Την ίδια ώρα, στην Κίνα...
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Βρε! χρόνια είχα να δω το όνομα του Sascha Matuszak! Έγραφε παλιά κάθε τόσο στο antiwar.com κάποια, μάλλον αδύναμα όμως, άρθρα, για και από την Κίνα πάντα. (βλ. Additional Contributors)
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Τα απόνερα της ουκρανικής κρίσης στην Ταϊβάν:
(J. Michael Cole / National Interest)
Days ahead of a referendum that could result in the loss of the southern territory of Crimea to Russia, Taiwan, which like Ukraine lives in the shadow of a great power, is watching closely to see whether Moscow’s gambit could embolden Beijing to adopt similar strategies toward the island democracy.
While Crimea serves as an imperfect analogy for Taiwan’s situation, there are enough parallels to warrant an exploration of the current crisis and its denouement to determine if they can possibly create a precedent for Chinese behavior. Key to this effort is the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have notions of the “Near Abroad”—that is, territories that, while foreign and sovereign, their governments regard as fair game.
Υπάρχει όμως και το αντίστροφο σενάριο, άλλου σχολιαστή:
In contrast to Cole's opinion (and more in keeping, I might say, with the drift of his scenario and the propensity for mischief displayed by China hawks in the US), I think a more likely scenario for violent political unrest in Taiwan is that pro-independence forces, if egged on by the United States and Japan with the promise of recognition, might foment a political crisis in Taiwan, overwhelm the current government, declare independence, and dare the PRC to respond. That's pretty much what happened in Ukraine.
(...)
But it doesn't matter who you think the bad guy would be; whether you think the PRC would take the enormous geopolitical risk of fomenting chaos in Taiwan in order to justify an invasion, or if you think the United States would roll the dice on its future in Asia by egging on pro-independence radicals in Taipei, or you simply hope that nobody starts World War III during your lifetime…
(J. Michael Cole / National Interest)
Days ahead of a referendum that could result in the loss of the southern territory of Crimea to Russia, Taiwan, which like Ukraine lives in the shadow of a great power, is watching closely to see whether Moscow’s gambit could embolden Beijing to adopt similar strategies toward the island democracy.
While Crimea serves as an imperfect analogy for Taiwan’s situation, there are enough parallels to warrant an exploration of the current crisis and its denouement to determine if they can possibly create a precedent for Chinese behavior. Key to this effort is the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have notions of the “Near Abroad”—that is, territories that, while foreign and sovereign, their governments regard as fair game.
Υπάρχει όμως και το αντίστροφο σενάριο, άλλου σχολιαστή:
In contrast to Cole's opinion (and more in keeping, I might say, with the drift of his scenario and the propensity for mischief displayed by China hawks in the US), I think a more likely scenario for violent political unrest in Taiwan is that pro-independence forces, if egged on by the United States and Japan with the promise of recognition, might foment a political crisis in Taiwan, overwhelm the current government, declare independence, and dare the PRC to respond. That's pretty much what happened in Ukraine.
(...)
But it doesn't matter who you think the bad guy would be; whether you think the PRC would take the enormous geopolitical risk of fomenting chaos in Taiwan in order to justify an invasion, or if you think the United States would roll the dice on its future in Asia by egging on pro-independence radicals in Taipei, or you simply hope that nobody starts World War III during your lifetime…
Costas
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Ως και οι ίδιοι βαρέθηκαν τους εαυτούς τους! (ΝΥΤ)
Mr. Wang, head of the party’s internal discipline commission and one of seven members of the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, had just delivered a speech to which the Jilin party secretary, Wang Rulin (no relation to Wang Qishan) was expected to respond.
As Wang Rulin began reading from what was apparently a written response, Wang Qishan interrupted, telling him to “Make it short!” When Wang Rulin said he couldn’t, Wang Qishan bristled in annoyance. “No doubt your response is about how my speech was important in such and such way,” he said, according to the accounts. “I didn’t have a script for my speech,” he continued. “So how could you have such a long printed response? Wouldn’t you say this is formalism? There’s no need for you to read it anymore!”
Αλλά η αγάπη τους για τη σκηνοθεσία δεν γνωρίζει όρια (ΝΥΤ, Sinosphere):
On Thursday, Li Keqiang, now in his second year as prime minister, took more than a dozen questions from reporters on subjects like housing, pollution, bureaucratic red tape and themissing Malaysia Airlines plane.
He gesticulated with ease as he talked about China’s relations with the United States (“Wise people will seek common interests, while the unwise will focus on their differences.”) and the fight against official graft (“Corruption is the natural enemy of a people’s government.”).
And unlike the somewhat ponderous, long-winded style of his predecessor, Wen Jiabao, Mr. Li was breezy and jocular as he complimented foreign reporters on their Chinese language abilities while making only slightly dated references to pop culture, including a nod to the motivational bestseller “Who Moved My Cheese?”
But unbeknownst to many people in China, all the questions had been vetted in advance, with foreign reporters and Foreign Ministry officials having negotiated over what topics were permissible, and then how the acceptable questions would be phrased.
This year CNN, Reuters, CNBC, The Associated Press and The Financial Times were among the outlets permitted to ask questions. Most of those who covered the event agreed it was a lackluster affair, without even a nugget of bona fide news.
According to several foreign journalists involved in the negotiations – a process that began months ago – there were a few non-negotiables: no questions about the stabbing attack in a train station in southwestern China earlier this month that claimed 29 lives, no mention of the self-immolations in Tibet and no references to Zhou Yongkang, the former powerful head of internal security who is reportedly the focus of a corruption inquiry.
(...)
