model

from the black box flight recorder on February 6, claiming that the plane had received two stall warnings due to the malfunction of both of its engines.

The second TransAsia Airways crash in seven months, the incident has been blamed on the airline’s poor safety measures. 29 TransAsia pilots were subsequently suspended from duty after failing or missing safety examinations, and the public has called for the airline to conduct a safety audit of its fleet.

for patent charges, whereby it collects fees based on the price of the entire device in which its patented parts are used – a cell phone, for example – rather than the cost of the patented parts themselves, and includes the price of its widely-used microchips in the charge.

According to the new agreement signed between Qualcomm and theNDRC, Qualcomm will reduce the base of its patent charge to 65 percent of the price of a cell phone sold in the Chinese market and remove the additional conditions from the sales of its chips, which are reportedly used by over 100 cell phone producers in China.

Both Qualcomm and its investors, however, welcomed the result of the anti-trust investigation, believing it will stabilize Qualcomm’s development in China, the world’s biggest market.

Disparity Between Local GDP and NBS Statistics (US$bn)

Economy

GDP Weakened in China

What kinds of theft do Internet users worry about?

Other Passwords Personal information Private photos

730.2

839.3

925.9

758.9

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

years.

Analysts have attributed the closing of this gap to the government’s proposal for a “new normal economic state,” where the speed of economic growth is secondary to its stability.

Based on the government’s latest regulation on performance assessment criteria for officials, published at the end of 2014, many local governments have reduced the weighting of the GDP growth criterion in measuring economic development, with Shanghai even canceling the index.

591.8

By February 4, 31 cities and regions in China had published their annual GDP figures for 2014, amounting to a total of 68.4 trillion yuan (US$10.8tn), about 4.8 trillion yuan (US$758.9bn) more than the national figure delivered by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Due to local governments’ historical preoccupation with GDP growth, China has long seen a gap between the national GDP figure and its regional sum. In 2014, however, this gap shrunk for the first time in six

Beijing’s Renmin University of China, together with Internet giant Tencent, jointly released their 2014 report on Internet security in early February, warning against poor awareness of web security among Chinese netizens.

The report reveals that virus problems have continued to grow over the past three years due to the increased involvement of computers in daily life. In 2014 alone, Tencent’s Internet security lab discovered more than 135 million viruses active within China, 31.9 percent more than in 2013 and 49.4 percent more than 2012. Pop-up advertisements, password theft and “fast flux” attacks are the top three methods of invasion, according to the report.

Due to their fast development, cell phones are also a major target. In 2014, Tencent reported over one million virus packages targeting Android cell phones, 31.4 percent more than in 2013, and around 400 percent more than 2012. Besides viruses, junk mail and telemarketing calls have also become big headaches for smart phone users.

Online banking information

Source: Tencent & Renmin University

7

Photos by CFP

Society

Provoking Li Baojun, a delegate to the People’s Congress of Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, was revealed to have illegally constructed a basement beneath his home in downtown Beijing, which caused a nearby road to collapse. Media said that Li began the project a year previously, despite the protests of neighbors who are now living in temporary accommodation in a nearby restaurant. The case is currently under investigation.

To force himself to abstain from the Internet, a 19-year-old middle school student surnamed Wang in Nantong, Jiangsu Province cut off his left arm and dumped the severed limb at a bus station. His parents finally talked their son into retrieving his arm and having it reattached.

Moving

Chinese health authorities are soliciting public opinion on the addition of gold leaf to some varieties of the popular Chinese liquor baijiu. Supporters see the innovation as simply an inventive marketing ploy, while opponents claim it is merely another opportunity for conspicuous consumption, with some suggesting it could also damage drinkers’ health.

Agree. Such slang is indeed rude and vulgar. (46.3%)

Hard to say.

(10.7%) Source: www.sina.com.cn

Most Circulated Post Retweeted 55,605 times by February 6 Living in a big country like China, separation is a fact of life. The following set of pictures moved netizens who were looking forward to reuniting with their families and friends over Chinese New Year.

In mourning for his wife, who passed away in 2008, Rao Pingru, a 92-year-old man, compiled 18 albums of sketches documenting their 70 years together, from their first meeting to their final parting, images which many netizens claimed moved them to tears.

8

Zhang Huaiqiong, a member of the Shanghai People’s Political Consultative Conference, has publicly slammed “online vulgarity,” demanding that official media outlets refrain from using Internet slang in their output. What do you think?

Disagree. Slang is a part of everyday speech. (43%)

Shocking

Controversial

Poll the People

“Onlookers might think these pictures are melodramatic. Only those who have experienced separation from their families and friends understand such pain.”

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

WHO’S

Top Five Search Queries On

HOT? WHO’S NOT?

over the week ending February 8 Depreciation of Yuan 287,451 The value of China’s currency has fallen by around 2.4 percent against the US dollar since November 2014.

PSP Copycat 223,445 A made-in-Shenzhen Playstation Portable (PSP) bundled with 888,888 games and selling for around US$10 was dubbed the “most powerful PSP copycat.”

Chinese New Year Gala 210,389 CCTV has published its program list for its televised annual Chinese New Year Gala, a variety show aired every Chinese New Years’ Eve since the 1980s.

CPC Ad 130,611 The Communist Party of China (CPC) launched a new promotional video in early February, with its high production values impressing online reviewers.

Top Blogger Profile Chen Danqing

Despite having quit microblogging long ago, 62-year-old painter and writer Chen Danqing has found further fame after being criticized by Qiushi, a Party-owned periodical, for being a “typical example” of teachers that some leftwing nationalists claim like to “blacken China” in front of their students. Though Chen’s drawings of Tibetan scenes have been universally admired as modern realistic masterpieces, Chen’s sharp criticisms of the government and the country’s political system have proven divisive. Outraged

by China’s ossified university enrollment system, Chen resigned in protest from his arts post at Tsinghua University in 2004. Now active on social networking app WeChat, Chen’s “bold and outspoken” writing, despite accusations from some quarters that he is an unpatriotic US apologist, has found favor with a broad audience.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Some of the images used in this section are from the internet

Worst Air Cities 196,670 The Ministry of Environmental Protection has published its list of the country’s 10 most polluted cities, seven of which were located in Hebei Province. Beijing, however, was not included.

Island Lovers An elderly couple has lived on an isolated island for 38 years since the wife began to suffer from a mystery illness that caused intense agoraphobia.

Growing Smaller Zeng Yushan, a 20-year-old woman living in Sichuan Province, has seen her body shrink to the size of a twoyear-old’s due to a tumor in her hypophysis which, according to doctors, has severely impaired her ability to secrete growth hormones.

Junkie Official An image of village-level official Li Hongbao taking drugs recently went viral in China. His local propaganda department in Changzhi, Shanxi Province, argued that the picture was “taken more than ten years ago” when Li was “still an ordinary young man,” leading to widespread criticism of double standards.

Jailed Swindler Nehei Prison in Heilongjiang Province has come under fire after Wang Dong, one of its prisoners, was exposed to have swindled several women out of thousands of yuan using an instant messenger app on his cell phone. Several policemen and wardens have been put under investigation for allegedly facilitating Wang’s con.

9

Anti-Graft Campaign

Military Discipline

Gu Junshan’s house in his hometown in Henan Province, November 19, 2014

The recent publicity surrounding an anti-corruption investigation into dozens of senior military officers indicates that China’s leadership is expanding its anti-graft and legal reform into unprecedented fields

By Xi Zhigang

W

ith China’s ongoing high-profile anti-graft campaign now well into its second year, the regular announcement of the fall of senior officials has made such stories less and less sensational. Despite this, many were still surprised when, on January 15, China’s Ministry of Defense published a list of 16 high ranking PLA officers who had fallen under investigation for alleged corruption in 2014.

Other than Gu Junshan, Deputy Director of the General Logistics Department of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) (the first major military figure to fall in 2014), and Xu Caihou, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), it was the first time that the public had been made aware of investigations into ten of the 16 names on this list.

Then, on January 29, the PLA Daily, official newspaper of China’s armed forces, reported that 200 senior PLA officers had been reprimanded, demoted or removed from their posts for reasons related to corruption as a result of an audit of 4,024 officers with the rank of

10

lieutenant colonel or above, including 82 generals.

For a long period of time, the PLA, which maintains its own internal legal system independent of the civilian courts, has enjoyed immunity from public scrutiny. Although a consensus has emerged among experts and the public that the problem of corruption, already endemic throughout China’s public institutions, is equally serious, if not more so, within the PLA, military officers snared by the Party’s crackdown have received comparatively little publicity.

It is unprecedented for China’s secretive military to announce an investigation into senior military officers in such a high-profile manner. Observers believe that this publicity indicates a major policy shift regarding how the leadership will handle corruption and other legal issues within the military.

Discipline

“The anti-graft campaign within the PLA is an integral component of national anti-corruption efforts,” Hou Xiaohe, a senior colonel NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by CFP

politics

and a strategy expert with the PLA’s National Defense University, told NewsChina.

A major sign of the expansion and strengthening of the anti-graft campaign has been the revitalization of the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CMC (CMCCDI).

Despite being the military equivalent of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the CMCCDI has far less power and independence from other military agencies in terms of its relationship with other Party organs.

Within the PLA’s internal power structure, the CMCCDI is subject to the General Political Department of the PLA, with the CMCCDI’s head outranked by incumbent heads of many other military agencies.

The current CMCCDI chief, Du Jincai, for example, is not even a member of the CMC. In recent months, however, the CMCCDI has become increasingly active. It was previously reported by Xinhua News Agency that the CMCCDI had sent three working groups to conduct inspections of all seven of China’s military districts between December of 2013 and the end of 2014.

Earlier, in November 2014, the CMC placed the Auditing Office, previously administered by the PLA General Logistics Department, under its direct control. As this body has spearheaded the auditing of various departments and districts, resulting in the fall of 200 senior officers, it is believed that the PLA Auditing Office has been cooperating with the CMCCDI on its tours of inspection, and is very likely to be officially placed under the administration of the CMCCDI in the coming months.

The fact that, for the first time in decades, CMCCDI members attended the CCDI’s annual working conference, which concluded in January, indicates that the PLA may soon become a major focus of the anti-graft campaign.

Rule by Law

Besides strengthened anti-corruption efforts within the military, the central leadership has also outlined a grander vision to extend its national “rule-by-law” agenda to the PLA. In the past two years, the senior Party leadership has highlighted the importance of improving the application of Chinese military law in the CPC’s third and fourth plenary sessions held in 2013 and 2014.

At the Fourth Plenum decision, the leadership called for “reform of the military justice system and the establishment of unified procedures for military prosecution and trials.”

In October 2014, Ding Xiangrong, one of the named contributors to the formal text of this decision released at the Fourth Plenum, was appointed head of the CMC’s Legislative Affairs Commission, the military equivalent of the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office.

After assuming his position, Ding’s office released a legal policy guide which identified a variety of problems said to have led to corruption within the military.

Following the Fourth Plenum, the PLA’s internal judiciary – the PLA Military Court and the PLA Military Procuratorate – appear to have gained more executive powers. Immediately after the Fourth

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Plenum concluded in November 2014, Major General Li Xiaofeng, President of the PLA’s Military Procuratorate, was promoted from the rank of army commander to the rank of deputy military district commander. In the same month, two additional vice presidencies were created for the PLA Military Court. Then on January 14, 2015, one day prior to the military releasing its list of fallen generals, official media announced that Major General Liu Jixing, president of the PLA Military Court, had received the same promotion as Li Xiaofeng.

These promotions and appointments have been linked to upcoming trials of the high ranking PLA officers named in the military’s official list.

In December 2014, 37 senior military officers, including Fan Changlong and Xu Qiliang, vice chairmen of the CMC and de facto deputy commander of the PLA, and China’s current defense minister Chang Wanquan, co-authored a series of articles in China Military Law, the official magazine of the the CMC’s Legislative Affairs Commission, to advocate the concept of “rule [of] the PLA by law.”

In an interview with China National Radio on January 27, Wang Haiping, a senior colonel and head of the Department of Military Law at the PLA Xi’an College of Politics highlighted some of the developments that Chinese military legal experts have been advocating.

Wang argued that China’s leaders should implement a law to govern both branches of the military judiciary, and highlighted the need for transparency in military courts. Wang also advocated full public access to military court cases unrelated to military secrets. Perhaps most surprisingly, Wang even stated that the PLA Military Court and the PLA Military Procuratorate should be made subject to the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s highest civilian judicial authorities.

It is unclear to what extent Wang’s comments, perhaps the first made in public by a military official regarding reform of the military’s legal system, reflect the intentions of the central leadership. Given the abundant media coverage of the investigations into Gu Junshan and Xu Caihou, and other investigations into senior military officers, there are signs that the leadership is gradually lifting the veil of censorship surrounding China’s military.

For many observers, recent developments regarding the military justice system are both a part of broader rule-by-law initiatives and a component of the Party’s stated overall strategy to build a powerful military and a strong nation.

According to Hou Xiaohe, the strategy expert, corruption inside the PLA has undermined morale and combat readiness throughout China’s armed forces. Given the status of China’s military, which includes the world’s largest standing army and boasts a significant nuclear arsenal, China will need to establish a sound legal framework and a robust internal legal system if the Party is to effectively govern the armed forces.

But for Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher with the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute, as with the rule-by-law initiatives currently being rolled out in China’s civilian sector, the key to the success of any reform of the military justice system will be implementation.

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cover story

CITY OF

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015

F WONDERS F

ormer home of 24 emperors, center of imperial power for over five centuries, and the scene of enough murders, plots and romantic trysts to fill a hundred seasons of Game of Thrones, the Forbidden City is China’s cultural and historical heart. However, the exhibitions and facilities of the Palace Museum (as it is formally known) remain overlooked in favor of more hi-tech and effectively marketed international counterparts.

Now, a new generation of managers, conservationists, architects and security personnel aim to turn this town-sized former residence into the Louvre of Asia. But can they really dust off that many cobwebs?

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

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Forbidden City

Grand Ambitions

Years of restoration work have made the Palace Museum, better known as the Forbidden City, a more open and user-friendly place for visitors. Yet many believe the complex still falls short of being a genuinely world-class museum. NewsChina attempts to get an insider perspective

By Wang Yan

O

n October 10, 1925, the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace of two Chinese dynasties and a symbol of the supreme power of 24 emperors, a focal point for majestic ceremonies and political intrigue for almost 500 years, opened its gates to the public.

Ever since, this once private preserve of the Sons of Heaven and their families and retainers, which occupies an area of 720,000 square meters (180 acres) in the heart of the nation’s capital, has officially been known as the Palace Museum, housing a collection of over 1.8 million artifacts, mainly relics of the ancient imperial court.

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Although over 10 million tourists from around the world walk through its immense Meridian Gate each year, most areas of the complex have, for various reasons, remained “forbidden” – off-limits to ordinary visitors – until now. Today, with the entire museum well into an 18-year, 2 billion yuan (US$320m) renovation project due for completion in 2020, twilight is slowly lifting from once neglected corners of this town-sized former royal residence.

Apart from restoring and re-touching the ancient architecture, the main goal of the museum’s makeover has been to make it more accessible and turn the complex into a

genuinely world-class repository of the glories of Chinese civilization.

Over the years, many critics have accused the Palace Museum administration of maintaining the complex at the minimum required standard, neglecting its development as a functioning public space accessible to visitors from all over the world.

In 2011, the Palace Museum experienced two embarrassing high-profile incidents which brought its management into disrepute. That May, 20 exhibition pieces on loan from a Hong Kong-based museum were stolen from under the noses of curators and guards within the palace complex.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by CFP

Visitors outside the Meridian Gate, the main entrance to the Forbidden City

Then, on July 31, the museum reported that a researcher had accidentally broken a rare thousand-year-old porcelain dish into several pieces while examining it.

Shortly afterward, whistleblowers accused the museum of running an exclusive club for Beijing’s wealthy elite from one of its former royal palaces. Allegations then emerged of museum officials paying hush money to insiders who threatened to expose the illegal sale of tickets to touts.

Revealing

Over 15 million people have passed through its doors annually in recent years,

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

and its officials describe their charge as “the world’s most visited museum,” yet the Palace Museum is not internationally recognized as such – an image problem its director is all too quick to acknowledge. The architecture of the Forbidden City remains the star of the show, and while few would question this perception, the Palace Museum’s failure to gain international recognition as a museum as well as a historic site remains a particular bugbear of its administration.

The entire complex employs 1,500 people, and started to receive State funding in the 1950s, ranging from millions to over ten million yuan per year, most of which was

earmarked for routine maintenance. Administrators started a major renovation project in 2002, said to be the most detailed and meticulous undertaken since the departure of the imperial family, aimed at restoring the complex’s original grandeur. The project first focused on the architecture along the palace’s central north-south axis, areas already open to the public, before shifting focus onto those as-yet unopened courtyards and residences.

According to museum officials, the project remains at least five years away from completion.

“The change between around 2005 and today is dramatic,” Gao Shuang, former

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serve as warehouses,” he added.

In 2015, for the first time in its history, the famous Palace of Benevolent Tranquility (Cining Gong), was opened to visitors.

Located in the western section of the palace’s inner court, the Cining Gong includes courtyard residences with luxurious apartments, temples and gardens which were once the living quarters of imperial dowagers and retired consorts, the last of whom departed along

with the Xuantong Emperor, also known as Puyi, in 1924. According to the museum’s official website: “Inside the strictly-disciplined Forbidden City, the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility was a rare retreat for the imperial consorts to seek consolation.”

Before the restoration project, the headquarters of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) occupied part of the palace, with the remaining buildings simply

Photo by Wang Yixuan/IC

tour manager for Viking River Cruises and a regular visitor to the Forbidden City, told NewsChina. “Before the renovations, its halls and palaces, especially the interiors, appeared rather dilapidated. Afterwards, all the open palaces regained the glorious appearance that has since inspired visitors.

“We aim to create more favorable conditions to increase the transparency and openness of the Palace Museum, so as to have the general public learn more about it,” Shan Jixiang told a press conference shortly after assuming office as the Palace Museum’s director in early 2012. Within a decade, Shan stated, he wanted to open up more areas of the complex to visitors, and return former residences currently occupied by offices to use as exhibition spaces.

The renovation project focused not only on cosmetic restoration work on the palace’s exteriors, but also saw the installation of new floors and lighting, alongside improved audio guides, signage and public information access. More ticket offices were also opened to shorten the museum’s notoriously long and congested lines. Staff now pledge that the average visitor will have purchased their ticket within 3-5 minutes of arrival, 15 minutes at the most. Elderly and disabled visitors can borrow free wheelchairs at the complex’s main tourist information center.