Mr. McDonell, a former president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, has been one of the more vocal critics of the Chinese government’s efforts to manipulate its public image through what he and others describe as “fake” reporters – foreigners employed by media outlets that masquerade as overseas news organizations, but are entities controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Earlier this week, Mr. McDonell and several other Western reporters caused a stir at a news conference headlined by China’s central banker after the moderator picked on a succession of people employed by party-affiliated outlets – and ignoring members of the overseas press. When the moderator announced it was time to call on a foreign reporter and pointed at a young Australian woman working for Global CAMG Media Group, a Chinese-owned company based in Melbourne, Australia, Mr. McDonell shouted, “Can we have questions from the real foreign press?”
Mr. Wang, head of the party’s internal discipline commission and one of seven members of the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, had just delivered a speech to which the Jilin party secretary, Wang Rulin (no relation to Wang Qishan) was expected to respond.
As Wang Rulin began reading from what was apparently a written response, Wang Qishan interrupted, telling him to “Make it short!” When Wang Rulin said he couldn’t, Wang Qishan bristled in annoyance. “No doubt your response is about how my speech was important in such and such way,” he said, according to the accounts. “I didn’t have a script for my speech,” he continued. “So how could you have such a long printed response? Wouldn’t you say this is formalism? There’s no need for you to read it anymore!”
Αλλά η αγάπη τους για τη σκηνοθεσία δεν γνωρίζει όρια (ΝΥΤ, Sinosphere):
On Thursday, Li Keqiang, now in his second year as prime minister, took more than a dozen questions from reporters on subjects like housing, pollution, bureaucratic red tape and themissing Malaysia Airlines plane.
He gesticulated with ease as he talked about China’s relations with the United States (“Wise people will seek common interests, while the unwise will focus on their differences.”) and the fight against official graft (“Corruption is the natural enemy of a people’s government.”).
And unlike the somewhat ponderous, long-winded style of his predecessor, Wen Jiabao, Mr. Li was breezy and jocular as he complimented foreign reporters on their Chinese language abilities while making only slightly dated references to pop culture, including a nod to the motivational bestseller “Who Moved My Cheese?”
But unbeknownst to many people in China, all the questions had been vetted in advance, with foreign reporters and Foreign Ministry officials having negotiated over what topics were permissible, and then how the acceptable questions would be phrased.
This year CNN, Reuters, CNBC, The Associated Press and The Financial Times were among the outlets permitted to ask questions. Most of those who covered the event agreed it was a lackluster affair, without even a nugget of bona fide news.
According to several foreign journalists involved in the negotiations – a process that began months ago – there were a few non-negotiables: no questions about the stabbing attack in a train station in southwestern China earlier this month that claimed 29 lives, no mention of the self-immolations in Tibet and no references to Zhou Yongkang, the former powerful head of internal security who is reportedly the focus of a corruption inquiry.
(...)
Mr. McDonell, a former president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, has been one of the more vocal critics of the Chinese government’s efforts to manipulate its public image through what he and others describe as “fake” reporters – foreigners employed by media outlets that masquerade as overseas news organizations, but are entities controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Earlier this week, Mr. McDonell and several other Western reporters caused a stir at a news conference headlined by China’s central banker after the moderator picked on a succession of people employed by party-affiliated outlets – and ignoring members of the overseas press. When the moderator announced it was time to call on a foreign reporter and pointed at a young Australian woman working for Global CAMG Media Group, a Chinese-owned company based in Melbourne, Australia, Mr. McDonell shouted, “Can we have questions from the real foreign press?”
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(Reuters)
In a rare but brief interview, Abdullah Mansour, leader of the rebel Turkestan Islamic Party, said it was his holy duty to fight the Chinese.
"The fight against China is our Islamic responsibility and we have to fulfill it," he said from an undisclosed location.
"China is not only our enemy, but it is the enemy of all Muslims ... We have plans for many attacks in China," he said, speaking in the Uighur language through an interpreter.
"We have a message to China that East Turkestan people and other Muslims have woken up. They cannot suppress us and Islam any more. Muslims will take revenge."
In a rare but brief interview, Abdullah Mansour, leader of the rebel Turkestan Islamic Party, said it was his holy duty to fight the Chinese.
"The fight against China is our Islamic responsibility and we have to fulfill it," he said from an undisclosed location.
"China is not only our enemy, but it is the enemy of all Muslims ... We have plans for many attacks in China," he said, speaking in the Uighur language through an interpreter.
"We have a message to China that East Turkestan people and other Muslims have woken up. They cannot suppress us and Islam any more. Muslims will take revenge."
Θιβετιανοί μαστίφ κι εκατομμύρια δολάρια: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...million-in-china-report/article1-1197006.aspx
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Ταϊβανέζικα συμβάντα με ελαφρό άρωμα Ουκρανίας. 3 ρεπορτάζ:
-1-
Opponents of China Trade Deal Occupy Taiwan’s Legislature
By AUSTIN RAMZY (NYT, Sinosphere blog, 19/3/14)
Hundreds of people have occupied Taiwan’s legislature to protest a trade deal with China that they fear will give Beijing too much influence over the island’s economy.
The protesters, including many students from local universities, stormed into the legislature around 9 p.m. Tuesday, holding up banners that accused President Ma Ying-jeou and his allies in the governing Kuomintang party of forcing through the measure without allowing a review of its details.
The measure, which drops barriers on service trades, is a follow-up accord to the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between Beijing and Taipei. The services agreement has raised concerns in Taiwan that it will harm local businesses.
China considers self-governed Taiwan, to which Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces retreated after losing a civil war to the Communists in 1949, to be part of its territory that must eventually be reunified.
The demonstrators said they had occupied the legislative assembly hall to protest a trade act that would “forfeit Taiwan’s future,” according to a statement posted on Facebook. The police had tried unsuccessfully to oust the protesters late Tuesday night.
Outside the legislature Wednesday morning, hundreds more demonstrators listened to speeches, while police officers with riot shields blocked the front entrance and workers installed barbed-wire barriers around surrounding buildings.
“I feel at this point it might be a little bit too late, but if we don’t have this kind of activity, then we won’t be able to let the government hear the voice of the people,” said Chen Ying-yu, a 25-year-old hospital worker. She joined the protesters outside the legislature before starting her shift on Wednesday.
“If we decide that our future is only in trading with China, then we will just restrict ourselves,” said Huang Pei-hao, 20, a junior at Fo Guang University, who spoke to a group of demonstrators outside the legislature.
The opposition Democratic Progressive Party accused the Kuomintang of breaking an agreement to conduct an itemized review of the trade pact. The Kuomintang responded on Wednesday that the move was necessary because D.P.P. legislators had tried to block official business. “The D.P.P. is encouraging people to use unreasonable behavior to voice their opinion and this should be severely condemned,” read a statement posted on the Kuomintang’s website.
Under the agreement the two sides would lower barriers on cross-strait investment in dozens of fields including health care, finance and insurance. The D.P.P. said it would fight approval of the deal, but it lacked the votes to thwart the Kuomintang, which holds 65 of 113 legislative seats, versus 40 for the D.P.P.
An opinion poll released last week by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research found that 44.5 percent of respondents opposed the trade deal, while 32.8 percent supported it and 22.9 percent did not respond. A majority, 73.7 percent, said they endorsed a line-item review of the agreement.
-2-
Students in the house
By Banyan (The Economist, 3/20/14)
NEARLY three days into their occupation of the debating chamber of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, in Taipei, dozens of activists, mostly students, show no sign of flagging. They broke in on Tuesday evening, March 18th, and resisted attempts by the police to evict them overnight. Since then, a stand-off has persisted. The police are stopping new arrivals from joining them, but allow in food and water. The protesters include a team of white-coated medics. They look well settled.
Three legislators from the main opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), started 70-hour hunger-strikes just before the occupation. They are taking eight-hour shifts in the parliament to afford the protesters extra protection—to shift the students, the police will also have to manhandle the legislators.
Outside, a crowd of several hundred ignores the drizzle to listen to speeches and songs, wave artificial sunflowers, and shout denunciations of the government and of Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou.
The occupation was billed as lasting 120 hours, to block a plenary parliamentary session on Friday 21st March, and to provide a deadline for the government to meet the protesters’ demands. These are three-fold: they want Mr Ma to come to the chamber himself to apologise for the way in which his party pushed an agreement on opening up services trade with China through parliament on Monday (available here, in Chinese); they also want the parliamentary speaker, Wang Jin-pyng (who happens to be a rival to Mr Ma in the ruling party, the Kuomintang, or KMT ) to come to pay his respects; and they want legislation passed to institutionalise parliament’s right to scrutinise such agreements item by item.
The DPP insists the students are acting on their own initiative. But it is supporting their protest, which it believes is tapping a rich vein of discontent with the government, focusing on the services-trade agreement.
The sit-in was provoked by what the DPP sees as the KMT’s breaking of its promise to allow a parliamentary committee to review the agreement clause by clause. At a press conference on March 20th, the DPP’s chairman, Su Tseng-chang, portrayed this as a “key moment” for Taiwan’s quarter-century-old democracy, which he said the party would “do whatever it takes” to protect.
In less lofty terms, the DPP seems to have spotted an opportunity to exploit the unpopularity of a man they call “a 9% president”—a reference to the low point Mr Ma’s approval rating fell to last year in opinion polls—on an issue where they think he is weak. With local elections in December and a new presidential contest due in 2016, when Mr Ma will have to stand down, the DPP seems to think it has the KMT on the run.
Improving relations with China has been a central theme of Mr Ma’s presidency since he took office in 2008. In 2010 China and Taiwan signed the Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement (ECFA), significantly boosting cross-strait ties. The services agreement, signed last June, is part of the effort to implement that framework.
At the press conference, Mr Su spoke under a banner reading: “Demand substantial review; restart negotiations with China.” The DPP argues the agreement will hurt small businesses on Taiwan and is lopsided in some of its market-opening measures. But also, the party’s roots are in the movement that wants Taiwan to declare formal independence from China; it worries about Taiwan’s becoming too dependent economically on the mainland. Hsiao Bi-khim, one of the DPP hunger-strikers, thinks most people on Taiwan are behind it on this, since they have yet to see the benefits they were promised from ECFA. The economy is still, by local standards, sluggish.
For his part, Mr Ma may be thinking about his legacy, and wanting to use his remaining years in power to make a breakthrough in relations with China. Last month Nanjing in China played host to the first formal meeting between ministers from China and Taiwan in their government capacities since the end of the civil war in 1949 formalised the division. A next step would be a summit between Mr Ma and China’s president, Xi Jinping. Hopes that the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Beijing this autumn might provide an opportunity are fading. But it would be easier to achieve a meeting elsewhere if the implementation of ECFA were going well.
In the shorter term, however, Mr Ma has a nasty local problem. The students say they will not leave after their five-day deadline if their demands have not been met; and they may take their “occupy” strategy to other targets: Mr Ma’s own office, for example.
It is already highly unusual for a government to have tolerated the seizure of parliament by protesters for so long. But, fearful of the ugly headlines using force against peaceful students would attract, it does not have many easy options.
-3-
Taiwan Legislature occupiers' ultimatum passes without response from government
By Ray Sanchez and Zoe Li, CNN (21/3/14)
Hundreds of student protesters barricaded inside Taiwan's Legislature for the past four days say they are disappointed by the government's failure to respond to their ultimatum Friday.
The demonstrators, mostly university students, are protesting against the ruling party's push for a trade pact with China, which they claim will hurt the island. The movement has been dubbed the "Sunflower Revolution" by Taiwanese media.
The group leading the protest -- The Coalition of Student and Civic Groups against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement -- announced the ultimatum on Thursday, demanding that President Ma Ying-jeou withdraw the controversial trade agreement and issue an apology by noon Friday.