According to Shan Jixiang, restoration work has allowed an additional 20 percent of the palace’s floor space to be opened to the public since 2002, and the aim is to have 76 percent of the former royal residence open to the public by the end of the restoration project in 2020. “It is impossible for the museum to open 100 percent of areas to visitors because some narrow spaces are not suitable for visitors to enter, while other parts still need to

A ceramics exhibition held at the Palace Museum, September 2014

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

eaves. Well-paved roads were flanked with neatly-trimmed grass verges, with the whole complex a picture of elegance and serenity.

Also in 2015, the Cining Gong’s neighboring Palace of Longevity and Health (Shoukang Gong) will both be opened as either an exhibition space for antique statuary, or in-situ reconstructions of imperial court life.

Shan told our reporter that other prominent areas of the palace including the Flourishing Eastern Gate (Donghua Men) and the Gate of Rectitude (Duan Men), would also be made accessible. “By the end of 2015, floor space open to the public will increase to 65 percent of the museum’s total footprint,” he added.

Photo by Dong jiexu

Optimizing

A regular exhibition of embroidery in the Palace Museum

used for storage. “The [Cining Gong] looked like an old lady in ragged clothes compared to the well-preserved main palaces and halls on the central north-south axis,” ran a Sanlian Lifeweek Magazine report describing the condition of the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility in 2002. “Weeds grow everywhere in the courtyard, and the stone paving is broken, while pot-holed roads lead to main buildings made up of dilapidated wooden framework in fading colors.”

The reappointment of the Cining Gong NEWSCHINA I April 2015

started in April 2007 and was finally completed in mid-2011. Over 300 cubic meters of timber, 25,000 bricks, over 20,000 glazed tiles, and 12,500 pieces of square-shaped gold leaf were used in the project. On a visit in early February 2015, a NewsChina reporter experienced the full effect. Two bronze crane statues and four gold-plated bronze incense burners had been re-positioned in front of the main hall. Yellow-glazed tiles, the signature color of the imperial household, graced fully restored gable and hip roofs with double

In 2010, the Palace Museum finished its seven year project to fully catalog its entire collection of artifacts. According to the formal report, the project has documented a total of 1,807,558 cultural relics, about 1.68 million of which are classed as “very precious” according to nationally-imposed standards, meaning that some 42 percent of China’s most precious historical artifacts are contained within the walls of the Forbidden City.

Such a vast collection makes it impossible for the museum to display all of its artifacts to the public at once. “On average, approximately 10,000 pieces are on display at any one time,” Shan Jixiang told NewsChina.

Now, with more exhibition spaces open to the public, administrators hope to broaden the wealth of artifacts on display.

The Palace Museum divides its exhibitions into three categories. The first are “restitution displays” in the halls and palaces of the Outer and Inner courts such as the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, all crucial

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spaces for court life that have been maintained to appear as close as possible to their original state. The second category are “regular exhibitions” including those in the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (imperial treasures), the Hall of Worship of Ancestors (the imperial clock collection) and the Hall of Martial Valor (calligraphy and paintings). The third category covers touring, temporary and external exhibitions.

Some have criticized the museum’s approach to exhibition layout, which is largely restricted according to the interior design of the palace’s main buildings. “Each palace is divided into five or six different rooms, so any form of exhibition held inside is unavoidably interrupted, which restricts both content and description,” Sun Miao, deputy director of the museum’s exhibition department told our reporter.

In addition, the palace’s wooden architecture is highly porous, leaving artifacts vulnerable to dust, drafts and the ravages of Beijing’s arid climate. “In the exhibition hall under construction in the two wings flanking the Meridian Gate, we adopted a solution that involved building steel-framed glass rooms within the original wooden construction,” Sun continued. “However, this project is costly and extremely heavy-duty, and is thus unsuitable for use in other ancient buildings.”

This year, a total of 410 items of statuary are to be displayed in the newly-opened Palace of Benevolent Tranquility. In the ex-

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hibition, wooden and clay sculptures sensitive to temperature and humidity are to be displayed in high-quality, climate-controlled cases. Similarly, restitution displays, which feature antique furniture and fabrics easily destroyed by artificial lighting, are now being lit with either filtered natural light or fiberoptic systems to prevent damage.

The Palace Museum has also strengthened cooperation with world famous museums such as the Louvre and the British Museum.

In 2005 the complex hosted the “Louis XIV: the Sun King Treasures” exhibition on loan from Versailles as well as a Swedish-owned collection of Chinese ceramics. In 2006, it opened its doors to the “Treasures from the Kremlin” exhibition.

Marketing

Located in the very center of Beijing, facing across the Tian’anmen square, and flanked by the Great Hall of the People and the National Museum, both Soviet-style structures symbolic of Party authority, the Palace Museum has traditionally been seen as equally aloof and unapproachable. Its new director has been vocal in facing both the media and the general public, and has personally given lectures nationwide about his plans for the Forbidden City.

To demonstrate greater commitment to public outreach, apart from opening more exhibition areas to visitors, the Palace Museum has launched its official online store and microblog account, which currently has

some 3.2 million followers. It created two mascots reminiscent of those used to represent the 2008 Beijing Olympics: the dragon “Zhuangzhuang” and the phoenix “Meimei,” both of which wear Qing dynasty imperial costume. The museum is also reportedly working on a number of apps allowing the public to browse its artifact collections online via mobile devices.

Many believe this attempt to reach out to visitors has been too long in coming. With a record-breaking 15 million visitors annually, a number that far exceeds its official capacity, the Palace Museum continues to struggle to meet demand while also improving the visitor experience. However, improving how the entire complex is managed, unlike its new renovation program, has received little attenNEWSCHINA I April 2015

Most visitors follow the Forbidden City’s central north-south axis, while ignoring the Palace Museum exhibitions

tion. While Shan Jixiang has claimed that the “dual identity” of the Palace Museum (which is both an ancient architectural complex and, supposedly, a modern exhibition space) complicates management, other examples worldwide, including the Vatican Museums and the Louvre, manage to cope with such dual roles.

According to an anonymous insider source, it is now time for the administration of the Palace Museum to modernize. “Many parts of the collections on display are presented in a way that could be described as out of date,” this source told NewsChina, admitting, however, that “management is difficult since the exhibition halls are themselves protected examples of ancient architecture.”

Zhou Bing, director of award-winning NEWSCHINA I April 2015

documentaries including The Palace Museum, When the Louvre Meets the Forbidden City and Taipei National Palace Museum has publicly expressed his disappointment in the “insufficient” role played by the Palace Museum in educating young children and communicating with its audience. “A French lady once told me that the Louvre is where French people learn the definition of beauty from childhood,” Zhou told NewsChina in a recent interview. “I hope the Palace Museum can someday achieve its role to make Chinese children learn what beauty means from the perspective of Chinese esthetics.”

Indeed, museums worldwide increasingly focus on their roles as educational institutions, rather than mere warehouses for artifacts, to meet the needs of increasingly

sophisticated global audiences and, in many cases, boost flagging profits.

Guo Changhong, Director for the Department of Museums and Private Collections under SACH told NewsChina that, by 2013, there were a total of 4,165 museums across China, 299 more than in 2012, which translated into a new opening somewhere in the country every day. According to Guo, “the mentality of the Chinese audience has shifted from purely ‘hunting for novelty’ to ‘seeking esthetic education.’”

“Indeed, the idea of a modern museum is an imported concept for China. Just over one hundred years has passed since China’s first museum was established in Nantong [Jiangsu Province] in 1905. We still need to do a lot of work to promote a museum culture,” he continued.

However, due to the nature of the Palace Museum as an institution under the auspices of the central government, with its officials appointed by the central government, its internal management mechanism remains secretive, tight-knit and subject to a complex range of political interests. “The general trend among museums is to become more mainstream and less elitist, and the Palace Museum is being forced to open itself up accordingly,” said our anonymous insider source.

“However, there is still a long way to go before it becomes a modern museum,” she added. Chen Wei also contributed reporting

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cover story Palace of Gathered Elegance Palace of Earthly Tranquility Palace of Earthly Honor Palace of Heavenly Purity Palace of Universal Happiness Hall of Mental Cultivation Hall of Union

Gate of Divine Might

Palace of Longevity and Health Palace of Benevolent Tranquility The Imperial Kitchen

Hall of Martial Valor

Flourishing Eastern Gate Newly-Opened Public Areas (2015) Existing Public Areas

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Meridian Gate

East Wing of Meridian Gate NEWSCHINA I April 2015

World’s Most Visited Museums 2013

The Palace Museum

(individual visits)

Palace Museum Beijing, 14.56 million Louvre Paris, 9.3 million British Museum London, 6.7 million Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, 6.2 million Imperial Study

Palace of Tranquil Longevity Hall of Worship of Ancestors

Hall of Preserving Harmony Hall of Central Harmony Hall of Supreme Harmony

Pavilion of Embodying Benevolence Pavilion of Literary Profundity Hall of Literary Glory

National Gallery London, 6 million Vatican Museums Vatican City, 5.5 million Tate Modern London, 4.9 million Taipei Palace Museum Taipei, 4.5 million National Gallery of Art Washington, DC, 4.1 million Centre Pompidou Paris, 3.7 million Musée d’Orsay Paris, 3.5 million (Source: The Palace Museum, the Art Newspaper)

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

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Forbidden City

High-tech equipment and modern methodology are finally beginning to play a key role in the management of Beijing’s Palace Museum, perhaps the country’s most impressive and important historic site

By Wang Yan

Workers commence weekly cleaning work in the Palace of Heavenly Purity

“

This vast gathering of courts and palaces remains one of the most sublime architectural creations in the world.”

This is how art historian Pierre Ryckmans, writing under the pseudonym Simon Leys, described the Forbidden City, in his book Chinese Shadows. “The just nobility of these courts and roofs, endlessly reaffirmed under the changing light of different days and seasons, gives the onlooker that physical feeling of happiness which only music can sometimes convey. As a body loses weight in water, the visitor feels a lightening of his being to swim thus in such perfection.”

UNESCO listed the Palace Museum as a World Heritage Site in 1987, with the committee issuing the following description of the complex: “Seat of supreme power for over five centuries (1416-1911), the Forbidden City in Beijing, with its landscaped gardens

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and many buildings (whose nearly 10,000 rooms contain furniture and works of art), constitutes a priceless testimony to Chinese civilization during the Ming and Qing dynasties.”

The Palace Museum currently holds over 18 million individual artifacts, gathered from all parts of China over some 5000 years, from the neolithic to the modern era. Both these artifacts and the ancient architecture that houses them are strictly protected by law. However, throughout the history of the Palace Museum, its lofty status has not prevented neglect, damage and theft.

With a record breaking 15.34 million visitors in 2012, one of the Palace Museum’s goals is to keep the majority of its exhibitions open daily. To meet that goal while also ensuring the safety of precious artifacts and maintaining the complex’s architecture,

a recently-appointed managing committee are currently struggling to implement corrective and preventative security procedures and streamline maintenance protocols.

Safety First

In the 66 years since the founding of People’s Republic of China, six burglaries have taken place in the Palace Museum, most recently in May 2011 when Shi Baikui, a 27-year-old migrant worker from Shandong Province stole nine valuable artworks on loan from a private Hong Kong museum from a temporary display.

The lax security procedures in place at the time within the Forbidden City – Shi had effectively simply picked up the artifacts and walked out – soon drew public fire. The museum’s director Zheng Xinmiao admitted to the media that there were “loopholes” in seNEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by Dong jiexu

Guarding the Gates

Conservation

Luo Han, who graduated from Sun Yatsen University in 2010 with a degree in Mineralogy, is now working in the Protection Technology Department for Cultural Relics in the Palace Museum. Over half of the total 90 employees in the museum’s conservation department are young university graduates in related fields, replacing an outgoing “old

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by Dong jiexu

curity procedures.

In May 2015, the museum’s administration launched a new government-sponsored project dubbed “Safe Palace Museum,” which included intensifying video surveillance in significant areas, smoke emitters that when triggered would theoretically blind would-be burglars, and updating the complex’s alarm system. By 2015, the project, according to media reports, had cost over 440 million yuan (US$70.36m) By the end of 2015, the Palace Museum will have installed a total of 2,100 security cameras along with infrared detectors monitoring temperature and the opening and closing of doors and windows across the complex. On a recent visit to the museum’s security department, one NewsChina reporter saw a 60-square-meter video screen tracking feeds from 65 areas of the museum every five minutes on a rotating basis.

According to Fu Zhongsheng, technical supervisor with Palace Museum security, infrared motion detectors and body temperature sensors can instantly recognize unusual activity and notify nearby personnel. “The Palace Museum requires the response time for alarms to be within two seconds,” Fu explained to NewsChina. The addition of canine patrols, extra video surveillance and over 6,000 individual alarms has theoretically made it much harder for a potential thief to target the museum’s exhibitions.

Palace Museum security central control

guard” of conservationists, many of whom had served in the complex for decades. Today, an average 40 to 50 college graduates from art schools are added to the museum’s existing conservation staff each year, a number set to increase in the coming years.

With a professional background in gem identification, Luo is tasked with dating and identifying the provenance of jade and stone artifacts. “It is very important to test if the material used in repairs is a match with the original material,” she told NewsChina.

“That’s why I was brought in to add the hightech skills that I learned at university to this department’s existing tradition of craftsmanship.”

In 2014, newly-arrived graduates intro-

duced portable pioneering equipment including X-ray fluorescence spectrometers, infrared spectrometers and Raman spectrometers, allowing them to perform straightforward on-site testing of artifacts. Luo’s colleague Dou Yicun, for example, has started to use smart glasses with eye tracking controls to record the whole process of artifact repair and conservation. The Internet has also been an invaluable resource, with Luo Han and her colleagues regularly meeting to discuss the latest technologies being employed in the international field of conservation.

Storage

Liang Jinsheng, director of the Palace Museum’s Artifact Protection Department, still

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Repairing a porcelain artifact

remembers his early days working as a porter in the museum’s artifact storage department.

“Artifacts were kept in palaces or aboveground warehouses,” he recalled. “Ancient wooden architecture is not appropriate for the storage of artifacts, so we had to frequently move them for repairs.” Mold, animals and other environmental hazards were a constant threat.

In order to improve storage conditions, the musum began constructing a vast storage vault as early as 1983, only completing the project, which covers a total area of 22,000 square meters, in 1997.

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According to Liang Jinsheng, the threestory steel-and-concrete vault is suspended on steel girders to avoid any part of the construction coming into contact with the surrounding earth. A total of 970,000 artifacts are stored in more than 100 separate, climate-controlled compartments, and there are also plans to install air purifiers designed to filter out Beijing’s appalling pollution.

At the vault’s main entrance, a fumigation machine disinfects artifacts to protect them from insect damage and mold. At its exit, a “buffer room” has been built specifically for paper or silk artifacts, which are highly sensitive to environmental changes, to rest for a few days prior to packing or transportation.

The vault mainly houses portable items, including some 140,000 ancient coins, over 20,000 silks, over 40,000 books, and some 100 timepieces, pieces of enamel work and solid gold vessels. Furniture, antique statuary, stone tablets and other bulky items are stored above ground.

“Future upgrades will focus on creating different environmental conditions for artifacts made from different materials,” Liang told NewsChina.

To guarantee the safety of artifacts, the vault also has a bank-style door, 15 to 20 centimeters thick, which requires both a key and a password to open, with external gates protected with fingerprint ID. Alongside a central security control room with 29 permanent employees, and aroundthe-clock video surveillance, the museum’s vault even has its own power grid. “The less people know, the better,” said security director Liu Zenghui, discussing the vault’s security protocols. “The operation of the vault has nothing to do with the outside world.”

Academic

In 2003, former museum director Zheng

Xinmiao proposed a new discipline, “Palace Museum Studies,” which he hoped might strengthen research into the specific conservation of artifacts and architecture in the Forbidden City, as well as reinforce protection.

Some 100,000 historical artifacts not formerly classed as “cultural relics,” an official term, were reclassified according to the scheme.

By 2010, therefore, the Palace Museum finished fully cataloging its entire collection– a total of 1,807,558 pieces making it one of the world’s single largest repositories of historical artifacts.

In April 2014, in cooperation with the research department of the Palace Museum, Nankai University launched a doctorate program for Palace Museum Studies. “We used to pay attention to the treasured artifacts themselves, while overlooking the stories behind and the connections between them,” said Zheng Xinmiao. This realization has brought Palace Museum staff closer to international attitudes towards conservation – a shifting of focus away from the dollar value of artifacts, and towards their cultural, historical and esthetic importance.

In line with this new thinking, significant changes have taken place in recent years in terms of academic attitudes to conservation, leading to the fusing of formerly independent disciplines. “We started to combine scientific studies with the architectural conservation. Thus, before we started any restoration project, we need to do preparatory work including archival research,” Zheng said during a 2012 interview with China Economic Weekly.

Radium Tam, an architecture expert with the Tsinghua Cultural Heritage Conservation Center (CHCC), told NewsChina that new conservation techniques coming into the mainstream in China are much more in line with international standards. Tam’s NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Chen Wei also contributed reporting NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photos by Dong jiexu

company was involved in designing the construction protection plan for part of the Palace Museum. She explained that in the past, architectural restoration in China often resorted to, for example, “redrawing” long-lost decorative artworks on the walls and wooden fixtures of traditional buildings. Even when traditional techniques, materials and craftsmen were employed, without comprehensive research, such attempts often deviated wildly from the original works. “Recent restoration projects in the Palace of Tranquil Longevity and the Qianlong Garden prioritize maintenance and cleaning rather than ‘re-drawing,’” she added.

Lu Zhou, vice dean with the Tsinghua University School of Architecture also agrees with the “minimum interference” model in regard to protecting China’s ancient architecture. “It is a matter of degree. You don’t send a healthy person to hospital, and you don’t prescribe surgery for an illness you can cure with medication,” he said, during a 2002 interview with Sanlian Lifeweek. “Complete background information should be collected before any repair is attempted. When was the original destroyed? If it was reconstructed, when was the work carried out? What evidence was used when conducting previous repairs?”

Today, the Palace Museum is looking more like a world-class historic site, and is slowly casting off its ragged image. “The unprotected marble floors [of the palaces] had for years been worn down by the feet of tens of millions of visitors, and many parts were visibly destroyed,” tour manager Gao Shuang, who regularly visits the Palace Museum told NewsChina. He added that wooden decking had been placed down over many ancient floors in recent years.