As the deadline passed, no direct response from Ma was given, and student protesters appeared on Taiwanese television expressing their disappointment. They said they would continue to occupy Legislature and would announce their next move at a press conference to be held at 6 p.m. local time (E.T. 6 a.m.) Friday.
The protesters entered the main assembly hall inside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Tuesday night and blocked the entrances with chairs, according to images and accounts filed from the scene with CNN iReport <http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/1108725>.
Police responded but had not dispersed the protesters, who also filled the streets around the Legislature in the center of Taipei.
By March 19, Taiwan's state news agency reported that 38 police officers were injured* when more than 400 protesters took over the Legislature.
Four protesters were arrested in two unsuccessful attempts to evict them, the news agency reported. Police said there were more than 2,000 protesters both inside and outside the building, with a equal number of officers on the scene.
"We do not want to clash with the police," said protester and iReporter Shanny Chang, 19. "We just have to let the government know that never try to fool the people."
One CNN iReporter said that after the protesters took over, hundreds gathered outside the building, with some making speeches and singing songs.
In a video, a young woman sings Bob Dylan's song "The Times They are a-Changin'," which many associate with the protest spirit of the 1960s.
"She played the Dylan song because she thinks the lyrics match the ongoing events happening in Taiwan," said iReporter George Chang, 24, who shot the video. "Bob Dylan isn't really that popular in Taiwan, especially not to the 8th grade generation, what Taiwanese call children born after 1991, but to the older generations I think he isn't a stranger to them."
The trade pact was signed last year in Shanghai to ease investment and trade between the two longtime adversaries, mainland China and Taiwan.
"The agreement was passed without proper procedure; that's why the people are angry," said Kaiyu Chang, who shot this photo of a crowd assembled in Taipei Wednesday.
But opponents have voiced concerns that not only will Taiwan's economy be hurt as businesses and investments flow to China, but the island's democratic system could be undermined by closer ties with the mainland.
"The trade agreement was not supervised by the people of Taiwan, and benefits only big companies and harnesses our jobs," Chang wrote. "But I do agree we need to open Taiwan to the world, even China too. But NOT this way, not by signing an agreement that is not fair to us and was negotiated by people who have no profession in these territories. We must rewrite the agreement and make it work for the both of us, towards a peaceful future between the strait of Taiwan."
An iReporter identified as kwarrior, an Asian-American living in Taiwan, wrote that the government's handling of the trade agreement "was unconstitutional and a blatant violation of the people's rights. ... I care deeply because my parents are Taiwanese and they always loved their nation like no other. I am personally affected because I value the rights of the people to voice and make changes in a democratic country."
In a statement, Amnesty International urged security forces to show restraint.
"The situation is clearly tense. ... While police have a duty to maintain order and to protect the safety of the public, the response must only be proportionate to the threat. Force should only be used as a last resort. The authorities must ensure the rights of all those protesting are upheld and respected," said Roseann Rife, the group's East Asia research director.
Last month, Taiwan and China held their highest-level talks in more than six decades, marking the first government-to-government contact since the pair's acrimonious split in 1949.
Wang Yu-chi of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees the island's China policy, met with his mainland counterpart, Zhang Zhijun of China's Taiwan Affairs Office.
After the meeting, China's state news agency Xinhua said the two sides had agreed to open a regular communication channel.
"We should both be resolute to not let cross-strait relations suffer any more twists and turns and never let (the relationship) go backward," Zhang was quoted as saying.
Previous contact between the two sides has been conducted through semi-official foundations or through political parties, not by government ministers acting in their official capacities.
Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has never ruled out the use of force to achieve reunification.
Taiwan also calls itself the Republic of China.
Relations between the two sides have improved since Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou came to power in 2008. On Wednesday, Ma called for the passage of the trade pact.
*Ένας σχολιαστής ισχυρίζεται: The statement that 38 police officers have been injured which appears in the CNN article posted earlier is almost certainly fabricated. It was first reported in Want China Times, a fiercely pro-Beijing source. All other indications are that this has been a very civil and respectful protest.
----------------------------
Στο λινκαρισμένο ταϊβανέζικο βίντεο από την κατάληψη των φοιτητών ο πρόεδρος της Ταϊβάν παριστάνεται με κέρατα ελαφιού. Ο λόγος:
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has a doctorate from Harvard University, and yet he could still say with authority in a speech to Lions Club International that deer antlers, a famous New Zealand export, are the part of the deer’s fur that grows inside its ear. The president emphasized the point by indicating his own right ear. This was broadcast on TV, so there was little possibility his words were misheard or misrepresented by the media.
-1-
Opponents of China Trade Deal Occupy Taiwan’s Legislature
By AUSTIN RAMZY (NYT, Sinosphere blog, 19/3/14)
Hundreds of people have occupied Taiwan’s legislature to protest a trade deal with China that they fear will give Beijing too much influence over the island’s economy.
The protesters, including many students from local universities, stormed into the legislature around 9 p.m. Tuesday, holding up banners that accused President Ma Ying-jeou and his allies in the governing Kuomintang party of forcing through the measure without allowing a review of its details.
The measure, which drops barriers on service trades, is a follow-up accord to the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between Beijing and Taipei. The services agreement has raised concerns in Taiwan that it will harm local businesses.
China considers self-governed Taiwan, to which Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces retreated after losing a civil war to the Communists in 1949, to be part of its territory that must eventually be reunified.
The demonstrators said they had occupied the legislative assembly hall to protest a trade act that would “forfeit Taiwan’s future,” according to a statement posted on Facebook. The police had tried unsuccessfully to oust the protesters late Tuesday night.
Outside the legislature Wednesday morning, hundreds more demonstrators listened to speeches, while police officers with riot shields blocked the front entrance and workers installed barbed-wire barriers around surrounding buildings.
“I feel at this point it might be a little bit too late, but if we don’t have this kind of activity, then we won’t be able to let the government hear the voice of the people,” said Chen Ying-yu, a 25-year-old hospital worker. She joined the protesters outside the legislature before starting her shift on Wednesday.