Every Monday the museum closes so that staff can perform routine maintenance

Conservationist Luo Han

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Forbidden City

Shan Jixiang

Photo by Dong jiexu

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Shan Jixiang:

“We are making an effort to catch up” NewsChina secures an exclusive interview with Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum, which is aiming to shed a stuffy image and become a truly world-class museum worthy of its glorious setting

By Chen Wei

W

ith previous administrators relocated in the wake of a number of scandals, 60-year-old Shan Jixiang, a former director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) was named director of the Palace Museum in January 2012. Compared to predecessor Zheng Xinmiao, a scholarly figure who focused on the museum’s internal research programs, Shan is a more vocal public face for China’s foremost historic site, and its collection of cultural relics.

In an article published in early 2014, Shan expressed that China’s museums should speed up the process of “integrating into society.” In December of that year, NewsChina

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met with Shan to discuss his plans for the Forbidden City. Dressed casually in a plain white shirt and a blue jacket, Shan was keen to stress the importance of accessibility, emphasizing that the popularization of museum culture through interaction with the public is essential in terms of the cultural demands of a developing society.

“We should not only offer respectful and careful storage for cultural relics,” Shan argued. “We must also allow our visitors to feel respected during their visits,” said Shan.

NewsChina: What’s your vision for the Palace Museum in 2020, the 600th anniversary of the founding of the Forbidden City?

Shan Jixiang: We aim to integrate the culture integral to the Palace Museum into people’s social life. Firstly, we want to usher a grand Forbidden City into the next 600 years of its existence. Secondly, we wish to ensure the Palace Museum’s ongoing stability and security. Thirdly, we want the complex to fulfill its function as a museum.

NC: What do you perceive as the biggest challenge for you, as the museum’s director?

SJ: The number of visitors has grown dramatically during the past few years, particularly during [Chinese] national holidays.

This situation has challenged our admissions capability and our security system. For the NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Newly-released souvenirs are helping lighten the Forbidden City’s image

NC: How do you plan to display more cultural relics to the public?

SJ: We plan to turn the Palace of Prolonged Happiness into a hall storing relics that originated from overseas. I personally expect us to convert the palace’s southern warehouse into a furniture display hall, which can house some 5,000 pieces. This would also be a very significant boost to our conservation efforts regarding antique furniture.

In addition, we intend to put together a live display for visitors in a glass-walled corridor demonstrating our traditional restoration techniques.

By the end of 2015, the total area open to the public will be 65 percent.

NC: Some world-famous Chinese artifacts originally from the Forbidden City are currently on display in the Palace Museum in Taipei [Taiwan’s Palace Museum equivalent, founded after the Chinese Civil War]. Why doesn’t the Palace Museum have many of these “star exhibits?”

SJ: The number of registered cultural relics in the Taipei Palace Museum amount to 696,112, while the Beijing Palace Museum collection has more than 1.8 million. We NEWSCHINA I April 2015

never intentionally create so-called “star cultural relics” or ”representative pieces.” Our responsibility is to exhibit our collection systematically with rationality, taste and objectivity. The consequence of having “star relics” causes difficulties in presenting the overall value of the museum. Furthermore, visitors naturally pay more attention to “star relics” to the detriment of other collections, and thus fail to appreciate the diversity of Chinese traditional culture.

That said, some 150,000 artifacts selected from our collection will appear in the upcoming 500-volume Palace Museum Treasured Collections series. In my eyes, all those 150,000 pieces are representative of what we have on offer.

NC: Recently, the Palace Museum has re-

leased some unusual souvenirs and marketing initiatives. Were you inspired by the Taipei Palace Museum?

SJ: We have been slow to make these moves. Now we are making an effort to catch up. In the past, we were conservative and only sold facsimiles of items in our collections. Those copies of porcelain-ware, pottery and paintings are not ideal for tourists as they’re not portable enough. So we started to develop some creative, fun gadgets with more practical uses.

We did draw inspiration from other museums including the Taipei Palace Museum, which cooperates closely with private companies to make creative cultural products. This year, we expect to gain a profit of 600 million yuan (US$96m) through sales of 6,700 varieties of cultural products.

Photo by CNS

sake of protecting cultural relics, we hope to restrict visitor numbers to fewer than 80,000 people per day. We have started trying different pricing mechanisms for off-season and peak tickets. We offer free admission days for teachers, students and volunteers, and hope to cultivate the habit of visitors making advance reservations.

Museum mascots “Zhuangzhuang“ and “Meimei“

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society

Police Crisis

Stretching the Thin Blue Line The terrorist attack in March 2014 has left Kunming’s security forces overstretched. With front-line police officers under enormous pressure, authorities are adopting more holistic management methods

By Liu Ziqian and Shi Guanglin in Kunming, Yunnan

I

n the run-up to mid-February’s Chinese New Year festivities, security has been stepped up to unprecedented levels in Kunming, Yunnan Province, a city that witnessed a brutal terrorist attack in March 2014. In the city’s railway station, its subway stations and its public squares, civilian and military police patrols are stationed around the clock.

Wang Jun (pseudonym), a member of a local police tactical unit (PTU) that responds to terrorist attacks and similar emergencies, was among the armed police officers patrolling the city’s plazas. Since shooting dead

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five Xinjiang separatist terrorists during the March attack that killed 31 people and injured a further 141, Wang required 10 rounds of psychological treatment before returning to his post.

According to Wang, Kunming’s security apparatus has been overstretched since the attack, with a significant increase in the number of officers on patrol. Over the past 10 months, the city has on several occasions raised its terror alert level to the maximum.

Large numbers of local police officers have had vacations canceled, and many have been required to work round-the-clock shifts.

While the city’s population has reported a growing sense of safety, the heightened security measures are pushing many officers to the brink of collapse, both physically and psychologically.

Officer Down

Despite having served as a police officer for eight years, Wang Jun, now 43, told NewsChina that he has not yet fully recovered from the psychological effects of the March attack.

When a gang of terrorists stormed Kunming Railway Station at around 9:20 PM on NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by xinhua

Armed police on patrol at Kunming Railway Station, March 2, 2014

March 1, 2014, Wang was dispatched to the scene along with the rest of his unit – due to the suddenness of the attack, he had had no time to equip himself with a bulletproof vest.

Within 15 seconds after he arrived, Wang had fired 15 rounds. “[When I arrived,] I was met by a scrum of people, and several masked attackers brandishing swords. I shouted ‘Drop your swords,’ and fired a warning shot into the air, but the terrorists began to surround me. By the time I took my next shot, one of them was only a meter away from me,” Wang recalled.

“If I had fired just one second later, I would NEWSCHINA I April 2015

have lost my left arm,” he added.

When reinforcements arrived, Wang returned to his patrol car. He accepted the offer of a cigarette from a colleague, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach, which his doctor later attributed to an anxiety attack.

The stomachache returned several days later when he heard the sound of gunfire during a marksmanship drill at the police firing range.

Wang’s anxiety began to show physical symptoms. He would rarely sleep more than two hours a night, and was unable to climb more than a few flights of stairs at a time.

Wang’s colleagues noticed that he would

keep one hand on his holster while walking.

“I was very tired, but I couldn’t sleep. My wife was worried. For the sake of my health, my boss had to move me to an easier post, refueling police cars,” he told NewsChina.

Post-terrorism Kunming

Wang Jun was not alone. In the wake of the Kunming attack, around 17,000 local police officers were required to be on standby for 24-hour shifts for months, resulting in enormous strain.

Xiong Yi, an armed policeman with another local PTU, told NewsChina that his

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24-person team was ordered to place eight to 12 policemen on a 24-hour duty every day.

“We ate and slept in our patrol cars. In the first month after the attack, I only went home once to change my clothes,” said Xiong.

Even office-based police staff were sent into the streets. “I once patrolled for 30 consecutive days, from 9 AM to 11 PM, with only two packed meals per day,” Wang Xi, an office director with a local police patrol team under the Public Security Bureau of Kunming, told NewsChina. “I was so tired that I could fall asleep leaning against a telegraph pole,” he added.

The city was so sensitive about security that almost any “mass incident” – the Chinese government’s word for a large public disturbance – would provoke a large armed police response. Xiong Yi was one of several hundred police officers sent to deal with one such incident at a local construction site. In order to prevent the conflict from worsening, officers remained at the site for four nights, many of them sleeping on their shields or on the roofs of their cars. “In October [2014], I only spent four nights in my bed, and I would wake up immediately at the sound of my intercom,” Xiong told NewsChina.

Under such high pressure, more than 100 local officers, according to official sources, quit their jobs, many of them complaining that the intensity of their work had damaged their health and their relationships with their families.

“I didn’t even have time to quarrel with my wife,” joked Xiong Yi. Huang Yihong, a leader of another local patrol team, revealed that six members of his team had divorced their partners.

“As a single mother, I have no time to take

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care of my daughter, and my meager wage far from covers my bills. I was very proud of being a policewoman, but now, I feel overburdened,” an anonymous police officer in Kunming wrote on a police intranet message board before her resignation.

The anonymous policewoman’s problems are shared by police nationwide. A 2013 survey by China’s Ministry of Public Security showed that a total of 2,204 police officers

had lost their lives in the line of duty from 2008 to 2013, 1,098 of whom died from overwork – reportedly now the primary cause of death among police officers. The Wuhua branch of the Public Security Bureau of Kunming to which Xiong Yi and Huang Yihong report, for example, saw three of its officers die from various illnesses during the last three months of 2014, and Wuhua’s latest round of physical examinations showed that

Local police officers talk to a pedestrian on a street in Kunming, March 3, 2014

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

A police detachment in Kunming participate in a team-building exercise

80 percent of its officers were suffering from some kind of medical condition.

‘De-stressing’ the Police

Increasingly overstretched due to public demand for heightened security, the Kunming government has tried to make some changes to comfort its policemen. The city’s public security bureau, for example, has ordered all its branches to keep a medical re-

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

cord for every police officer, and ensure that unhealthy employees are given treatment.

To address the prevalence of psychological problems among police officers, particular emphasis is being placed on psychotherapy, with compulsory therapy sessions for any officer who has fired a weapon in the line of duty. Wang Jun told NewsChina that these therapy sessions had cured his insomnia.

According to Hao Yanhong, a police psy-

chotherapist from the Kunming Municipal Public Security Bureau, local police authorities have hired more than 100 national-level psychotherapists, and set up a counseling hotline for police officers. Hao told NewsChina that since the March attack, an average of two officers per week have come to her seeking assistance.

“Many leaders were previously skeptical of psychotherapy, often telling me that their officers were ‘mentally stable,’ and too busy to undergo treatment. This eventually turned out to be the very opposite of the truth,” Zhu Ruijie, a psychotherapist working with the Wuhua Branch of the Public Security Bureau of Kunming, told NewsChina. She revealed that during a therapy session with a group of 30 local police officers who had recently lost one of their colleagues, more than a third of them burst into tears. “[Their colleague’s death] lit the fuse of their own collapses. Under such high pressure, they needed a channel to release their feelings,” Zhu said.

“The old method of force-feeding the police their sense of duty should be replaced with a more human-oriented management style, especially for young officers [who, compared to their predecessors, care more about respect and equality],” said Hao Yanhong.

Huang Yihong, head of the local patrol team, is one of the police leaders who asked Zhu Ruijie to offer psychological treatment to officers. Huang also organizes regular family activities to improve officers’ relationships with their family members.

“It is time to ‘de-stress’ our police officers, rather than binding them with a so-called ‘sense of duty.’ If cursing their leaders is a way to relax, I don’t mind my officers doing it,” Huang told NewsChina. 

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society

Marriage Loophole

Divorced Unawares A loophole in Chinese marriage law enables one party to divorce another without notifying them

By Chen Wei

I

n late 2009, Beijing woman Zhang Xiao began to suffer from severe hallucinations resulting from neurological problems.

Shortly afterwards, her husband, Li Jun, disappeared. When the couple next saw each other, Zhang was visiting Li in jail after he was detained on suspicion of fraud in 2012. During her visit, Zhang was informed that, completely unbeknownst to her, she and her husband had been divorced since 2010.

Zhang never received any correspondence from a court, let alone

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a summons to a divorce hearing. The court decided, she later discovered, that as part of the divorce settlement, she had been awarded full custody of her child and the right to keep the couple’s household appliances and furniture.

Zhang had been essentially divorced in absentia, entirely without her knowledge. Now, three years down the line, her appeal is ongoing. “It is hard for me to trust in marriage, marriage law and human nature anymore,� Zhang told NewsChina.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by CFP

An online forum on popular web portal QQ has more than 30 followers who have also unwittingly been divorced. The forum was started by Song Yahong, ex-wife of steel mogul Du Shuanghua, head of Rizhao Steel Holding Group. Their divorce case, which involved a large cash settlement, hit media headlines in 2001.

Song quickly became the last resort for women in the same situation with no legal recourse. She helped provide a number of divorcees with legal assistance before helping them launch their appeals, but, so NEWSCHINA I April 2015

far, not a single ruling has been overturned.

The Missing

In the winter of 2012, Zhang Xiao went to Haidian Detention Center in Beijing where her “husband� Li Jun was being held. Having been separated for three years, the two wept. When the crying stopped, however, Li informed Zhang of the divorce, and asked her never to see him again.

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Zhang was caught off guard. Later, she went to the court and found that she had indeed been divorced two years ago, with the verdict delivered by Beijing’s Haidian District Court on April 8, 2010.

The court had ruled that Zhang’s ex-husband should pay child support payments of 800 yuan (US$128) per month to Zhang, and noted that Zhang had “failed to appear after being summoned to court.”

Zhang recalled that on the day the verdict was issued, she was at her parents’ home, where she had spent virtually the whole of autumn 2009 in recovery from her illness.

On July 2, 2009, the court filed Li and Zhang’s divorce case. On July 20, it was noted that the case would be delayed due to “the absence of the other party,” meaning Zhang. On October 10, a summons was sent to the couple’s former residence, an apartment complex called Boya Xiyuan. Li Jun later told the court that the apartment had been sold, and he had no way of contacting his wife, nor was he able to reach her parents.

Zhang told NewsChina that Li was lying. Just a week before Li told the court that he could not reach his wife, Zhang said the two had had an argument that ended with Li beating her. Zhang later sought police assistance, a record of which was taken at the local police station.

A Beijing local, Zhang said she almost never left the city and never changed her cell phone number, nor did her parents change their address. Nevertheless, the court had failed to contact Zhang at any point during the 10-month divorce proceedings, and issued a verdict in her absence.

This purported “absence” was also the deciding factor in other similar cases. On December 22, 2014, according to media reports, a stay-at-home mother in Linyi, Shandong Province, when she went to the police station to report a lost ID card, found that she had been divorced two years earlier. In September, 2011, a man surnamed Zhong in Hubei Province came home to an empty house after working overseas for a year – the local court had approved his divorce soon after he’d left China. In both cases, the unaware party had been declared “missing.”

“I have ruled on more than 1,000 divorces, including four or five cases in which the verdict was issued in the absence of one party,”

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Photo by CFP

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Song Yahong holds a press conference relating to her divorce case in Hengshui, Shandong Province

Wang Liren, a judge from the Intermediate Court of Yichang, Hubei Province, told our reporter. “The number has been on the rise in recent years.”

Failed Delivery

Fu Yulin, a professor of civil law at Peking University, told NewsChina that it is a basic right of both parties to be notified of their involvement in legal proceedings. “Otherwise, the rights to appear in court, protest, and appeal are all forfeit,” he said.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

According to the Chinese Civil Procedure Law, in civil litigation cases, five methods of service of notice can be exercised. One of these is service by publication, to be used in cases where the intended recipient is missing, or cannot be reached. In such cases, public notices, newspaper articles and broadcasts should be issued.

After further consultation, Zhang found that the Haidian District Court had made service by publication to Zhang in the newspaper the People’s Court Daily on October 21, 2009. The notice explained that the court had filed to begin divorce proceedings between Li Jun and Zhang Xiao, indicated the hearing time, and told Zhang that “judgment will be issued in your absence if you fail to appear.”

Zhang did not see the publication – the hearing was held on time, and she was divorced from her husband.

Zhang’s lawyer Lu Mingsheng is dismissive of the legality of the hearing. “Service of publication can only be issued with the reasonable assumption that the relevant party can read it, but actually, that assumption is invalid,” Lu told NewsChina. “No law requires that a citizen should subscribe to a certain newspaper.”

What puzzled Zhang most was why the court had been so eager to believe her husband’s story, and failed to try other means to contact her.

“The problem now is that the service by publication is overused by some judges,” Judge Wang said. When dealing with similar cases, Wang said he would first visit the relevant party’s place of work, then their parents’ home, and also their local police station. If service by publication had to be used, he would post notice at known previous residences of those involved, and where their hukou, China’s internal residence permit, was registered, in addition to in the newspaper.

“It would take some time and effort, but it is not a difficult problem to solve,” he added. “Service by publication happens in roughly 10 percent of such cases in my court.”

The loophole is now a significant problem for the Chinese courts, and has its roots in the planned economy era more than 30 years ago, when Chinese people had little mobility and individuals were largely bound to their places of work and residence. Nowadays, of course, this is no longer the case.

Official data show that by the end of 2014, China’s migrant popuNEWSCHINA I April 2015

lation numbered 245 million, accounting for one sixth of the population as a whole – in big cities, the proportion of migrants is far greater.

Blame

It took Song Yahong 10 years to find out that she had been divorced.

A field investigation by Hengshui Intermediate Court in Hebei Province concluded that Song was “missing,” a ruling that was based on the testimony of a single worker at Song’s place of residence, who told court officers that Song had disappeared more than a year earlier, and that nobody knew where she was. In 2001, the court approved the divorce.

The significant settlement involved – tens of billions of yuan – attracted the attention of the media, and the court began retrial proceedings soon after. The original ruling was withdrawn, and in October 2014 the case was transferred to the local high court, but to this day, no progress has been made.

In spring 2013, Zhang also appealed to the Haidian District Court but was rejected on the grounds that retrials were not an option in cases where “divorce judgments have already taken effect.”

Professor Fu said Chinese Civil Procedure Law regarding divorce is based on the principle that after a divorce is actioned, either party is free to re-marry. In cases where one party has already re-married, a retrial would throw the legality of the new marriage into question.

Judge Wang Liren believes that a retrial should be conditionally permitted since it is “the only solution to redress incorrect judgments.”

“The judicial authorities should realize that erroneous divorce judgments will have a more negative impact on the wronged party than false criminal charges,” he added. “In criminal cases, those who have been wrongly convicted can apply for State compensation. Those who have been wrongly divorced have no recourse.”

Now, Zhang’s parents take care of her son, while she lives on a meager salary of 1,000 yuan (US$160) a month. Recently, her exhusband began to pay child support. Having suffered from insomnia for a long time, Zhang is now easily agitated, and struggles to remain calm when talking about her divorce.

Zhang’s 15-year-old son told NewsChina that when he grows up, he wants to become a lawyer, in order to defend his mother.