“If we decide that our future is only in trading with China, then we will just restrict ourselves,” said Huang Pei-hao, 20, a junior at Fo Guang University, who spoke to a group of demonstrators outside the legislature.
The opposition Democratic Progressive Party accused the Kuomintang of breaking an agreement to conduct an itemized review of the trade pact. The Kuomintang responded on Wednesday that the move was necessary because D.P.P. legislators had tried to block official business. “The D.P.P. is encouraging people to use unreasonable behavior to voice their opinion and this should be severely condemned,” read a statement posted on the Kuomintang’s website.
Under the agreement the two sides would lower barriers on cross-strait investment in dozens of fields including health care, finance and insurance. The D.P.P. said it would fight approval of the deal, but it lacked the votes to thwart the Kuomintang, which holds 65 of 113 legislative seats, versus 40 for the D.P.P.
An opinion poll released last week by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research found that 44.5 percent of respondents opposed the trade deal, while 32.8 percent supported it and 22.9 percent did not respond. A majority, 73.7 percent, said they endorsed a line-item review of the agreement.
-2-
Students in the house
By Banyan (The Economist, 3/20/14)
NEARLY three days into their occupation of the debating chamber of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, in Taipei, dozens of activists, mostly students, show no sign of flagging. They broke in on Tuesday evening, March 18th, and resisted attempts by the police to evict them overnight. Since then, a stand-off has persisted. The police are stopping new arrivals from joining them, but allow in food and water. The protesters include a team of white-coated medics. They look well settled.
Three legislators from the main opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), started 70-hour hunger-strikes just before the occupation. They are taking eight-hour shifts in the parliament to afford the protesters extra protection—to shift the students, the police will also have to manhandle the legislators.
Outside, a crowd of several hundred ignores the drizzle to listen to speeches and songs, wave artificial sunflowers, and shout denunciations of the government and of Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou.
The occupation was billed as lasting 120 hours, to block a plenary parliamentary session on Friday 21st March, and to provide a deadline for the government to meet the protesters’ demands. These are three-fold: they want Mr Ma to come to the chamber himself to apologise for the way in which his party pushed an agreement on opening up services trade with China through parliament on Monday (available here, in Chinese); they also want the parliamentary speaker, Wang Jin-pyng (who happens to be a rival to Mr Ma in the ruling party, the Kuomintang, or KMT ) to come to pay his respects; and they want legislation passed to institutionalise parliament’s right to scrutinise such agreements item by item.
The DPP insists the students are acting on their own initiative. But it is supporting their protest, which it believes is tapping a rich vein of discontent with the government, focusing on the services-trade agreement.
The sit-in was provoked by what the DPP sees as the KMT’s breaking of its promise to allow a parliamentary committee to review the agreement clause by clause. At a press conference on March 20th, the DPP’s chairman, Su Tseng-chang, portrayed this as a “key moment” for Taiwan’s quarter-century-old democracy, which he said the party would “do whatever it takes” to protect.
In less lofty terms, the DPP seems to have spotted an opportunity to exploit the unpopularity of a man they call “a 9% president”—a reference to the low point Mr Ma’s approval rating fell to last year in opinion polls—on an issue where they think he is weak. With local elections in December and a new presidential contest due in 2016, when Mr Ma will have to stand down, the DPP seems to think it has the KMT on the run.
Improving relations with China has been a central theme of Mr Ma’s presidency since he took office in 2008. In 2010 China and Taiwan signed the Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement (ECFA), significantly boosting cross-strait ties. The services agreement, signed last June, is part of the effort to implement that framework.
At the press conference, Mr Su spoke under a banner reading: “Demand substantial review; restart negotiations with China.” The DPP argues the agreement will hurt small businesses on Taiwan and is lopsided in some of its market-opening measures. But also, the party’s roots are in the movement that wants Taiwan to declare formal independence from China; it worries about Taiwan’s becoming too dependent economically on the mainland. Hsiao Bi-khim, one of the DPP hunger-strikers, thinks most people on Taiwan are behind it on this, since they have yet to see the benefits they were promised from ECFA. The economy is still, by local standards, sluggish.
For his part, Mr Ma may be thinking about his legacy, and wanting to use his remaining years in power to make a breakthrough in relations with China. Last month Nanjing in China played host to the first formal meeting between ministers from China and Taiwan in their government capacities since the end of the civil war in 1949 formalised the division. A next step would be a summit between Mr Ma and China’s president, Xi Jinping. Hopes that the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Beijing this autumn might provide an opportunity are fading. But it would be easier to achieve a meeting elsewhere if the implementation of ECFA were going well.
In the shorter term, however, Mr Ma has a nasty local problem. The students say they will not leave after their five-day deadline if their demands have not been met; and they may take their “occupy” strategy to other targets: Mr Ma’s own office, for example.
It is already highly unusual for a government to have tolerated the seizure of parliament by protesters for so long. But, fearful of the ugly headlines using force against peaceful students would attract, it does not have many easy options.
-3-
Taiwan Legislature occupiers' ultimatum passes without response from government
By Ray Sanchez and Zoe Li, CNN (21/3/14)
Hundreds of student protesters barricaded inside Taiwan's Legislature for the past four days say they are disappointed by the government's failure to respond to their ultimatum Friday.
The demonstrators, mostly university students, are protesting against the ruling party's push for a trade pact with China, which they claim will hurt the island. The movement has been dubbed the "Sunflower Revolution" by Taiwanese media.
The group leading the protest -- The Coalition of Student and Civic Groups against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement -- announced the ultimatum on Thursday, demanding that President Ma Ying-jeou withdraw the controversial trade agreement and issue an apology by noon Friday.