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Paid-for Romance

Love Virtually The Internet has no shortage of solutions to the problems of China’s loneliest

By Zhou Fengting

Picture by Xie Yufei

“

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

You can’t buy and sell love,” goes the refrain of a popular Chinese song “Sales of Love”. Thanks to the rapid development of China’s Internet, however, love – or at least, its digital manifestation – is now available from all good online retail platforms.

Websites offering “paid-for lovers” have begun employing real men and women to play the role of a romantic partner with a paying customer for a pre-defined period of time.

While it may sound like little more than a modern twist on the oldest profession, these paid-for lovers are strictly virtual, their services limited to regular instant messages and phone calls.

“I can’t actually help [customers] very

much – they just need someone to hear and understand them,” Ni Ke (screen name), a self-employed “virtual lover” told NewsChina.

Love on Taobao

Ni Ke’s first experience in the industry was as a customer. Eight months after breaking up with her boyfriend, the lonely Ni typed “boyfriend” into the search box on Taobao, China’s largest online shopping platform.

To her surprise, she found that there were a number of online stores advertising “paid-for lovers.”

Ni clicked onto one of them, and began scanning the product range, from “boys” to “uncles;” from “warm” to “cool;” from

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Photo by Ng HanGuan

Selling “Love”

Smart phones have become a major means for people to talk away their loneliness

“sparky” to “introvert.” She opted for the store’s best-seller, purchasing the undivided digital attention of a “warm boy,” or nuannan, for a 24-hour period. Several minutes after the online transaction was complete, her phone rang – when she answered, a pleasant voice said: “Hi, darling. It’s time to get up.”

After her initial 24-hour contract finished, Ni immediately renewed for a further week, during which time her virtual beau gave her a morning wake-up call every day, chatted with her whenever she wanted, and paid her all the attention she would expect from a real-life boyfriend.

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She enjoyed the constant contact so much that she once asked the man whether they could become a real-life couple, but was rebuffed with no hesitation. “We are in the virtual world. I will accompany you until you find a real-life love,” he told her.

Ni did not renew the service when it expired. “I didn’t want him to feel like he was responsible for me. It would be too much pressure for him,” she explained. Instead, she hired another “lover,” but kept herself from getting too involved this time round. “The rule is that everything starts and ends in the virtual world,” she added.

Before long, Ni Ke found herself on the other end of these transactions, advertising her own “paid-for love” services with a post in a forum on China’s most popular Internet bulletin board tieba.com, reading: “Perhaps you have never been loved, perhaps you have been disappointed in love, or perhaps you no longer feel loved in your boring marriage.

You need a platonic lover. We cannot be together for life, but we can share love and happiness in the moment.”

Since first appearing on Taobao in July 2014, “paid-for lover” businesses, according to Taobao’s statistics, have enjoyed a surge in sales volume over the past seven months.

Yuan Sheng, an online “paid-for lover” shop owner, told NewsChina that he has opened three separate stores on Taobao, and employs over 100 lovers, mostly recent graduates.

Another paid-for lover agent on Taobao, who asked to be identified only by his surname Cheng, told NewsChina that his shop had served over 2,000 customers since it was established in late summer 2014. “Sales volume has multiplied since media began to report on the business,” he said. “On December 12 alone, I earned 8,000 yuan (US$1,333). When I first opened the store, I was only making a few dozen yuan per day,” he continued.

“In order to ensure quality, the lovers in my shop serve up to two or three customers per day. My shop has also launched daily, weekly and monthly packages to cater to the needs of different customers,” he added.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

“You become numb to your customers’ pain and troubles...this kind of care and comfort are worthless”

Professional Products

According to Ni Ke, many customers buy her service not for virtual romance, but simply for companionship and a sympathetic ear. “I understand them. After my break-up, I also ate alone, slept alone and cried alone,” she told NewsChina.

“While comforting others, I’m also talking away my own frustration,” she added.

Ni now finds customers through Nannan (literally “chatter”), a popular smartphone app designed to help people find paid-for lovers. Users register as a paid-for lover, and can start doing business after being approved by the app’s administrators. Nannan claims to have more than 3,000 paid-for lovers on its roster.

Sensing the huge market potential in catering to lonely Chinese people, Microsoft has also launched a virtual lover service in China. Rather than using real people, however, the tech giant uses a downloadable automated “chat-bot” – a young female avatar named Xiao Bing who chats with users. According to Microsoft’s data, Xiao Bing 2.0 has been downloaded by more than 10 million users and has had more than 600 million conversations since its debut in July 2014.

“Our data show that Xiao Bing use peaks at midnight, when many people feel lonely and anxious,” Li Di, head of Microsoft’s Xiao Bing project, told NewsChina.

True Self in the Virtual World

Predictably, not everyone is respectful of

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

boundaries in the paid-for virtual lover business. A-Sang (screen name), a paid-for lover who first worked on Taobao then with Nannan, told NewsChina that she had been sexually harassed by some of her customers.

Cheng revealed that he blacklists customers who make improper demands. In order to prevent paid-for lovers becoming prostitution, Taobao’s search engine is particularly rigorous when filtering search results for the term “paid-for love,” and users of apps like Nannan are encouraged to report any wrongdoing to administrators.

In the face of these restrictions, some customers have begun using software like Peiwo (literally “accompany me”), which connects any two strangers online for a chat about any topic they want. According to Peiwo’s data, its most active user has talked for 625 hours since it was launched in September 2014, meaning he or she used the online chat function for an average of five hours every day.

One of users’ favorite functions, according to Peiwo, is a three-minute anonymous voice conversation, where neither side is given any information about the other. Once the three minutes are up, the system automatically assigns another random chat partner.

Ye Zi (pseudonym), a married administrator working with a school, is a loyal Peiwo user. He told NewsChina that many of his conversations through the app are about sex.

“My life is like a train running on tracks, boring and depressing, and the anonymous talk enables me to take off my mask,” he said.

Thanks to Peiwo, Ye has talked with

strangers for 371 hours, 153 of which he spent in anonymous mode. “Some might think what I’m doing is immoral, but I don’t think so. It satisfies me without betraying my marriage. I keep my online and offline lives separate,” he told NewsChina.

Microsoft chose to launch its Xiao Bing product in China because of the sharp contrast between the online and offline worlds in the country. “Xiao Bing reflects the other sides of netizens,” Li Di said, revealing that his company plans to further develop Xiao Bing’s artificial intelligence in the style of Scarlett Johansson’s character in the 2014 Academy Award-winning movie Her. Ni Ke, however, has grown tired of virtual love. The more time she spends in the “love business,” the less enjoyment she gets from it. “‘Love’ gets worn out in this business. You become numb to your customers’ pain and troubles,” she said. “This kind of care and comfort are worthless,” she added.

“The [paid-for love] business can go some way to easing people’s pressure, but it can also lead to addiction, which is damaging in real life,” Li Ping, a psychology expert from a psychotherapy school in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, told Xinhua News Agency.

“No problem can be solved by escaping from the real world, and those with mental troubles should receive professional psychotherapy,” she added.

In order to come back to the real world, Ni Ke has turned to social networking apps that encourage strangers to meet face-toface.

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international

WWII Anniversary

Parade Diplomacy

A military parade planned by China to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII has led to speculation over the intent behind it. NewsChina digs deeper

By Yu Xiaodong

A

s Barack Obama became the first US president to spectate at one of India’s annual Republic Day military parades, held on January 26, many interpreted this as a sign of a deepening of ties between the two countries.

Following India’s grand parade, Pakistani media reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping might be the guest of honor at Pakistan’s upcoming national day military parade, which will take place on March 23, a move which some analysts have concluded is a direct response to Obama’s appearance in Delhi.

For many, military parades, and their guest

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lists, always convey important geopolitical messages. This may be why China might also be planning one of its own.

Rumored proposals for a People’s Liberation Army parade to mark the end of World War II were first reported on January 23 in the Hong Kong-based newspaper Wen Wei Po. The report revealed that China will hold a grand military parade on September 3, the date of Japan’s surrender in 1945 which, in 2014, China officially declared “Victory Day of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” September 3, 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia.

When asked about the planned parade, Hua Chunying, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, without confirming that a military parade would take place, said that China, like many nations worldwide, is planning to hold “commemorative events” in order “to safeguard world peace and the postwar order.”

Despite the lack of official confirmation, an article published on the official social media account of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, on the need for a military parade this year, indicates strong support in the highest ranks of both the Party and the military for such an event.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

China typically holds a grand military parade on its National Day (October 1) once every 10 years or so. The last grand parade was held on October 1, 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

A parade on September 3, if held, would be the first military parade conducted independently of the official National Day holiday, and the first such parade since Chinese President Xi Jinping took office in 2013.

Deterrent

In explaining its argument for a military parade, the People’s Daily article bluntly stated that it would serve to deter Tokyo from “challenging the postwar order,” something Chinese leaders and diplomats have repeatedly stressed in policymaking regarding Japan.

For China, “challenging the postwar order” refers to efforts currently being made in Tokyo to scrap Japan’s pacifist constitution and play down, if not deny, wartime atrocities committed by its imperial army during WWII, including the Rape of Nanking, called the Nanjing Massacre in China, and the sexual enslavement of as many as 200,000 “comfort women” in occupied territories. The center-right administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been widely condemned in China for its attempts to bolster Japanese nationalism and defer responsibility for war crimes – a highly charged issue in Japan’s relations with most of

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

its Asian neighbors.

Competing Chinese and Japanese territorial claims to the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku island chain, which has escalated into a major dispute between the two countries, have also been framed as an effort by Japan to cling to its imperial wartime legacy.

In recent years, the Abe administration has drawn much international criticism for what many call “historical revisionism.” The most recent incident, in early January 2015, saw Japan’s foreign ministry request that the USbased education company McGraw-Hill delete a passage containing a reference to “comfort women” from a text on world history used by Californian high schools, a request rejected by the publisher. In the disputed passage, the textbook states that Japan’s imperial army “forcibly recruited, conscripted and dragooned as many as 200,000 women” to serve in military brothels.

As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will also attend several international events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the war’s end, he is expected to speak publicly to an international audience. Many observers are speculating whether or not Abe will revise the Murayama Statement, an apology issued by former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995 during the 50th anniversary commemorations of Japan’s 1945 surrender.

In his first press conference of 2015 on January 5, Abe reassured reporters that his administration would express “remorse” for Ja-

pan’s role in WWII. But for China, and other victims of Japan’s wartime aggression, Abe’s emphasis on “remorse,” which to some simply means regret that the war led to Japan’s defeat, rather than an intention to apologize for atrocities committed by Japanese troops, is too ambiguous, and a major step back from the country’s previous official stance.

According the People’s Daily article, as Japan has shown “persistence” in “challenging the postwar order,” the only way to stop Japan from moving further to the right is to “show [China’s] own military might and “demonstrate its determination.”

“Those who challenge the postwar order pose a threat to China’s core national interests and will be deemed enemies of China,” read the article.

The parade’s message, according to the People’s Daily article, is not only for international consumption. “The military parade... will boost the pride and confidence of the Chinese people regarding the country’s security,” it continued.

Political

According to Luo Yuan, a retired army major general and deputy secretary general of the China Military Science Society of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a September parade would also serve to boost the unity of the army and the people under the current leadership.

In the past year, China has extended its

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international

anti-corruption campaign into the ranks of the previously untouchable PLA, which has witnessed the fall of more than a dozen highlevel military officials, an unprecedented purge of the country’s military elite. As the anti-graft campaign is expected to expand further into the PLA, a grand parade is seen as being both helpful in re-establishing the PLA’s public image and also re-asserting the Party’s absolute control over China’s military.

Some have even seen the parade as a chance to build bridges with Taiwan. In 1945, Japan’s China command surrendered to Nationalist forces led by Kuomintang (KMT) party leader Chiang Kai-shek, alongside whom Mao Zedong’s communist Red Army fought a guerilla war against the Japanese from 1937 onwards. The surrender marked the end of WWII in Asia (also referred to in China as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, or the Second Sino-Japanese War), and the beginning of the Chinese Civil War, which ended in 1949 with the defeat of the Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan, and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China by the victorious Communists.

Consequently, there have been calls on the mainland to invite both KMT leaders and Taiwanese WWII veterans to attend the parade.

Invitations

So far, Chinese officials are tight-lipped about plans for the parade. As such an event, if it goes ahead, would likely be the first time that China has invited foreign leaders to attend a military parade since 1956, speculation over the guest list has been rife.

Currently, Russian President Vladimir Putin is the only foreign leader who is expected to attend the parade with any certainty. Kai Lei, a senior Wen Wei Po reporter, told Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV that he learned from Russian sources that a detachment of the Russian army would participate, though no official source has confirmed this.

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Such an event, if it goes ahead, would likely be the first time that China has invited foreign leaders to attend a military parade since 1956

Earlier, on January 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow that it has already been confirmed that Chinese President Xi Jinping and around 20 foreign leaders will attend the WWII Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9, 2015. Although Putin returning this visit in September for China’s equivalent commemoration remains a source of speculation, it is widely believed that both leaders will exchange visits around key events marking the anniversary.

China has also refrained from giving any hints as to whether the US, China’s most important wartime ally, will have its leadership represented at such an event. Given the status of the US-Japan strategic alliance, whether or not to invite the US has generally been avoided by those debating the guest list for China’s hypothetical parade – a glaring omission that demonstrates just how tricky these waters might prove for the leadership to navigate.

According to Luo Yuan, another major reason behind China holding a military parade is to remind the rest of the world of China’s role in WWII, but also demonstrate its gratitude to its worldwide allies. However, a common feature of commemorative events relating to WWII, in Europe at least, has been the presence on the rostrum of leaders from both sides of the conflict. This has led to furious debate in China over whether or not, in line with international norms, Japan’s leadership should be invited to take part in tributes to those who fell in the conflict.

For some observers, China should follow European precedent, which sees Germany as an active participant in most commemorations of WWII. Lian Degui, an analyst with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the South China Morning Post that not inviting Abe would be not only be a breach of diplomatic protocol, it would also create an impression that China intended to snub Japan.

Other experts argue for a more cautious approach, especially given the tensions between the two countries. Some have expressed concern that Japan would interpret such an invitation as an attempt to openly embarrass the Japanese leadership. Others have speculated that this is the precise reason why a signficant proportion of the Chinese public appear to be in favor of inviting Abe to attend the putative parade on September 3.

According to an online survey conducted by the online edition of nationalist newspaper the Global Times, 86 percent of respondents agreed that China should invite Abe to observe the parade.

When Shinzo Abe, during a January visit to Israel, said that Japan will “never allow such tragedies [as the Holocaust] to be repeated,” he was making these comments in reference to the upcoming 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His words were seized upon with much cynicism in South Korean and Chinese media, where commentators argued that Abe should confront Japan’s own wartime history, and save such comments for those countries where Japanese troops committed their own wartime atrocities.

So far, with even the existence of a planned September parade itself unconfirmed, it is unclear how China will handle the myriad delicate issues surrounding it. Given that a military parade is first and foremost about sending a political message, the precise plan, and its execution, will be a major focus for China’s foreign policy experts in 2015.  NEWSCHINA I April 2015

environment

Exported Waste

Trash Talk

The West’s waste and its impact on Chinese lives and the environment are placed under the microscope in a provocative new documentary

By Fu Yao and Li Jia

Wang Jiuliang

W

ith his documentary Plastic China, currently in postproduction, 38-year-old Chinese photographer and film maker Wang Jiuliang plans to show US audiences how their trash travels. The trailer for the film shows Chinese workers in filthy plastics factories picking through imported plastic waste, and was released to Chinese media in Beijing in December 2014, one month before Wang left for the University of California at Berkeley.

Wang plans to spend his half-year research program tracking how the US’ plastic waste ends up all over the world, particularly China, and what happens to it when it gets there.

Wang first gained notoriety in China with his first documentary, Beijing Besieged (2010), which shocked viewers with shots of trash mountains populated by scavengers, both human and animal, at the myriad official and unofficial landfills scattered around Beijing’s suburbs. He began to focus on plastic waste specifically after his visit to a trash recycling center in Berkeley, California in 2011, where he was told that most of the plastic waste would be shipped to China, the world’s largest importer of plastic waste, where buyers offer higher prices than anywhere else in the world.

There is a strong supply-demand loop for waste between China and developed markets. Statistics from the General Customs Administration of China show that the country has imported more than 8 NEWSCHINA I April 2015

million tons of plastic waste annually since 2010. During a 10-month campaign in 2013, customs authorities detected about 800,000 tons of waste smuggled into China from other countries.

Rarely has a documentarian brought into such sharp focus the lives of those reliant on garbage dumps, both those in China who live among them and those overseas who cause them. Beijing Besieged and Plastic China evoke much more than mere sympathy, throwing urban expansion and consumerism into question and forcing viewers to examine their own lifestyle choices. Indeed, the documentary even changed the life of its own producer.

Dream vs. Reality

Wang Jiuliang’s endless pursuit of change, according to Wang himself, may originate from the “wild and stubborn character” that a childhood in the fields of rural China endows one with. While a typical post-high school career for a young person without powerful connections is college followed by a white-collar job in a city, with the hope of building a middle-class family in one’s 30s, Wang dropped out of college twice in six years after graduating high school in 1996.

To support his own life and find his real interests, he tried running photography studios, taking training classes in fine art, selling cars and even spent time selling vegetables. Finally, he settled on photog-

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environment

raphy.

In 2003, Wang Jiuliang, then 27 years old, became a “mature” freshman at the Communication University of China in Beijing. At a national college photography exhibition in 2007, Wang’s works on the theme of the afterlife, based on fairytales told to him by his grandmother in childhood, caught the attention of Bao Kun, a famous art critic and curator. Bao offered to be Wang’s patron and tutor, to relieve the promising young artist of financial pressure.

Over the next two years, Wang concentrated on photography, and began to see his work exhibited in Beijing’s prestigious 798 Art District, although initially to very little public interest. Bao presumed that this was because the public were not interested in photos on the topic of death, including rural graveyards, ancestor worship and rituals believed to ensure a luxurious afterlife.

Bao Kun advised Wang to focus on topics related to real daily life.

Bao told Wang that on a visit to waste disposal facilities in Germany in Bao’s youth, the modern facilities he saw there seemed like a giant bookend at one extremity of the consumer cycle, with warehousestyle supermarkets full of products at the other. Bao suggested that Wang experiment on environmental themes, and Wang agreed. Indeed, during his trips around rural graveyards, Wang had noted the packets of fertilizer and pesticides scattered across China’s countryside.

Photos by Wang Jiuliang featured in NewsChina, Issue 21, April 2010

Dream & Reality

Their change of direction was a fateful one. In August 2008, Wang began following garbage trucks on his motorcycle every day, in order to map out Beijing’s dumping grounds. His 15,000-kilometer trip took him to more than 460 dumping grounds in the city’s suburbs.

He marked all their locations on Google Maps, and the resulting image of China’s rapidly developing capital city surrounded by piles of trash inspired his work on the subject, including the photo series and his first documentary, both titled Beijing Besieged. Wang decided that presenting this reality was more important than his previous dream of being recognized as an artist.

It turned out that he could have both. In December 2009, Beijing Besieged won him “artist of the year” at the Lianzhou International Photography Festival in Guangdong Province, perhaps the most important photography exhibition in China. Besides numerous interview invitations from national and local press around the country, Wang began receiving offers for photo-journalist jobs, a line of work he had long coveted. All the attention on the issue eventually led to a US$1.6 billion investment by the Beijing municipal government in improving municipal waste disposal facilities.

The impact that Wang’s works had on society, as well as his own career and life, helped him realize the value of the efforts of the individual, and prompted him to consider the impact of consumerism.

Wang refused all job offers out of concerns that a full-time job would erode his freedom to express himself independently.

Later, a trip to California inspired his idea about focusing on a particular waste product: plastics. Even compared to the years of con-

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fusion and struggle before he discovered photography, what was to follow was an even longer, more difficult journey.

Money

As an independent photographer, Wang had always had money troubles. When he got married while working on Beijing Besieged, Bao was essentially Wang’s only source of financial support. Wang relied on Bao, and his art circle friends, for nearly all tools and art supplies, from cameras, film, notebooks and memory cards to exhibition venue rental and promotion.

For Plastic China, he decided to end this awkward arrangement.

The success of Beijing Besieged helped; Yue Guanting, an entrepreneur and a former classmate of Wang’s at Communication University, gave the project a head-start by investing tens of thousands of dollars, and later helping Wang set up a four-member team.

However, things became difficult when the budget ran out after a year, long before the work was finished, meaning Wang had to seek support from other sources, such as TV and film production companies. In 2013, he won 17,500 euros (roughly US$20,000) from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) Bertha Fund for the production of Plastic China. The film, said the IDFA web site, sees plastic waste scavengers “trading body and soul for superficial prosperity” and observes how lifestyles “in one world could define lives in another in a most unimaginable way.” Its title evoking superficial “plastic” prosperity, the film focuses very much on the dark NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by Wang Jiuliang

side of the China’s growth story.

Money, however, turned out not to be the toughest part of the venture. The 28-month shooting schedule proved to be a testing experience for all involved, including Wang himself.

Soul

While Beijing Besieged focused on the dumping of waste in mountains and rivers, as well as various methods of waste disposal like landfills and incineration, human stories also played a part.

“I don’t want my parents to know I am so far away from home just to pick through trash here; they’re under the impression I have a good job in Beijing,” a middle-aged woman, sitting on a pile of refuse, tells the camera.

For Plastic China, Wang focused in on these stories, particularly those of children. In the film, children can be seen playing with trash on filthy factory floors, while their parents use their bare hands to pick through plastics printed with strange foreign lettering. Away from the supervision of their distracted parents, the children squirt water at each other from used syringes. One of the film’s main characters, a little girl named Yijie, has lived in plastic factories since she was seven years old. Her parents promised to send her to school once they had enough money, but Yijie ended up scavenging through trash like her parents. It was not until recently that the 11-year-old finally started school, with the help of Wang and his friends. As Wang told Qianjiang Evening News, a newspaper in Zhejiang Province, in an interview NEWSCHINA I April 2015

published on January 29, it was very common for children in those factories to follow in their parents’ footsteps, and it was not possible to help every one of them.

Wang built mutual trust with these workers over nearly three years.

For Wang, their choice to do what they do, even at the cost of the environment and the health of those around them, is understandable, and deserves sympathy. However, when he goes beyond understanding and sympathy, and directly questions their choices, their answers are tellingly unsure: “It does not cause pollution,” or “We don’t know whether it causes pollution.” In most cases, they retort: “Don’t cement factories cause pollution? And petrochemical plants? Pollution is unavoidable anyway, right?”

For them, and many others involved in the industrial chain, Wang’s job is also morally dubious. This made certain people difficult to approach. In Beijing Besieged, in a village where everything, from slums to clothes, is made out of garbage, a villager feeding pigs with trash tells Wang to stop shooting, as she believes the film may cause her to lose her livelihood. In the early days of shooting Plastic China, Wang’s interview requests were all declined, and he was regularly threatened or beaten up by thugs he believes were hired by factory owners. Even his landlords were threatened, and tried to evict him. In 2013, Wang’s entire team quit. As he told NewsChina, he had to be vigilant while shooting photos or footage, making him feel “like a thief.”

The government was particularly unenthusiastic about Wang’s ambitions. The local government near a plastics recycling plant in his film tried to bully his family and friends into persuading him to leave.

Wang pretended to acquiesce, but later returned.

During the interview with NewsChina, Wang had little to say about the problems he encountered. “I was much more shaken by the polluted hearts that beat inside the people who stood in my way,” he said.

In the Qianjiang Evening News interview, Wang talks about his intention to educate consumers in developed countries about the truth behind the flow of their trash to China. High oil prices in recent years have pushed up the cost of making plastics, making it much cheaper to use recycled materials. However, for companies in developed countries, the high cost of environmental oversight does not make plastics recycling a good business, said Wang, referencing his visit to a modern, clean Japanese plastics recycling plant that relies heavily on government subsidies.

However, by attributing the trash problem to economic growth, Wang’s film perhaps overlooks the idea that the market can be a part of the solution, rather than the problem. According to recent reports on the website China Resources Recycling, the recent drop in oil prices has already made recycling plastics much less lucrative than before, a turn of events that will no doubt please Wang. However, viewers of Plastic China may find themselves questioning how making plastics out of oil is greener than recycling, and whether urbanization and the entire plastics recycling industry should be included in the discussion, rather than demonized. 

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economy

Black Market Pharma

An underground market for generic Indian pharmaceuticals is growing in China, with medical patients risking prosecution and even poisoning. The problem is unlikely to go away unless China’s healthcare system is repaired, and the country’s generic drug industry can meet a growing demand

By Yue Wei and Li Jia

O

n January 29, 2015, 47-year-old leukemia patient Lu Yong was finally cleared of charges brought against him for selling counterfeit drugs and buying fake credit cards. He has been compared by his supporters to the character Ron Woodroof, played by Matthew McConaughey in the Academy Award-winning drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013). However, in an interview in December 2014 with the Beijing News, Lu drew a distinction to defend himself from legal troubles. “We share the same desire to find a bet-

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Photo by IC

Adjusting the Dosage

ter way to survive; but I just help other patients manage an account for purchases of Indian drugs, instead of using Ron [Woodroof]’s method of directly buying for them.” Lu has also denied being paid for assisting other cancer patients to obtain illicit medication. Under current Chinese law, while buying counterfeit drugs is not illegal, selling them is.

From a broader perspective, Lu may have more in common with Ron Woodroof than he imagines. Since having to face two crimiNEWSCHINA I April 2015

Huang Xichao helps his elder sister Huang Xiju with her wedding gown as part of a campaign to help fund his leukemia treatment, Kunming, Yunnan Province, January 24, 2015

nal charges brought by Hunan police in July 2014, he has received huge public support. Hundreds of members of Lu’s informal online patients’ network have already signed a petition calling for an amnesty, with the media not only offering landslide sympathy for Lu, but also increasing calls for fundamental changes to the country’s existing health care system. In his interview with the Beijing News, Lu said that he hoped his case would help push forward such reforms.

Veenat is an Indian generic version of the cancer drug imanitib mensylate, marketed worldwide as Glivec (marketed as Gleevec in the US) by Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant. Veenat, which sells for one-eighth the price of its branded version, has not been granted an import license by the Chinese authorities. Consequently, sale of the drug in the Chinese mainland is defined as illegal under Chinese law.

Lu is not the first Chinese citizen to face charges for selling unlicensed Indian generic drugs. Nor, according to analysts, will he be the last, given the lingering problems in China’s pharmaceutical manufacture and distribution system. However, some of these same experts have also warned that the solution championed by some media – China copying India’s patent system – has received too much focus and is not the right prescription.

Lifeboat

Before the advent of imatinib mesylate (INN), the only hope for leukemia patients was to risk a bone marrow transplant. Many died waiting for a donor, and even those who were lucky enough to get one could still die from complications relating to the transplant procedure. By contrast, 90 percent of patients prescribed Glivec survive for ten years or more, and the American Cancer Society describes the drug as a “standard treatment” for leukemia. However, even for an upper middle-class person like Lu, whose father owns a hardware factory, the nearly US$50,000 annual cost of obtaining brand-name Glivec, which has been approved for sale in China, is a heavy financial burden.

According to Lu’s own account, given to the media, he began to buy Veenat from India online in 2004 after struggling for two years with his medical bills for Glivec. He told other patients in a support group on the QQ instant messenging app after a trial run had, he felt, proven the safety and effectiveness of Veenat. However, Lu refused to buy the drug for his fellow patients, which helped him avoid any legal pitfalls.

However, as many Chinese patients struggled to come to their own arrangements with Veenat’s Indian manufacturers, having to deal with reams of documentation written in English, Lu began to step in to help. The “Veenat Buyers Club” soon grew large enough for members to secure a discount rate, meaning their medication would only cost US$400 per person per year.

In a provincial police crackdown against credit card fraud in 2013,

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Lu was found to have obtained fake credit cards using other people’s ID names and numbers. Further investigation led to the exposure of his involvement in helping others purchase Veenat online. As no drug can go on sale in China without the approval of the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), Lu was detained on suspicion of selling fake drugs on top of a separate fraud charge. Due to his illness, he was then released pending trial.

Indeed, selling Indian-made generic drugs online has become a profitable business in China in recent years. According to several cases either currently under police investigation or already concluded with jail sentences, sellers are mostly people studying or doing business in India. Best-selling drugs include those fighting cancers of the blood, lung, breast, liver and kidney. Debates over how such activities should be treated in law have been triggered by these investigations, but never has a single case elicited so much public sympathy as that of Lu Yong, most likely due to his status as a cancer patient. During the investigation, more patients visited him in person to inquire about the best ways to buy Veenat online. The petition signed by hundreds of his buyers claims that Lu accepted no fee for his assistance, although he admitted to the media that he had accepted free drugs from Indian suppliers.

Far from castigating Lu and others trading cheap Indian generic pharmaceuticals as criminals, the media has instead continually questioned why China simply does not adopt the policy that India, known as the “pharmacy to the poor,” has – a compulsory licensing system.

Systematic

Compulsory licensing in and of itself, however, is questionable as a solution to the problem Chinese consumers face in acquiring cheap generic medication. Compulsory licensing means that patented drugs can be manufactured and retailed without the consent of the patent holders, and is most commonly associated with the pharmaceutical industry. WTO principles and international practices show that compulsory licensing is normally, though not exclusively, applied to public health emergencies, particularly outbreaks of infectious diseases like AIDS, malaria or ebola. As Liu Jingdong, director of the international economic law office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), explained to NewsChina, there is a tough balance to strike between saving lives and protecting the incentive to invest in innovation.

India, however, has rejected this balance. The country has built a robust generic drug industry through the pursuit of both restrictive patent licensing and compulsory licensing. In January 2013, the Indian Supreme Court supported the Indian Patent Office’s rejection of an application from Glivec. This ruling meant that Indian companies were free to make generic versions of the unpatented drug without having to compensate the international patent holders.

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economy

The WTO’s TRIPS (Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement states that the express purpose of compulsory licensing is to cope with domestic public health emergencies, and not to produce generic drugs for export. The WTO is encouraging a modification that would permit production for delivery to countries or regions without the capacity to produce or supply these drugs.

However, a significant proportion of the generic drugs manufactured in India are made for the export market.

Nearly all the multinational pharmaceutical giants that make up Big Pharma, including Novartis, Roche, AstraZeneca, Bayer and Gilead, have repeatedly lost lawsuits filed in India either relating to patent applications or appeals against compulsory licensing since India implemented its current Patent Law in 2005.

Liu Jingdong feels that India’s seeming immunity from WTO penalties on this issue, at least so far, is due to Big Pharma’s fear of further damaging their international reputation. Influential NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and general international public opinion opposes the perceived greed of pharmaceutical corporations, and in particular their activities in the developing world.

Chinese Characteristics

Many Chinese analysts do not believe that India’s officially-sanctioned lax attitude to patent protection is a solution for China. Many argue that if the system were to be abused, no brand new drugs would be developed for generic manufacturers to copy in the first place, a scenario equally unfavorable to patients.

China’s own national strategy is an important factor weighing on the attitudes of policymakers. Like India, China has also had to face complaints from commercial and administrative organizations in the US and the EU over what is seen as its insufficient intellectual property protection. However, as China has prioritized building a more innovation-oriented economy, greater readiness to improve this image has been displayed in recent years. In addition, intellectual property is a key issue in ongoing, US-led negotiations on new world trade rule-making. China is gradually changing from a follower to an active participant, and, to some extent, even a competitor in the establishment of a new world trade balance. Negative perceptions of the country’s willingness to protect intellectual property do not help China, or its leadership, in achieving economic goals.

While maintaining that this more cautious attitude towards compulsory licensing is in China’s long term interest, at least in terms of encouraging domestic innovation, experts recognize that lobbying efforts by multinationals arguing for greater government intervention may also prove effective.

Fu Hongpeng with the China National Health Development Research Center has attended several meetings at the invitation of

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foreign embassies in China, only to find that the sponsors were pharmaceutical companies originating in those countries. Compulsory licensing is very likely to appear on the agenda in government-togovernment negotiations, Fu told NewsChina, negotiations that are often more difficult to conduct than those between businesses.

Analysts also think it is unrealistic for China to expect to persuade foreign patent holders and their governments that the world’s second largest economy is so poor that it has to relax intellectual property law simply to keep its population in good health.

Compulsory licensing has so far never been approved by the Chinese government. According to Professor Liu Yinliang with the Law School of Peking University, existing rules on compulsory licensing are designed to apply only in the event of a public health crisis such as SARS or avian flu. As no “wonder drug” exists to treat these new kinds of respiratory diseases, there is little chance of triggering the system. Non-communicable diseases which need regular treatment like cancer, high blood pressure or diabetes are not covered in the government’s guidelines on compulsory licensing.

While simply creating a facsimile of India’s patent system at the cost of undermining innovation incentives for pharmaceutical companies and national economic strategy does not appear a prudent choice for China, it is also inhumane to ask desperate patients to wait for treatment, or bankrupt themselves, at the cost of their own lives – particularly when affordable treatments are available. Analysts have therefore urged China’s healthcare authorities to accelerate reforms to change the current system, perhaps adding a few Indian “ingredients.”

Roast Ducks

According to a press release issued by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission on January 12, 2015, more than 2,400 county hospitals joined a trial project in 2014 outlawing profit-making dispensing of pharmaceuticals. A national standard for doctors’ salaries in public hospitals will be issued in 2015 that aims to wean medical professionals off expensive prescriptions and even bribes from pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors as a main source of income.

In more developed areas, local public health insurance systems have extended to life-threatening diseases like many cancers, allowing patients to be reimbursed for up to 80 percent of the cost of care. This measure is scheduled to be promoted nationwide in 2015. Lu Yong’s case has further fueled voices clamoring for more public spending on healthcare to facilitate faster and wider deployment of such reforms.

The market is also seen as a potential source of relief. As repeatedly stressed by the WTO, the World Health Organization and the World Intellectual Organization in various reports on the pharmaceutical industry, “Generic competition is the single most effective means to NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by ic

24-year-old Huang Xiju, in a white wedding gown, holds a sign explaining her search for a husband willing to pay the medical expenses of her leukemia-stricken younger brother, outside Kunming Railway Station, Yunnan Province, January 24, 2015

drive prices down.” Since 2012, patents for many blockbuster drugs owned by Big Pharma began to expire in their main global markets, clearing the way for cheaper generics. Even Big Pharma corporations are stepping up their investment in generic drug production facilities, including locations in China.

All these changes could potentially improve the lives of patients.

For example, Glivec’s patent expired in China in 2013. A generic version has already hit the market since, and is covered by local health insurance systems in a number of provinces, including Jiangsu – Lu Yong’s birthplace. If he chose the Chinese generic version of Glivec, the actual cost of his treatment would be comparable to that of using Indian alternatives.

During his state visit to India in September 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to boost China’s imports of Indian drugs.

If implemented, this measure would reduce the risks currently faced

by Chinese patients who either face the possibility of prosecution, or of inadvertently buying fake, expired or substandard Indian drugs.

Fake products sold online have proven a major headache for Chinese consumers, and their peers around the world. Some Indian generics have been banned outright from entering the US due to the growing concerns of US doctors regarding their quality.

Industrial insiders in China also hope that the pressure of competition from imported Indian drugs could force Chinese companies to improve the quality of their own products. It is widely agreed that China’s generic drug makers have to make greater effort to upgrade their production lines to match the sophistication of their Indian competitors.

Many Chinese cancer patients, including Lu, are hesitant to use generic drugs made by Chinese companies. Generics are mainly asNEWSCHINA I April 2015

sessed by their bioequivalence to an original formula. However, it was not until 2007 that such testing became necessary for marketization in China. Most existing licenses for generics had been granted prior to 2007 due to the lax standards at that time. Standardized, comprehensive testing procedures were launched in 2013, and scheduled for completion by 2020. As a result, “China’s generic drug quality has not proven equivalent to that of originators, according to international standards,” Fu Hongpeng told NewsChina.

Sun Xinsheng, vice chairman of the China Quality Association for Pharmaceuticals, noted in an article in leading Chinese healthcare periodical Life Times on August 15, 2014, neglect in terms of manufacturing techniques is a big problem for China’s generic drug makers.

Patent holders are required to dislose technical information to register their patents, though the extent of disclosure varies among WTO members. To prepare for future production license applications, potential generic drug producers can use disclosed information in laboratory testing to figure out how to produce raw materials according to the active ingredients of a drug, as well as techniques for processing raw materials into usable medicine. In practice, the first step – producing raw materials – is significantly easier than the second.

The process of making generic drugs, Sun explained in an unusual analogy, is like learning to make authentic Peking duck. A chef first has to prepare a standardized duck (the raw materials), according to the “recipe” already disclosed by an originator. Then, specific seasonings and a precise roasting method, down to the cooking time, temperature and even the type of wood used in the oven, has to be determined – a process much trickier to get exactly right. In his article, Sun pointed out that inadequate research into this crucial second stage of research remains a big problem for Chinese generic drug producers, a view widely shared in the industry as a whole. The impact of this imbalance is demonstrated by China’s status as the world’s largest exporter of drugs as raw materials, but sluggish export of finished, marketable generics.