As the deadline passed, no direct response from Ma was given, and student protesters appeared on Taiwanese television expressing their disappointment. They said they would continue to occupy Legislature and would announce their next move at a press conference to be held at 6 p.m. local time (E.T. 6 a.m.) Friday.
The protesters entered the main assembly hall inside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Tuesday night and blocked the entrances with chairs, according to images and accounts filed from the scene with CNN iReport <http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/1108725>.
Police responded but had not dispersed the protesters, who also filled the streets around the Legislature in the center of Taipei.
By March 19, Taiwan's state news agency reported that 38 police officers were injured* when more than 400 protesters took over the Legislature.
Four protesters were arrested in two unsuccessful attempts to evict them, the news agency reported. Police said there were more than 2,000 protesters both inside and outside the building, with a equal number of officers on the scene.
"We do not want to clash with the police," said protester and iReporter Shanny Chang, 19. "We just have to let the government know that never try to fool the people."
One CNN iReporter said that after the protesters took over, hundreds gathered outside the building, with some making speeches and singing songs.
In a video, a young woman sings Bob Dylan's song "The Times They are a-Changin'," which many associate with the protest spirit of the 1960s.
"She played the Dylan song because she thinks the lyrics match the ongoing events happening in Taiwan," said iReporter George Chang, 24, who shot the video. "Bob Dylan isn't really that popular in Taiwan, especially not to the 8th grade generation, what Taiwanese call children born after 1991, but to the older generations I think he isn't a stranger to them."
The trade pact was signed last year in Shanghai to ease investment and trade between the two longtime adversaries, mainland China and Taiwan.
"The agreement was passed without proper procedure; that's why the people are angry," said Kaiyu Chang, who shot this photo of a crowd assembled in Taipei Wednesday.
But opponents have voiced concerns that not only will Taiwan's economy be hurt as businesses and investments flow to China, but the island's democratic system could be undermined by closer ties with the mainland.
"The trade agreement was not supervised by the people of Taiwan, and benefits only big companies and harnesses our jobs," Chang wrote. "But I do agree we need to open Taiwan to the world, even China too. But NOT this way, not by signing an agreement that is not fair to us and was negotiated by people who have no profession in these territories. We must rewrite the agreement and make it work for the both of us, towards a peaceful future between the strait of Taiwan."
An iReporter identified as kwarrior, an Asian-American living in Taiwan, wrote that the government's handling of the trade agreement "was unconstitutional and a blatant violation of the people's rights. ... I care deeply because my parents are Taiwanese and they always loved their nation like no other. I am personally affected because I value the rights of the people to voice and make changes in a democratic country."
In a statement, Amnesty International urged security forces to show restraint.
"The situation is clearly tense. ... While police have a duty to maintain order and to protect the safety of the public, the response must only be proportionate to the threat. Force should only be used as a last resort. The authorities must ensure the rights of all those protesting are upheld and respected," said Roseann Rife, the group's East Asia research director.
Last month, Taiwan and China held their highest-level talks in more than six decades, marking the first government-to-government contact since the pair's acrimonious split in 1949.
Wang Yu-chi of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees the island's China policy, met with his mainland counterpart, Zhang Zhijun of China's Taiwan Affairs Office.
After the meeting, China's state news agency Xinhua said the two sides had agreed to open a regular communication channel.
"We should both be resolute to not let cross-strait relations suffer any more twists and turns and never let (the relationship) go backward," Zhang was quoted as saying.
Previous contact between the two sides has been conducted through semi-official foundations or through political parties, not by government ministers acting in their official capacities.
Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has never ruled out the use of force to achieve reunification.
Taiwan also calls itself the Republic of China.
Relations between the two sides have improved since Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou came to power in 2008. On Wednesday, Ma called for the passage of the trade pact.
*Ένας σχολιαστής ισχυρίζεται: The statement that 38 police officers have been injured which appears in the CNN article posted earlier is almost certainly fabricated. It was first reported in Want China Times, a fiercely pro-Beijing source. All other indications are that this has been a very civil and respectful protest.
----------------------------
Στο λινκαρισμένο ταϊβανέζικο βίντεο από την κατάληψη των φοιτητών ο πρόεδρος της Ταϊβάν παριστάνεται με κέρατα ελαφιού. Ο λόγος:
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has a doctorate from Harvard University, and yet he could still say with authority in a speech to Lions Club International that deer antlers, a famous New Zealand export, are the part of the deer’s fur that grows inside its ear. The president emphasized the point by indicating his own right ear. This was broadcast on TV, so there was little possibility his words were misheard or misrepresented by the media.
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Sunflower Student Movement.
(P. Kerim Friedman, στο μπλογκ του Savage Minds, Notes and Queries in Anthropology) (22/3/14)
Διεξοδική ανάλυση, πλήθος υπερδεσμών, βίντεο και φωτογραφίες από το Κίνημα των Ηλιοτροπίων.
P. Kerim Friedman is an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University, in Taiwan, where he teaches linguistic and visual anthropology. He is co-director of the film Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!, winner of the 2011 Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology.
Από το άρθρο του J. Michael Cole, Taiwanese Occupy Legislature Over China Pact (The Diplomat) που λινκάρει ο Kerim Fredman στο άρθρο του:
Controversy over the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA) began in June 2013 after negotiators from Taiwan’s semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) signed the agreement, a follow-on to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in 2010, with their Chinese counterparts. The breadth and scope of the reciprocal agreement, which was negotiated behind closed doors and would open various sectors of the service industry to China, was such that many legislators from the KMT, whose leadership favors closer ties with China, balked, fearing the pact’s repercussions on their constituencies.
After the KMT imposed internal measures making dissent grounds for expulsion, its reluctant legislators fell in line and began the process of passing the pact in the legislature.