As in other major markets, the first generic license holder often gets a six-month exclusive marketing window of opportunity to sell their product. However, Sun stressed that, in China at least, first may not necessarily be best. Indeed, the first company to market a generic drug might just have been the first applicant in the licensing queue. Given the lack of transparency in China’s review process, the qualifications of many generic manufacturers could well be in doubt.

The decision not to bring Lu Yong to trial seems to indicate that the balance has been tilted towards addressing the root causes behind China’s pharmaceutical black market and away from punishing people struggling to decide between survival and risking prosecution.

Most observers agree that the faster anticipated changes can be made, the more lives can be saved. 

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economy

Cab-hailing Apps

In The Driver’s Seat

The expansion of cab-hailing apps is set to challenge a long standing State-backed oligopoly in the taxi industry

By Zhou Yao

W

hile the rapid development of mobile Internet has led to increased competition across China’s economy, perhaps the most obvious disruption has been taking place on the roads of China’s major cities.

Throughout 2014, Alibaba and Tencent, China’s two largest Internet companies, both piled funds into promotion of their respective taxi-hailing apps, Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache, each aiming to stake its claim as the leader in this nascent market. Meanwhile,

50

international heavyweights such as Uber also entered China in 2014.

But given that the taxi industry has long been subject to strict government control, experts are predicting that the expansion of Internet companies into the sector will inevitably clash with the existing governmentbacked oligopoly.

From Honeymoon to Strikes

Initially, authorities moved to ban taxihailing apps, since the payment of a percent-

age of the fare to the app developer was a direct challenge to the taxi price control imposed by the government. But as cab-hailing apps continued to gain popularity among consumers, authorities in most cities tacitly endorsed them.

Indeed, for much of early 2014, the competition between Kuaidi and Didi saw both companies offering financial rewards to cab drivers for every fare, at no extra cost to the consumer. Although small, these kickbacks boosted the uptake of cab-hailing apps NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by IC

A Shanghai taxi driver operates two smartphones at once

among cab drivers, which in turn improved general market efficiency and, ultimately, consumer satisfaction. According to a survey conducted by a team from Tsinghua University, 55 percent of cab drivers said that their monthly income had increased by 10 to 30 percent since they began using cab-hailing apps.

However, since the apps began to expand their “fleet” beyond licensed cab drivers in mid-2014, the relationship between the Internet companies, taxi drivers and the authorities has become increasingly confrontational.

In early January, 2015, taxi drivers launched a series of demonstrations in several major Chinese provincial capitals, including Nanjing, Shenyang, Nanchang, Jinan, Changchun and Chengdu.

In Changchun, drivers protested on the streets and blocked roads, while cabbies in other cities began a coordinated strike, to protest what they saw as the unfair competition brought about by the use of cab-hailing apps by unlicensed drivers.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Rental to the Rescue

The catalyst for the deterioration in the relationship between apps and cabbies was the introduction of new private chauffeurdriven car hire services, Kuaidi One and Didi Zhuanche, launched by Kuaidi (Alibaba) and Didi (Tencent) in July and August of 2014 respectively. Both Kuaidi One and Didi Zhuanche were accessible through the interface of the original apps, as an alternative to the regular taxi-hailing service.

But for taxi drivers and the authorities, the new services appeared to be specially designed to bypass government regulations governing the taxi industry, in terms of number of taxis and the price of a taxi fare.

Through collaboration with rental car companies and private and contracted drivers, the apps were essentially able to roll out a taxi service where drivers wait on call, rather than driving around the city.

Due to tight regulations in China’s rental car industry, there is a cap on the number of cars a rental company can own. To circumvent these limits, rental car companies,

in cooperation with Kuaidi One and Didi Zhuanche, reached out to drivers of privately owned cars, often through “labor services” companies that supply contract workers for miscellaneous jobs. Effectively, this allowed rental car companies to “rent out” cars that they did not own, complete with drivers.

For example, Liao Kai, a driver who works for Didi Zhuanche through a local rental car firm in Shenyang, told NewsChina that although he and most of his colleagues had labor contracts with the rental company, the cars they use are their own, not the company’s.

“We signed contracts with the company, but we own our cars,” said Liao.

Licensed cab drivers argue that since the cars and drivers being supplied by apps do not belong to rental companies, they directly violate government regulations and should be considered illegal.

Almost immediately following the launch of Kuaidi One and Didi Zhuanche, local authorities in various cities outlawed their use. In Beijing, for example, transportation

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Photo by CFP

economy

Cabs belonging to striking drivers block a road in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, January 4, 2015

authorities released a regulation in August, 2014 banning rental car companies from providing drivers.

In the following months, fines have been dealt out to drivers using almost all major cab-hailing apps, including Kuadi, Didi and Uber, in a number of Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing. However, given the popularity of the apps, their services remain widely available.

Meanwhile, cab drivers are complaining of a sudden drop in income. In Beijing, a cab driver surnamed Hao told NewsChina that his monthly income dropped by 1,000 to 2,000 yuan (US$160-320), or 20 to 40 percent. In Shenyang, a cab driver surnamed Hu told NewsChina that his average daily revenue had decreased from 500-700 yuan (US$80-112) to under 500 yuan.

In the wake of widespread strikes, the Ministry of Transport stressed that only licensed taxis could use cab-hailing apps, and that apps’ services should be differentiated from public transportation and taxis.

“While we encourage innovation, private cars are prohibited from using platforms to participate in the rental car business,” the ministry wrote in a statement released on January 8.

Oligopoly

But for many industry experts, the prob-

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lem does not lie in cab-hailing apps, but in the State’s control over the taxi industry.

The general public agrees. According to an online survey conducted on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, 70 percent of 7,505 respondents attributed the strikes to “low income of taxi drivers resulting from a [State] monopoly in the industry.” 49 percent said that the new services provided by cab-hailing apps were having a “positive” effect on the development of the industry.

Similar to cities in many countries, the Chinese government imposes strict regulations on the taxi industry, limiting the number of taxis or taxi companies that can operate in an area, dictating rates and setting safety rules for operators.

While this arrangement was designed to protect the safety and rights of consumers, in reality, it has created an oligopoly and a network of vested interests, especially when many cities deny individual drivers direct access to cab licenses.

As licenses are only granted to a small number of companies – often owned by well-connected entrepreneurs – cab firms are able to maintain a comfortable monopoly over the industry, charging drivers monthly rental fees for the use of their car – long a source of resentment among cab drivers.

In Beijing, a cab driver typically pays 6,000 yuan a month to a taxi company, and shares

a cab with another driver. Mr Hao, the cab driver mentioned earlier, told NewsChina said that he and his partner use the cab on alternate days. Between them, they pay 6,000 yuan a month to the taxi company, and each works 15 hours per day every other day for a monthly income of 5,000 yuan each.

By contrast, it has been estimated that drivers who work for rental services can earn between 12,000 and 15,000 yuan per month.

Many believe that this discrepancy is due to the significant proportion of cabbies’ income that goes to their companies, who benefit from the government-backed oligopoly.

Meanwhile, the quota on the issuance of licenses has resulted in a shortage of taxis on the road – exactly the kind of market disequilibrium that mobile apps have proven effective at exploiting in many industries, and a major reason behind the rise of cab-hailing apps in China and worldwide.

While Beijing’s population increased from 15 million in 2004 to 21 million in 2013, the number of licensed cabs only increased from 65,000 to 66,000. And since the Beijing authorities imposed a quota limiting the number of new private cars on the city’s roads to 20,000 per month, the shortage of taxis has become more and more acute. At peak traffic times in Beijing, it is almost impossible to hail a taxi without using an app.

According to estimates by Kuaidi, the overall nationwide demand for taxis is about 50 million rides per day, of which existing licensed cabs in Chinese cities can only satisfy 60 percent, leaving a market of 20 million rides per day for apps like Kuaidi, Uber and Didi.

Reform?

Following the taxi strikes, even State media have called for the termination of the government-backed oligopoly in the taxi industry.

In an editorial published on January 6, Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily described the current system as “deformed,” and called on the government to allow the market to play a decisive role in the sector.

A mainstream opinion is that the governNEWSCHINA I April 2015

china

bynumbers ment should liberalize its control over the industry by issuing licenses to individual taxis drivers directly. However, there are still voices urging caution. Zhang Jianfeng, a senior executive at a local cab company in Shenyang, for example, warned that dismantling State control over the sector may simply clear the way for a different form of monopoly.

Zhang pointed out that cab-hailing apps have been taking 20 percent of fares of each ride in Shenyang, which, on average, could amount to 4,800 yuan each month – more than the monthly charges levied by cab companies. According to Zhang, this would be unfair to cab drivers, as ride-hailing apps do not provide drivers with benefits, such as insurance and social security payments, like traditional cab companies do.

So far, authorities in several cities have expressed willingness to reform their taxi policies. On January 11, Beijing’s transportation commission told the media that the Beijing authorities are “studying” a plan to issue new licenses to cars that wait to be hailed either through the Internet or over the phone. Authorities in Guangzhou have issued a similar plan.

A draft plan released by authorities in Shenyang proposes to offer taxi licenses to individual cab drivers, although it forbids the private trading of licenses.

But for many experts, these proposed reforms, through which the government appears to be aiming to bring the newly emerged cab-hailing apps under its control, are far from adequate.

According to Peng Peng, an expert from the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, the rise of cab-hailing apps has presented the government with both a challenge and an opportunity to address some key problems.

Among the intertwined relationships between cab drivers, taxi companies, Internet companies and government agencies, it remains to be seen if the brute technological power of mobile Internet companies can be a game changer in one of China’s most regulated and protected industries.  NEWSCHINA I April 2015

US$3.843tn China’s foreign exchange reserves at the end of December 2014, the lowest point that year after a consecutive four-month decline, and the longest consecutive slip since January 2010.

Source: People’s Bank of China

China’s forex reserves, monthly balance, US$tn 4.0

3.9

3.8

Jan’14

Feb’14

Mar’14

49.8

Apr’14

May’14

June’14

July’14

Aug’14

Sep’14

Oct’14

Nov’14

Dec’14

10%

Purchasing Managers’ Index for China’s manufacturing sector in January 2015, which fell below the 50% watershed of business expansion for the first time since October 2010.

China’s US$4bn railway equipment exports as a percentage of the global market

China’s PMI for manufacturing

55.0

52.5

50.0

Source: China National Development and Reform Commission

47.5

120m

45.0

Tourist visits to China’s rural areas in 2014, generating US$52.2bn for rural economies.

Jan’14 Feb’14 Mar’14 Apr’14 May’14 June’14 July’14 Aug’14 Sep’14 Oct’14 Nov’14 Dec’14 Jan’15

Source: China State Council Information Office

Source: China National Bureau of Statistics

No.1

The Chinese mainland became the world’s largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2014, with US$128bn in both financial and non-financial investment inflow.

Share of Chinese mainland in global FDI inflow 10 8 6 4 2 0

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

53

sports

Wang Hao

The ‘Nearly Man’ of Ping Pong

Over his 18-year professional career, ping pong player Wang Hao won 18 world championships, but never claimed an Olympic gold medal, despite making it to the final three times. Is his surprise retirement, one year before the 2016 Olympics, a decision made in regret or relief?

By Liu Ziqian

A

t 6 AM, Coach Wang Hao arrived at the training center of the Bayi ping pong team, some 17 miles from his home in Beijing, where 20 young athletes were assembled for a training session.

The center was all too familiar to Wang. Having begun his career there 18 years ago, Wang went on to become one of China’s best ever ping pong players, winning more world championship gold medals than almost any other Chinese person in history. However, each of Wang’s three appearances at the Summer Olympic Games had yielded only a silver medal, all in the men’s singles. Despite his illustrious career, Wang was dubbed “the eternal silver medalist” in the media.

While Wang’s friends and fans had hoped that Wang would take his final shot at Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro next year, in late 2014 Wang made a surprise announcement that he would be retiring from the Chinese ping pong team. “You can’t be a contender your whole life. It’s better to stop now. At least I’m still in the game,” he said.

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Wang Hao

Photo by Dong Jiexu

Fate

In December 2014, Wang Hao delivered his application for retirement. Several days after the application was approved, he was appointed head coach of China’s military ping pong team, Bayi, literally meaning “eight-one,” a reference to August 1, China’s National Army Day. NEWSCHINA I April 2015

In 1996, 12-year-old Wang Hao left his hometown in Changchun, Jilin Province to undergo tryouts for the Bayi team in Beijing, since there was no ping pong coach in Jilin available to train him. Two years earlier, Wang’s father had taken him to Beijing to try out for Bayi, but the team’s coach had decided that Wang was too young. In the interim, Wang had gained confidence and experience. The team’s coaches arranged two rounds of matches between Wang and four different Bayi players; Wang won three out of four matches in both rounds. Half a year later, Wang was accepted into Bayi, and began his professional career.

In Chinese ping pong, Bayi is a force to be reckoned with. Though comparatively smaller in number than provincial teams, the team’s military background means its training regimes are by far the country’s most effective. Many of China’s ping pong greats, including Olympic champion Wang Tao, Liu Guoliang (also head coach of the Chinese ping pong team) and today’s Fan Zhendong, the youngest ever world champion born in 1997, are all Bayi alumni.

Wang Hao progressed rapidly through the ranks. After only two years, he made the second-string national team, and a year later, he was selected for the first string. In 2004, his first Olympics beckoned.

Wang Hao’s global ranking had risen to sixth in 2004, though he was yet to become the top seeded Chinese player at that year’s Athens Olympics. Strategically, he was arranged to be a “sweeper,” clearing foreign opponents out of the way to allow his teammates, powerhouses Wang Liqin and Ma Lin, to romp to victory.

However, Ma Lin was eliminated in his semi-final, and when Wang Hao was drawn against Wang Liqin in the other semi-final, the former upset the latter and took the win, sending him into the final against South Korea’s Ryu Seung-min. “I relaxed when I saw it was Ryu Seung-min,” Wang told NewsChina. He had beaten Ryu six times before. “Now I see that I underestimated him,” he said.

Wang Hao lost the final to Ryu Seung-min 2 sets to 4, despite initially taking a 2-0 lead. When the 20-year-old Wang returned home, he faced harsh media criticism, particularly for his “mental weakness.”

Some even suggested the team should expend less effort on training him. “Isn’t it good enough to win a silver medal at your first Olympics?” Wang questioned.

Four years later, as the Beijing Olympics approached, Wang Hao had just won gold at the World Table Tennis Championships and the Table Tennis World Cup. His former critics had largely changed their tune, and there was widespread expectation that Wang would win his first Olympic gold medal in the men’s singles on home turf.

This time, Wang lost to Ma Lin in the final, claiming that the pressure had been to much to handle. “I was really not in an ideal state at the Beijing Olympics, compared to the other two [Chinese players],” Wang told NewsChina. “I also played awkwardly before the final.”

His nickname, “the eternal silver medalist,” began to appear in media that year, and was cemented at the London Olympics in 2012, where he lost to teammate Zhang Jike in the final, to complete a hat-trick of missed gold medals. “At least I made it to the final every time,” he said.

But to Liu Guoliang, Wang’s coach and head coach of the Chinese national team, while Wang Hao’s silver at the London Olympics NEWSCHINA I April 2015

meant he missed out on legendary status, it did ensure that he would be remembered as one of the greats. “If it were me, I wouldn’t expect myself to gather enough courage to return to the Olympics,” Liu told NewsChina.

Wang Hao told NewsChina that although he had won several team gold medals in the Olympics, he had often wondered whether it was fate that was keeping him from Olympic singles gold. But while Wang’s story has its fair share of pathos, he doesn’t look back with bitterness or regret. At the end of 2014, Wang went to Sanya in Hainan Province for a promotional event for ping pong. In a speech, he said to the audience, “Actually, I’m the real ‘Sanya,’” a Chinese pun on the fact that “Sanya” is a homophone for “three-second.” “I’m the most suitable candidate for mayor of Sanya,” he joked.

“Won the World”

Now retiring, Wang Hao is adjusting quickly to his new role as coach of his “alma mater.” After years training in the national team, he now sees a large gap between the training levels at Bayi and in the national setup. Besides borrowing ideas from the national team, Wang also plays against the young athletes himself – he hopes that playing against a world champion will give them confidence. Wang has also reformed various outmoded regulations, such as a ban on the use of cell phones by the team. “Times have changed,” Wang Hao said. “These teenagers also need to communicate with their parents.”

In the opinion of Wu Jingping, coach of the national men’s team, Wang’s penhold backhand stroke technique is “still recognized as the most advanced in the world.” When Wang first entered the national team, he was advised to strengthen his backhand blocking skill. Yet Xu Yinsheng, then chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, watched Wang play, and determined that his backhand was not weak.

As Wang progressed as a player, a perfected penhold backhand stroke and backspin became his trademark skills.

To some extent, Wang Hao also effected the raising of ping pong skills across the board. Many players who used to apply “chop” and “forehand drop” shots when receiving service began to counter-attack using Wang’s backhand stroke. Wang is aware of his contribution to the sport: “Not only did I help to improve the penhold skill, but also influenced ‘shake-hand’ style,” he told NewsChina. This time, media also praised him for starting a new era in the playing of ping pong.

During the final two years of his professional playing career, Wang could still be seen playing hard in international matches. Without the pressure to win gold medals, the sport became a source of pure enjoyment for him. “I finally came to understand being ‘willing to win but unafraid to lose,’ and what it felt like to enjoy a match,” he said.

Wang no longer cares about the “eternal silver medalist” jibe. With 18 world championship gold medals, he ranks third equal with Ma Lin and Deng Yaping in the annals of Chinese ping pong. “I have more gold medals than silver ones,” he said.

To Wang, a comment from Bai Yansong, a respected news anchor on State broadcaster CCTV, after he lost in the final at the London Olympics, was an appropriate summary: “Wang lost the match, but won the world.”

55

culture

Poet Yu Xiuhua

In Her Own Words Does previously unknown poet Yu Xiuhua really deserve her reputation as “China’s Emily Dickinson,” or have her gender, her cerebral palsy and even her rural home caused the literary world to get carried away with her achievements?

By Yuan Ye and Chen Tao

Yu Xiuhua

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015

F

or 38 years, Yu Xiuhua lived in relative obscurity in rural Hubei Province. Suddenly, on January 16, 2015, she found herself an overnight sensation when her poems, and her life story, began to light up the user feeds of countless subscribers to WeChat, an online messaging service, along with other Chinese social media accounts and forums.

On January 17, reporters from all over the country descended on Yu’s home in Hengdian Village, Shibeicun Town.

Her telephone rang constantly, and she was bombarded with interview requests and contract offers from publishers. Almost instantaneously, this previously unknown woman had become one of China’s most well-known living poets and an Internet celebrity.

Debate over Yu’s status came hot on the heels of fame.

While favorable criticism was heaped on her work by an everincreasing readership, some critics questioned her works’ objective artistic quality and attributed the bulk of Yu’s sudden success, variously, to her gender, her rural situation and her cerebral palsy, with some hinting that perhaps curiosity and sympathy, rather than literary appreciation, were fueling this overnight craze.

Surrounded by reporters, Yu Xiuhua seemed inclined to agree with the skeptics. Appearing calm and restrained, she told NewsChina that she felt it was “abnormal that the world suddenly gives so much attention to poetry.”

“It’s no good,” she continued. “I just hope people are moved by my poems,” Yu said.

Photo by Chen Tao

Village Poet

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Many reports erroneously stated that Yu suffers from “brain paralysis.” She has, in fact, lived with cerebral palsy all her life, telling reporters she has always had difficulty with movement and speech, particularly during childhood, when her father had to carry her to school, where she walked with the aid of a stick. Writing was another challenge, and the physical pressure ultimately led to Yu dropping out of high school. “There was no possibility I could ever get into college,” she said.

Yu has lived in the quiet village of Hengdian since birth, along with her parents, extended family, a pet dog and her beloved rabbits. In interviews, Yu demonstrates an easy manner and a warm sense of humor, teasing a NewsChina reporter, who arrived at her door almost as soon as the interview was confirmed, by asking: “Did you come by rocket?” She also complained that the rowdy press pack had literally frightened her caged rabbits to death.

After quitting school, Yu’s family arranged a traditional marriage for her. Although the couple had a son, who is now in college, their marriage didn’t go well. Yu’s husband spends

57

culture

I Crossed Most of China to Bed You In fact, to bed you or to be bedded by you, is but The force of two fleshes colliding, its sudden bloom Is but the blossom of a false spring, a false promise of rebirth Across half of China, all manner of things occur: volcanic eruptions, the drying of rivers A few political prisoners and vagrants go unnoticed While gun sights are trained on elk and cranes I defied a hail of bullets to bed you Pressed pitch-black nights innumerable into a single dawn to bed you Innumerable selves rushing into one to bed you Of course, a few butterflies have led me astray Turned praise into the spring Turned a village like Hengdian into a hometown And they Are all inseparable reasons why I bedded you

I Love You So it is that I live, drawing water, cooking, taking the pills on time When the sun shines, I place myself into it, like a drying citrus peel I sip different teas by turns – chrysanthemum, jasmine, rose, lemon And their loveliness seems to lead me on the road to spring So time and again I press back the snow which lies deep in my heart Beyond white, beyond close to the spring In the clean yard, I read your lyrics. All feeling Passes in the flurry of a sparrow’s flight As the light shines on. Who am I to be distraught?

So if I mailed you a book, it wouldn’t be a book of poetry I would give you a book of botany, of growing things To teach you the difference between rice and weeds And why the weeds dread the springtime

58

most of the year away from home in the city, where he works as a laborer. When he did make it home, the couple would fight, especially after Yu’s husband had been drinking. “He never really got into my life. I don’t tell him anything and he doesn’t care about me,” Yu said. “You can ask him yourself.”

In her village, “the poet,” as Yu is known locally, seemed to have few friends. “She’s a little introverted. Some find her difficult, with a different way of thinking,” Yu’s aunt Zhou Jinxiang told NewsChina. “Maybe poets have their own mind.”

“I don’t think I have a ‘different mind,’” Yu Xiuhua said in response to her aunt’s remark. “But it’s OK if people think that. I don’t expect to mingle with the lives of others. It’s not necessary.”

However, Yu is intensely aware of how her disability has affected her life. As a child, she was often mocked by other children for her way of walking and speaking. “Of course it hurt,” she said. “But children are forgetful and we would still play together afterward.” As an adult, she stayed at home most of the time, helping her family by doing light housework.

In China’s impoverished and utilitarian rural society, Yu’s disability made her feel “useless,” she told NewsChina, and made it extremely difficult for her to make a living without help.

Understandably, loneliness, mental and physical pain and romantic longing are all recurrent themes in Yu’s poetry. Even after finding fame, she said her biggest dream is to leave her village, “find a job” and “walk the earth” for a while. She even dodges the title of “poet.”

“As a woman, a rural peasant and a poet, being a woman is my essential identity. The other two [designations] don’t really matter,” she said. “Being a woman is my entry to poetry, but doesn’t make me a poet.”

The Internet allowed Yu to discover the outside world, particularly when some friends helped her open an account with instant messenging service QQ in 2008. Friends she met online became her earliest readers, and suggested she begin posting in online poetry forums. At the same time, Yu was also getting published in a local daily newspaper and even in publications printed in other provinces.

Also thanks to the Internet, Yu was discovered by her first talent scout, Liu Nian, an editor with Beijing-based poetry journal Shikan, who stumbled across Yu’s blog by chance. In September 2014, Shikan published a selection of Yu’s poems along with an article about her writing and her life. In December, Liu Nian even invited Yu to the capital to give a reading. That trip effectively launched Yu as a celebrity.

Revolutionary?

“Fiercely emotional, gorgeously written…direct, different but beautiful,” were comments made about Yu’s works

by Shen Rui, a Chinese-born, US-based Chinese writer and academic. It was through Shikan’s coverage that Shen Rui first NEWSCHINA I April 2015

came across Yu’s writing.

“I felt like I was walking into glowing autumn woods,” Shen wrote. “Each leaf is a piece of beautiful poetry carrying the strength and weight of life. In turn, they turned into marvelous language that dazzled me,” Shen was the first to dub Yu Xiuhua “China’s Emily Dickinson,” and Shen’s comparatively large online fan base propelled Yu to stardom via WeChat, where thousands of users began re-tweeting extracts of Yu’s poetry and Shen’s review.

Soon, the critics were weighing in. “Yu’s poems are powerful, solid and keen, with great literary flair,” commented Zhang Qinghua, a literary critic and vice dean of School of Chinese Language and Literature of Beijing Normal University. “Yu’s poems do not utilize the abstract or pose as profound. They come straight from the heart,” said Chen Xinwen, vice president of the Hunan Province Literature and Art Publishing House.

Media reports on Yu Xiuhua were propagated online and in traditional media. A search for ‘Yu Xiuhua’ on Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, returned 115,000 results only a couple of days after the frenzy began. China Central Television (CCTV), China’s biggest official TV broadcaster, ran an interview with Yu. Along with extravagant praise came criticism. Zang Di, a poet and professor at Peking University, compared Yu favorably to 1970s and 80s-era “Misty Poet” Bei Dao, before adding that “there are 300 other Chinese poets whose works are better than Yu’s.”

Poet Shen Haobo became one of the fiercest critics of those praising Yu’s talent. Rising to fame in the late 1990s, Shen is known for his experimental poetry featuring plain language and explicit sexual content. On his Weibo microblog, Shen Haobo commented that Yu’s poetry has only attained a “mediocre artistic level” but that “her language can easily capture the masses.” In reference to Yu’s celebrity, Shen stated that “although it’s not a bad thing, it could rather bring down the artistic quality of poetry,” adding that he felt that Yu had “turned her misery into chicken soup” and therefore, was “not a good poet.”

Such cutting comments provoked intense debate about both the relative merits of Yu’s work and, by extension, modern Chinese poetry itself. Shen Rui fought back, calling Shen Haobo “the epitome of the misogynistic Chinese intellectual.” Liao Weitang, a Hong Kong-based writer and poet, supported Shen Rui on his microblog, arguing that “the knife of the pen kills,” adding that Shen Haobo should “be discreet when judging others who have less discursive power.”

Despite his long-established fame in China’s poetry scene, Shen Haobo has found himself the subject of a backlash

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by IC

Debate

Yu Xiuhua meets readers in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, February 12, 2015

against his perceived prejudice against Yu Xiuhua. Thousands of comments supporting Yu Xiuhua flooded Shen’s microblog, forcing him to write a 3,000-character response giving the reasons behind his criticism. While Shen insisted that the “more populist the language and emotions [expressed] in a poem, the cheaper and less poetic it becomes,” his response acknowledged that “Yu’s poems have reached the level of professional writing…and Yu has gained the ability to produce good poetry.”

In a follow-up interview with Jingbao, a Shenzhen-based daily newspaper, Shen Haobo, although remaining critical of Shen Rui’s feminist stand against him, admitted that his “chicken soup” remarks about Yu Xiuhua’s poetry were “too casual, and inaccurate.”

Yu Xiuhua herself is trying to remain aloof from the fray.

For her, poetry is what matters. “I can accept favorable or unfavorable criticism of my poems. But don’t say things like ‘she’s good – for someone with cerebral palsy.’ That’s just wrong,” she said. “I just hope people care about my poems, rather than about me.”

Yu is convinced that soon the hubbub will have died down, and “ordinary life will continue.” Yet life is definitely changing. Only two weeks after her works exploded into the public sphere, Guangxi Normal University Publishing House, one of China’s most influential publishers, produced Yu’s first printed anthology of some 100 selected works.

“Only when I write am I intact, peaceful and joyful,” Yu Xiuhua told NewsChina. “The ultimate goal of a poet is to write good poetry. The rest isn’t important.”

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visual REPORT

C

harity worker, Zhang Yidong, a 32-year-old man from Hefei, Anhui Province, has spent his life trying to imitate Lei Feng, an iconic PLA soldier in the 1950s who was championed by the Party as the epitome of selfless generosity. The reason Zhang gives for his own commitment to charity work was a childhood experience. In his teens, Zhang was diagnosed with cancer and faced almost certain death. Since he was penniless, a local woman and some officials donated money for his treatment, which ultimately saved his life.

This inspired him to help other poor people suffering from illnesses to get proper treatment. Zhang’s passion for Lei Feng even led him to undergo several plastic surgery procedures in March 2014 to “look more like” his idol. This decision led to both praise and criticism from the general public, with some believing the surgery was a simple publicity stunt. Zhang has defied his critics, telling media: “I am not rich, so I can only use my own way to catch attention in pursuit of my ultimate goal: helping others. ”

Modeled Role 60

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Zhang Yidong has undergone plastic surgery to make him look like PLA paragon Lei Feng NEWSCHINA I April 2015

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visual REPORT

1 6

1. Zhang Yidong makes his living running a small hotel 2. Zhang shows a photo of himself dressed as Lei Feng 3. Cancer left Zhang suffering from scoliosis 4. Zhang has taken daily medication since being diagnosed with an immune deficiency two years ago 5. Zhang’s prescription list 6. Zhang checks his appearance in a mirror 7. Zhang carrying out a charity visit

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015

2 3

4 5

Photo by CFP

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015

63

OUTSIDEIN perspectives from within China

Tempting Tainan

Southern Belle

Tell any Taiwanese that you’re going to Tainan, and that morsel of information will quickly dominate the rest of the conversation.

By Kenneth Kagan

“

Oh, it’s great down there,” they’ll say, “it’s such an old city.”

But that only begins to describe the atmosphere to be found in Taiwan’s original capital, where winding alleys packed with fragrant, smoky shrines are arteries for a blissfully slow pace of life.

Tainan was the cultural hub of Taiwan back when the island was a humid backwater called Formosa, a colonial outpost managed by the first wave of foreign occupiers back in the 15th century. If you take a train into town, as I did, history is front and center: one main thoroughfare perpetually buzzing with motor scooters is Chenggong Road, named for the general Zheng Chenggong (1624-1662). Students of history in the West recognize him as Koxinga or Coxinga (literally meaning Lord of the Imperial Surname), bane of the former Dutch colonists.

Zheng was a Ming Dynasty general who supported the last fringes of his Manchu-toppled government, later escaping to Formosa, and kicking out the foreigners in the process.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that Zheng is something of a patron saint of Tainan, with the most prestigious local university bearing his name and a temple dedicated to him and his family downtown. For some,

64

he’s even worshiped as a god.

Fortress

Like Zheng, I arrived from the Chinese mainland, so I felt it appropriate to start my journey as he did: by storming Fort Zeelandia.

While the original Dutch holdfasts on the island have lain abandoned for hundreds of years, and I did not have an army at my back, I could still imagine the disciplined cohorts of Taiwanese tourists as my marauding force as I ascended the steep stairs of the fort. There aren’t many war prizes: a few old weapons remain, along with a mural depicting the Dutch surrendering to a giant-sized Zheng, though make sure you catch the restored watchtower with gorgeous views of the river and city from the top.

Fort Zeelandia, now known as the Anping Old Fort, once defended one of the most lucrative trading entrepôts in in East Asia, but its fall did not permanently close the doors to foreign traders. Indeed, from its watchtower, you can maybe catch a glimpse of the Anping Tree House, one of the hands-down coolest local hangouts to visit while you’re in the area. After Zheng’s death, a series of concession treaties NEWSCHINA I April 2015

GET IN: Tainan is easily accessible by train as a major stop on the Taipei-Kaohsiung high-speed rail line. From Taipei, the journey should take less than two hours and takes you right to the city center – far more convenient than the hassle at the local airport.

Photo by Mai Tian/IC

Photo by Zhang Guosheng/IC

WHERE TO STAY: As a major tourist destination, Tainan has accommodation for all budgets. Backpackers should consider the EasyInn International Hostel for a central location and reasonable prices. Those on a splurge can live in luxury at the Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza located right by the train station.

Fort Zeelandia in Tainan, June 2013 The night market in Tainan is a heaven for gastronomes, April 2012

opened the doors to trading houses like Tait and Co., who opened a warehouse in the city in the mid-1800s. Their stockroom was later used by the island’s Japanese occupiers to store salt, later falling into disrepair and ultimately being embraced by a giant banyan tree, forming the Anping Tree House.

Wander through this cavernous warehouse as dusk settles in for the full, bone-chilling effect. The serpentine growth of the tree completely covers the structure, which has only recently been restored with viewing platforms to accommodate snap-happy shutterbugs. Parts of the roof have fallen in, and the tangle of roots and branches over the crumbling brick walls make it difficult to determine what is natural and what is not.

Alleys

But for those seeking a sense of living history, wander around one of the beautifully preserved streets that crisscross the city. Pass on the much-touted lanes surrounding the fortress, which have been restored into a perpetual carnival of streetside games and overpriced food. Anping has plenty of old alleys that don’t play the tourist game, such as

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Shennong Jie, an alley lined with two-level houses and mini-museums that echo the fantastic wealth that the city used to boast.

I recommend hopping in a cab and heading back into the city, avoiding the main roads in favor of the narrow, winding alleys of Tainan proper. These streets, paved with red brick and some retaining old Japanesestyle wooden buildings, don’t wake up until mid-morning, and shutters stay pulled down until well after breakfast.

The houses may look sleepy, but the roads are crowded from dawn with residents presenting offerings at the local shrines. Tainan has a profusion of these offertories, sometimes two or three miniature temples to a single street. Each one is dedicated to a different deity ranging from protectors of the sea to custodians of the afterlife. The interiors are bedecked with ornate wooden carvings of red and gold that, even when sufficiently miniaturized to be crammed in between corner stores, inspire a sense of religious awe.

Tainan is well known for its dedication to traditions lost elsewhere.

Taoist rituals marking anything from the birth of a child to the last rites for the dying are occasionally visible taking place on its very streets. Even on a regular day, old women lighting incense in memory

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travel

ings. Forget the somewhat macabre name: the interior, laden with meat in a starchy, creamy sauce made of milk and various greens, is sure to bring you back into the world of the living.

Tasty It only came to prominence in the 1940s as a Each individual alley is well-maintained popular snack at amusement arcades. without being redeveloped, but that also As is the case everywhere in Taiwan, howmeans the streets can be incredibly confusever, the best place to find food in Tainan is at ing to navigate. Thankfully, each twist and the night market – and the city boasts nearly turn hides nooks where one can chow down two dozen of these foodie havens. The best of on Tainan’s renowned street food. The city is the lot is the Garden Market, where I ended known colloquially as a “city of snacks,” and each day of my visit wandering through its even gastronomy-obsessed Taipei natives see bustling rows of stores, a sumptuous sampler Tainan cuisine as a competitor to their local of local goodies that will test the limits of your street fare, especially when it comes to its classtomach. And don’t shy away from the seasic repertoire. food: despite the pittance you pay for it, everyAsk for advice on where to start, and most thing is remarkably fresh. will tell you to rise early for the beef soup.

Despite its mutiple advantages in terms of Served from the wee hours, when beef is at its location and social makeup, Tainan’s star befreshest, this light broth is replete with thick gan to fall for two reasons. First, the powerful slices of meltingly tender meat. Despite the Statue of legendary Koxinga Qing government in China retook the island wide number of signs that advertise it, eating in 1684, repositioning the provincial capital in beef in Taiwan is a rarity. As in much of Asia, tradition dictates a gesture of appreciation for the cow – the conven- Taipei. The city’s influence further dried up as the harbor began to tional beast of burden. The presence of beef on local menus is in itself clog with silt in in the early 19th century, ending its former stranglehold on naval trade. Yet that’s the funny thing about history: as much a nod to this city’s cosmopolitan and wealthy past.

One snack more close to Tainan’s present is “coffin toast,” thick piec- as Tainan lost status, it never lost a jot of its charm. If anything, it is es of grilled bread coated with egg, lightly fried, and stuffed with fill- more glorious today than it has ever been. Photo by Zhang Guosheng/IC

of their ancestors crowd the city’s alleyways as a matter of course.

real chinese

nuǎn

nán

nuannan Sunshine Men

A picture of a tall, fresh-faced young man using a massage wand to massage his girlfriend’s foot recently went viral among Chinese netizens, who drew attention to this shining example of the nuannan essentially China’s answer to the reconstructed male.

With “nuan” meaning “warm” and “nan” simply meaning “man,” nuannan are rapidly becoming the masculine ideal, at least from the point of view of women, who increasingly look for sensitivity and devotion in their partners. A typical nuannan, according to various definitions given by netizens, takes unwaveringly good care of his girlfriend or wife, understands “what women want,” and is willing to put up with bad moods, temper tantrums and other inconveniences in a relationship. Doe-eyed,

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slender, matinee idol types of the kind regularly featured on domestic and Korean soap operas seem overwhelmingly preferred.

It should be noted, however, that their admirers and proponents have distinguished nuannan from opportunistic, money-hungry “gigolos” and socalled “jellyfish men” who are incapable of bearing responsibility. A stable career and strong family values are an additional requirement of the would-be nuannan.