However, close scrutiny by opposition lawmakers, academics, and civic organizations, which held a series of peaceful protests, compelled the government to submit the CSSTA to the legislature for consideration. Further pressure from civil society, which feared negative consequences of the pact not only for Taiwan’s economy, but also for freedom of speech and other aspects of the nation’s democracy, eventually forced the government to compromise. A June 25, 2013 agreement stipulated that the pact would be reviewed clause-by-clause. Additionally, on September 25, parties agreed to hold a total of 16 public hearings — eight chaired by the KMT, and eight by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — for consultations with academics, NGOs, and many of the sectors that stood to be affected by the pact.
The KMT held its eight hearings within the space of a week, with several members of social groups and NGOs complaining about lack of access. Moreover, several business representatives were not invited to attend, or were informed at the last minute, making their participation all but impossible.
Following completion of the hearings and substantial input by academics and the business sector, KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung, the presiding chair of the legislature’s Internal Administrative Committee, said the agreement could not be amended and had to be adopted as is, raising questions over the utility of the public hearings. The hearings and legislative battles over the CSSTA nevertheless made it impossible to pass it by the end of 2013, as the government had hoped.
Negotiations on the matter resumed in the legislature in March 2014, when DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai secured the right to plan the agenda for a clause-by-clause review as agreed earlier. However, KMT legislators blocked the process, leading to clashes in the legislature over a period of three days. Meanwhile, civic organizations launched a sit-in outside the LY.
Then, on March 17, with the legislature brought to a standstill and the DPP occupying the podium, Chang, citing Article 61 of the Legislative Yuan Functions Act, announced that the review process had gone beyond the 90 days allotted for review. The agreement should therefore be considered to have been reviewed and be submitted to a plenary session on March 21 for a final vote. Immediately, the Executive Yuan “congratulated” Chang for successfully reviewing the agreement, even though no review was ever held, and experts later noted that Article 61 did not apply, as the CSSTA is a component of the ECFA, which itself is a “prospective treaty” (准條約) and not an executive order. With 65 members in the 113-seat legislature, the KMT was assured a victory, with expectations that the pact could be implemented as early as June 2014.
The sudden announcement caught everybody by surprise and sparked anger among the public. The sit-ins continued on the evening of March 17, followed by a much larger one on the evening of March 18.
Αυτές οι κοινοβουλευτικές πρακτικές κάτι μου θυμίζουν, μα τι μου θυμίζουν...
(P. Kerim Friedman, στο μπλογκ του Savage Minds, Notes and Queries in Anthropology) (22/3/14)
Διεξοδική ανάλυση, πλήθος υπερδεσμών, βίντεο και φωτογραφίες από το Κίνημα των Ηλιοτροπίων.
P. Kerim Friedman is an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University, in Taiwan, where he teaches linguistic and visual anthropology. He is co-director of the film Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!, winner of the 2011 Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology.
Από το άρθρο του J. Michael Cole, Taiwanese Occupy Legislature Over China Pact (The Diplomat) που λινκάρει ο Kerim Fredman στο άρθρο του:
Controversy over the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA) began in June 2013 after negotiators from Taiwan’s semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) signed the agreement, a follow-on to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in 2010, with their Chinese counterparts. The breadth and scope of the reciprocal agreement, which was negotiated behind closed doors and would open various sectors of the service industry to China, was such that many legislators from the KMT, whose leadership favors closer ties with China, balked, fearing the pact’s repercussions on their constituencies.
After the KMT imposed internal measures making dissent grounds for expulsion, its reluctant legislators fell in line and began the process of passing the pact in the legislature.
However, close scrutiny by opposition lawmakers, academics, and civic organizations, which held a series of peaceful protests, compelled the government to submit the CSSTA to the legislature for consideration. Further pressure from civil society, which feared negative consequences of the pact not only for Taiwan’s economy, but also for freedom of speech and other aspects of the nation’s democracy, eventually forced the government to compromise. A June 25, 2013 agreement stipulated that the pact would be reviewed clause-by-clause. Additionally, on September 25, parties agreed to hold a total of 16 public hearings — eight chaired by the KMT, and eight by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — for consultations with academics, NGOs, and many of the sectors that stood to be affected by the pact.
The KMT held its eight hearings within the space of a week, with several members of social groups and NGOs complaining about lack of access. Moreover, several business representatives were not invited to attend, or were informed at the last minute, making their participation all but impossible.
Following completion of the hearings and substantial input by academics and the business sector, KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung, the presiding chair of the legislature’s Internal Administrative Committee, said the agreement could not be amended and had to be adopted as is, raising questions over the utility of the public hearings. The hearings and legislative battles over the CSSTA nevertheless made it impossible to pass it by the end of 2013, as the government had hoped.
Negotiations on the matter resumed in the legislature in March 2014, when DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai secured the right to plan the agenda for a clause-by-clause review as agreed earlier. However, KMT legislators blocked the process, leading to clashes in the legislature over a period of three days. Meanwhile, civic organizations launched a sit-in outside the LY.
Then, on March 17, with the legislature brought to a standstill and the DPP occupying the podium, Chang, citing Article 61 of the Legislative Yuan Functions Act, announced that the review process had gone beyond the 90 days allotted for review. The agreement should therefore be considered to have been reviewed and be submitted to a plenary session on March 21 for a final vote. Immediately, the Executive Yuan “congratulated” Chang for successfully reviewing the agreement, even though no review was ever held, and experts later noted that Article 61 did not apply, as the CSSTA is a component of the ECFA, which itself is a “prospective treaty” (准條約) and not an executive order. With 65 members in the 113-seat legislature, the KMT was assured a victory, with expectations that the pact could be implemented as early as June 2014.
The sudden announcement caught everybody by surprise and sparked anger among the public. The sit-ins continued on the evening of March 17, followed by a much larger one on the evening of March 18.
Αυτές οι κοινοβουλευτικές πρακτικές κάτι μου θυμίζουν, μα τι μου θυμίζουν...
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Το κίνημα έχει βεβαίως και το σχετικό άρθρο στη Wikipedia: Sunflower Student Movement.