Rather strikingly, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been widely hailed as the country’s number one nuannan. His uncompromising career-mindedness and open distaste for corruption has been tempered by the public attention drawn to his perceived af-

fection and care for his wife, former military singer Peng Liyuan.

Experts have attributed the rising popularity of the nuannan ideal as a response to increasing apathy towards relationships among Chinese men. With expectations that a potential mate will come bundled with a well-paid job, a house and a car (unaffordable luxuries to a growing number of Chinese), many have bemoaned the death of romance, a soaring divorce rate and increasing tolerance for casual sexual relationships and extramarital affairs. It seems, with the rise of the nuannan, that Chinese women at least are now seeking genuine care and affection over material goods, with some even willing to pay for the illusion of their nuannan ideal.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

flavor of the month

Links to the Past

By Sean Silbert

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Photo by xinhua

C

hinese charcuterie is ubiquitous and tasty - but woefully unknown.

That’s no overstatement: you may well ask - what exactly is a Chinese sausage?

It wasn’t that long ago that China was a land of scarcity, where frigid winters and the needling threat of famine prompted people to find ways to make their food last. Yet food preservation wasn’t such a simple business.

It became so crucial to survival, especially in arid northern China, that villagers developed rituals surrounding food fermentation, pickling and – crucially for cold cuts – salting and smoking, which allowed them to keep meat in their diets, albeit in small quantities, virtually year-round.

From bucolic villages to sprawling cities, China’s markets have stalls stacked high with an endlessly variable selection of cured and smoked meats which change enormously from region to region. Familiar recipes are tweaked to fit the palates of individual areas, villages and even families, with seasonings adjusted to fit local appetites. Meats can range from fatty to lean, fork-tender to leather-hard (the latter requiring soaking, boiling or steaming before consumption). The only common feature is deliciousness.

The most common type of Chinese sausage known abroad is probably the southern Chinese variety, known by its Cantonese name of lap cheong. The thin, tough meat is easy to recognize for its white blotches of adipose, as well as its sweet flavor. Made from minced pork, the links are marinated, smoked and wind-dried outdoors for three days before being served sliced, diced or chopped into a mind-boggling array of dishes in which sausage is as much a flavor enhancer as a principal ingredient.

Travel into China’s agricultural heartlands and sausage is just as prominent. Charcuterie from Hunan and Sichuan provinces tend towards farmhouse wholesomeness, with most of the best examples cold-smoked after being marinated and air-dried to remove

unwanted moisture in these humid climes. A tongue-sizzling amount of chili and numbing Sichuanese pepper further reinforce local predilections. Considering how these offerings are usually served in stir-fries or other equally potent spiced dishes, they pack a considerable punch.

Sausage took on a particular importance in the nomadic north and west of China, where herders relied on their animals for their livelihoods and the bulk of their nutrition. I found some excellent lamb sausage crafted by ethnic Hui butchers when I traveled through Qinghai. The peppery flavor was rich and strong, enhanced by the presence of curdled sheep’s blood and barley which gave the meat an almost haggis-like, grainy texture. These thin links, sold in lengthy coils at markets and served sliced and fried as a side dish, both honestly reflect and surpass the hardscrabble way of life on one of the country’s most barren, windswept plateaus.

Northeast China brings to the table a plump, savory cure known as “red sausage,” where East meets West. Back in 1909, émigré Lithuanians in a Russian-owned factory in Harbin, at the time a crossroads between Tsarist Russia and the Qing Empire, began pump-

ing out sausages akin to what they were used to back home. While other Slavic dishes may have vanished from local dining tables, these meaty treats have remained a firm favorite with locals of all ethnic backgrounds.

Nor are sausages limited to the time-tested methods of preserving meat. In Yunnan, for instance, links packed with glutinous sticky rice are a common sight among minorityheavy regions, where they are traditionally a Chinese New Year treat. These deep purple sausages are further jazzed up with pigs blood and spices, and steamed or deep-fried in thin slices.

While the sausage remains a force to be reckoned with on restaurant menus, however, its place in the home is dwindling. For China’s rising middle class, turning their backs on generations of poverty, spending days laboring to preserve seasonal eats easily obtained at the local supermarket seems like folly. Sometimes, those attempting to preserve traditions even fall foul of the authorities. Late last year, farmers in Chongqing were blamed for worsening the city’s air pollution problem. Their crime?

Smoking pork in anticipation of the Chinese New Year holiday.

Chinese charcuterie appears to endure, at least in comparison to other methods of preservation. Traditions regarding pickling and salting, once the only way to guarantee year-round vitamins prior to refrigeration, are simplifying or even dying out completely.

Conversely, you can count on finding diced sausage in unexpected places, like Cantonese turnip cakes. On top of that, a new batch of boutique sausage stuffers has taken up business in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Even McDonalds introduced a new sandwich in 2013 in an attempt to stimulate flagging burger sales in China: two sausages slathered with mustard on top of the regular beef patties.

The presence of the sausage at the heart of many traditional Chinese dishes, it seems, ensures its survival.

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essay

Furniture, Unfurnished

By Alex Taggart

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Roughly 10 paces into the IKEA experience, everyone already seems to be completely exhausted

Illustration by Liu Xiaochao

Ahh, IKEA. A winning combination of minimalist Swedish design and affordable bourgeois domesticity, all folded up into a lovely little flatpack box of soft power, and served with a side of delicious meatballs. Anywhere in the world where people want something sustainable to sit on, the export-ready IKEA experience can be perfectly replicated – although not imitated – with no risk of compromising on the company’s squeaky-clean Scando-socialist ideals. Or so I thought, until my first trip to the Beijing flagship store, one of the largest in the world.

Growing up in the UK, I’d always had mixed feelings about IKEA. Yes, it’s decent value for money and the food is nice, but it’s undeniably soulless.

A weekend trip to my local branch, wedged in among outlet malls and megastores on the outskirts of the city, would leave me feeling drained and unimaginative. A visit to IKEA in China, however, is both a fun day out and a masterclass in shopping.

Last Sunday, in need of bed linen and a rug, I made my way over to the Beijing branch.

First stop, the canteen, where a cup of coffee comes with free refills from an unmanned coffee machine. IKEA obviously bets on the fact that customers will be satisfied with one tiny mug of weak Swedish coffee. However, they gravely underestimated the old lady standing in front of me in the line for the machine. Unimpressed with the tiny mug, she’s brought her own Thermos, and she’s going to hold down that “dispense” button as long as she likes. Well played. Note to self: next time, bring flask.

Next, I head into the labyrinthine showroom, which begins with the sofa section. Maybe it’s due to overindulgence in the canteen, maybe it’s the central heating, maybe it’s the overwhelming ecstasy of space-saving storage solutions, but roughly 10 paces into the IKEA experience, everyone already seems to be completely exhausted. Roughly 75 percent of couches – the comfiest 75 percent – are

occupied by sleeping people, mostly children and the elderly. Another smart move – after all, can anyone truly judge how comfy a couch is until they’ve taken a nap on it?

Perhaps the biggest advantage that the Chinese IKEA experience has over the Western one is that it’s invigorating, rather than soul-destroying. At Ikea back home, the model rooms, no matter how well styled, always feel sterile and staged. The spotless tranquility makes it difficult to imagine how it

would feel to live in one. The Beijing branch, with its tens of thousands of visitors per weekend (most of them families), has no such problem - the store buzzes with domestic clamor.

As I wander through the various sections, I feel as if I’m in the world’s largest, most busiest shared living space. In a dining room, an entire family – two small children (perhaps the fruit of the conditional Two Child Policy), their parents and grandparents – chats around a big, circular dinner table. Two old women set the world to rights in the kitchen.

A puffy-eyed young couple, apparently mid-argument, hold back tears as they sit in silence on the edge of a bed. The place feels alive.

The market hall, which Westerners will know as an endless maze of rooms seemingly designed to make it impossible to locate the one or two items you need, is a different experience altogether, especially during the pre-Chinese New Year sale. My original plan was to avoid distractions – keep my head down, work the angles, and make a beeline for the rugs. However, the Beijing store has put a clever twist on the turgid IKEA market hall: managers appear to have picked out the most garrulous staff members, given them megaphones, and created the feeling of a traditional Chinese marketplace.

Forget the rugs; this is entertainment!

Finally, the exit. Despite the rabid consumerism, watching these families trundle out of the store with more affordable Swedish-designed merchandise than they can carry is weirdly heartwarming. It feels like watching a baptism into the middle class.

As I leave, with a truckload of new furniture and a multi-pack of frozen salmon (but no rug), I wonder whether IKEA might be the most successful foreign consumer brand in China. Nowhere near as flashy as Apple nor as pervasive as Coca Cola, but ever-present, understated, almost invisible. Perhaps I was wrong about the company’s ideals - in China, IKEA seems to be doing exactly what IKEA does best. NEWSCHINA I April 2015

Bare Branches

By Alec Ash

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

We walked around the ladies in a clockwise circle, like embarrassed lions scoping out prey that was avoiding eye contact

Illustration by Liu Xiaochao

I had stalked the marriage market. I had studied with pick up artists. But I was still alone when Singles Day or “bare branch festival” came around on November 11. Originally a celebration of singlehood (or, alternatively, an end to it) chosen for the four number ones of the date, 11/11, Singles Day has now been all but commandeered by online retailers. However, there are also a smattering of dating events held on the day. Speed dating is increasingly popular in China, and I figured there was no harm in going along for a look.

The Happiness Singles Culture Member’s Club (“The Home of Single Friends”) is a club in central Beijing, with annual membership fees from 3000 to 10,000 yuan. It holds events every weekend, and I found their Singles Day speed dating extravaganza online. Gentlemen must be over 24, ladies over 22.

Everyone must bring their photo ID or passport.

100 yuan (US$16) got me past the front desk, into an open space with plush booths for strangers to sit and talk. In the next room were a couple of pool tables, a row of swinging double seats garnished with cuddly bears, and an open floor space with a podium and piano. There was no bar, only bottled water for two yuan (US$0.32) behind the registration desk. This was not a place to relax with a drink. This was a place to find your future spouse.

The night kicked off at 7:30 PM sharp, with a game called “five hundred seconds.” Sixteen ladies sat down in a circle of high bar stools, arranged facing out. Sixteen gentleman stood in an outer ring facing in – one of them, yours truly, the only foreigner there. We walked around the ladies in a clockwise circle, like embarrassed lions scoping out prey that was avoiding eye contact. The host asked questions, and whoever answered first got to choose where to stop so every man could have an eightminute conversation (five hundred seconds…) with the lady he was facing.

The problem was that the first two gents to answer questions correctly were too shy to decide who

they wanted to talk to, and looped the circle in endless timidity until the host had to cut in and stop us all. Each time, the same eight-minute conversation ensued, characterized by the mutual plumbing of information to determine compatibility (age, background, job) and ending with the exchanging of details (or not) on pieces of card.

After a few rounds, we moved onto the next game. Guys and gals alike stood in a big circle, holding hands. We were told to pass a count along the circle, but to say “pass” for every number which included, or was a multiple of, seven. 12, 13, pass, 15, 16, pass, 18, 19, 20, pass. It’s a game I played at

school, so I didn’t embarrass myself. If you slipped up, you had to go into the middle of the circle and introduce yourself, then field a question.

There was a painful moment when the guy in the middle was asked to point out which girl in the group he liked best. The three-minute silence that followed was horrifying, as he stumbled over the prospect of singling someone out. When he finally did, the host complimented his bravery, and we all applauded him. Then the girl was asked to stand on his feet and he was told to dance. He stomped her around the circle once, like a clunking elephant, and they avoided eye contact for the rest of the night.

The final game was the simplest of the lot. The host held eight long red strings in the middle, clenched in a fist. Each lady took a string from one end. Each gentleman took one from the other. The host let go, leaving the group to untangle itself and find out who was holding the other end of your string. Then (you guessed it) we went aside and talked with them for eight minutes. Name, age, background, job. Delicate prodding to see if you have an apartment, a car, a nest egg.

More bashful singles hung around the edges of the game, watching from the shadows. Some chatted and paired off. Others peeked over the top of their smart phones, pretending to be busy texting.

Groups of girlfriends observed the guys in the circle, and traded comments. The host made a point of repeating salient information over the microphone for their benefit. “1986,” she announced about me, “the foreigner was born in 1986. And he’s very clever, he can count in Chinese.”

The night wound down after a couple of hours, the end signaled by a blast of pop music and a mass desertion of the dance floor. Back pocket stuffed with the contact information of some half dozen prospects, I snuck away into the winter night – where not so much love, but more a biting chill, was in the air.

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Cultural listings Cinema

Localization: Accomplished 20 Once Again, a Chinese remake of the 2014 South Korean comedy Miss Granny, has been a hit in the Chinese movie market. It tells the story of a 70-year-old woman magically transformed into a 20-year-old, whose newfound youth triggers a series of absurd events. Taiwanese director Leste Chen has a proven track record in the urban romcom genre, and 20 Once Again hits the mark. Starring Yang Zishan, Kuei Ya-lei, Bolin Chen and Lu Han, the movie has garnered a box office income of 350 million yuan (US$56m) in the first three weeks in mainland theaters. Disproving early suggestions that the film would turn out to be a paltry copy of the original, users of popular cultural-focused social networking site Douban rated the film a respectable 7.4 out of 10. Critics believe this kind of tasteful localization of foreign movies will become more popular in China.

Music

Book

Red Star No. 20 A recent compilation album, Red Star No. 20, was released as a tribute to the twentieth anniversary of Red Star Production, one of the most important and influential Chinese record companies of the mid-1990s. During that time, the company scouted some of the most talented rock and pop singers, songwriters and producers in China, including Zheng Jun, Tian Zhen, Xu Wei and Zhang Yadong. In 1994, the company released Zheng Jun’s seminal debut album Naked, and followed it up with its first label compilation, Red Star No. 1, in 1995. However, the Red Star series saw a decline in popularity that coincided with a general slump in Chinese rock music. In 2004 the company was purchased by Taihe Rye Music and the influence of the company’s early works still endures. For the new commemorative album, some of the most popular rock and pop stars in China covered the company’s early classics in modern styles.

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We Live in a Huge Gap

By Yu Hua

Exhibition

Spatial Manipulation One of the most important artists working in China today, Liu Wei’s largest exhibition to date, titled Liu Wei: Colors, was launched at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing on February 7, 2015. Having come of age before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Liu Wei is heavily influenced by the instability and fluctuation peculiar to 21st-century China. Along with his fellow members of the late-1990s “Post-Sense Sensibility” school, Liu’s unique style was largely molded by a lack of appropriate spaces in which to exhibit. He and his peers learned to adapt to their surroundings – showing their works in basements, unfinished shopping malls, and other non-traditional venues. Colors explores this idea, with outsized, immersive artworks variously twisting through the gallery, towering over and surrounding the viewer.

No new book from celebrated novelist Yu Hua has ever failed to provoke discussion, from his early works Yelling in the Drizzle and To Live to The Seventh Day, published in 2013. Recently, Yu has released his first collection of essays, titled We Live in a Huge Gap, in which he explores his opinions on the literature and realities of the past decade.

Having spent the last ten years traveling the world, Yu Hua has compiled his observations on cultures, societies and social events into the collection. In Yu’s reflections on the world we live in, a subtle, multi-faceted image of a rising and transforming China can be detected.

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

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Commentary

Free Trade Zones Serve Domestic and International Agendas China is preparing for a greater role in reshaping global trade

By Sun Xiaolin

O

n December 27, the National and financial policies and practices with People’s Congress announced international norms.

With the expansion of that China would dramatiIn recent years, the US has been acthe FTZ program, China cally expand the size of the free trade zone tively promoting the Trans-Pacific Partcan experiment with (FTZ) recently established in Shanghai to nership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade various different policies include several districts in the city’s comand Investment Partnership (TTIP) and regulations and gain mercial center which currently host maand the Plurilateral Services Agreement valuable experience jor multinational companies and Chinese (PSA) among its European and Asian banks. Moreover, the NPC announced allies. As these new initiatives are ultiin participating in that it would also establish three new mately designed to replace the frameinternational negotiations FTZs in Guangdong, Fujian and Tianjin. work of the WTO, unless China takes a The Guangdong FTZ will include the more active role in studying and particiNansha New Area in Guangzhou, Shenpating in the global trade rule-making zhen’s Qianhai district and the Hengqin process, it may find itself marginalized New Area of Zhuhai, a total area of 116.2 square kilometers. The in the long run.

Tianjin FTZ, with a total area of 119.9 square kilometers, will be With the expansion of the FTZ program, China can experiment comprised of Tianjin Port, Tianjin Airport and the Binhai New with various different policies and regulations and gain valuable exArea industrial park. Finally, the 118.04-square-meter Fujian FTZ perience in participating in international negotiations. will include industrial areas in the provincial capital of Fuzhou, as From this perspective, the expansion of the FTZ scheme is also well as the whole of Xiamen and Pingtan cities. an integral part of China’s global strategy. In 2014, China’s leaderThe major expansion of the FTZ program to include business ship adopted the so-called “One Belt, One Road” initiative, meancenters in some of China’s most prosperous cities indicates that the ing its New Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road multilateral trade leadership sees the scheme as a major policy tool to serve both its initiatives, as core elements of its global economic strategy. Through domestic and international agendas. such schemes, which stress international cooperation and greater Domestically, it is hoped that by fostering innovation, the estab- multilateral market access, China aims to play an active role in falishment of FTZs will help China to push forward the transfor- cilitating regional integration. mation of China’s energy-intensive growth model, which has been China is currently conducting extensive negotiations with several largely driven by cheap labor and created a nationwide pollution European countries to reach an agreement on free trade deals. Thus problem. far, Iceland and Switzerland look like the most likely candidates to China launched the Shanghai FTZ in September 2013, and the first reach consensus with the leadership in Beijing. In Asia, China government has used it to test a number of new economic policies is negotiating with South Korea and Japan over a free trade area including negative list management of foreign investment, prefer- covering all three countries. Beijing has also stepped up its efforts to ential trade and financial policies and opening up more industries establish closer economic ties with BRICS member states. to foreign investors.

Through experienced gained in its FTZs, China will be in a betBy liberalizing government regulation within a series of FTZs, ter position to participate, or even take a leading role, in rule-makthe government also hopes to push forward administrative reforms. ing for a new international trade order.  As China’s international relations adopt a different government and policy framework, particularly in dealings with Western countries, The author is a researcher and co-founder of the ShiJu Thinktank, an the existence of an FTZ program will help China align its economic independent Chinese consultancy specializing in finance and economics

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015

NEWSCHINA I April 2015

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NEWSCHINA I April 2015