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[Η Wikipedia, που έχει καλό άρθρο για την κατάληψη της ταϊβανέζικης Βουλής, δεν θεώρησε ωστόσο την είδηση αρκετά σημαντική ώστε να την περιλάβει στο κουτί των "παραμόνιμων" ειδήσεων της πρώτης σελίδας της. Στη ροή, αντιθέτως, υπάρχει, στην Κυριακή 23 Μαρτίου, ως εξής:
Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan
Protesters opposed to the vote of the Cross-Strait Trade Agreement without a clause-by-clause review continue to occupy the Taiwanese parliament.
Protesters push to occupy the nearby Executive Yuan as well. (FocusTaiwan).
Περίεργο· κάθε πότε καταλαμβάνεται παγκοσμίως Κοινοβούλιο χώρας από διαμαρτυρόμενους, φοιτητές εν προκειμένω;]
Ενημέρωση από το άρθρο της Wikipedia:
Premier Jiang met with demonstrators outside the legislature on March 22 but stated that the executive branch had no intention of dropping the trade pact. At a press conference on March 23, President Ma restated his resolve in passing the trade pact and affirmed he did not act according to orders from Beijing.
In response to the press conference, a group of protesters stormed and occupied the Executive Yuan around 7:30 p.m. local time on March 23. The protesters were removed from the Executive Yuan with high-pressure water cannons by 5:00 a.m. on March 24, but some congregated again on Zhongxiao East Road.
Legislative Yuan = η Βουλή, πρακτικά. Executive Yuan = Η κυβέρνηση και το κτίριο όπου εδρεύει.
Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan
Protesters opposed to the vote of the Cross-Strait Trade Agreement without a clause-by-clause review continue to occupy the Taiwanese parliament.
Protesters push to occupy the nearby Executive Yuan as well. (FocusTaiwan).
Περίεργο· κάθε πότε καταλαμβάνεται παγκοσμίως Κοινοβούλιο χώρας από διαμαρτυρόμενους, φοιτητές εν προκειμένω;]
Ενημέρωση από το άρθρο της Wikipedia:
Premier Jiang met with demonstrators outside the legislature on March 22 but stated that the executive branch had no intention of dropping the trade pact. At a press conference on March 23, President Ma restated his resolve in passing the trade pact and affirmed he did not act according to orders from Beijing.
In response to the press conference, a group of protesters stormed and occupied the Executive Yuan around 7:30 p.m. local time on March 23. The protesters were removed from the Executive Yuan with high-pressure water cannons by 5:00 a.m. on March 24, but some congregated again on Zhongxiao East Road.
Legislative Yuan = η Βουλή, πρακτικά. Executive Yuan = Η κυβέρνηση και το κτίριο όπου εδρεύει.
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Ο πρόεδρος της Κίνας πραγματοποιεί περιοδεία στην Ευρώπη (προχτές ήταν στις Κάτω Χώρες). Επικαιρότητα από τη Γαλλία. Αλλά πρώτα το πλαίσιο, από τη γαλλική Wikipedia (τα παχιά δικά μου):
Institut franco-chinois de Lyon
Fondé septembre 1921 grâce au concours d'intellectuels et d'hommes politiques en France et en Chine, l'Institut franco-chinois de Lyon ( IFCL - 里昂中法大学 Lǐ'áng zhōng fǎ dàxué) était une école réservée aux étudiants Chinois. Elle avait pour fonction principale de préparer ces étudiants aux études universitaires en France. Les personnalités à l'initiative du projet furent notamment Li Shizeng 李石曾, Wu Zhihui 吴稚挥 et Chu Minyi 褚民谊, des intellectuels Chinois basés en France, fondateurs d'un groupe anarchiste positiviste et cosmopolite, Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, philosophe et recteur de l'université de Pékin, Maurice Courant, Professeur de Chinois à l'Université de Lyon, Paul Joubin, Recteur de l'académie de Lyon et Edouard Herriot, Maire de Lyon.
Situé au sein du Fort St Irénée dans le 5e arrondissement de Lyon, l'Institut hébergea, entre 1921 et 1946, 473 étudiants, dont 51 filles, originaires de différentes provinces chinoises (Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Fujian, Shandong, etc). Parmi ces étudiants, 140 réalisèrent une thèse de doctorat dans une université française, pour la plupart au sein des facultés de l'Université de Lyon. Les disciplines choisies par ces étudiants couvraient l’ensemble du champ académique de l’époque : Médecine, Sciences naturelles, Biologie, Pharmacie, Mathématiques, Lettres, Géographie, Histoire, Droit. Certains étudiants de l'IFCL sont devenus ensuite des scientifiques réputés, des universitaires de renom, des écrivains ou des artistes reconnus.
Après leur passage à l'IFCL, la plupart de ces étudiants ont vécu dans ce qui deviendra la République Populaire de Chine. Après la Guerre civile entre nationalistes et communistes (1946-1949), certains se sont ensuite installés à Taiwan ou à Hong-Kong. Leurs trajectoires plurielles reflètent l'histoire chaotique de la Chine moderne et contemporaine. Parmi les étudiants remarquables de l'IFCL, nous pouvons citer les personnalités suivantes: Zheng Dazhang 郑大章, doctorant de Marie Curie et pionnier des études sur le radium en Chine; Zhang Xi 张玺, précurseur de l'océanographie chinoise; Yang Kun 楊堃, fondateur des études ethnologiques en Chine ; le célèbre poète et essayiste moderniste Dai Wangshu 戴望舒, ; Su Xuelin 苏雪林, une des premières femmes écrivains dans l'histoire de la littérature moderne chinoise, professeur à l'Université Chenggong de Tainan (Taiwan); La peintre Pan Yuliang 潘玉良; le mathématicien et ancien Ministre de la justice de la République de Chine (Taiwan), Zheng Yanfen 郑严芬.
Une légende tenace accrédite l'idée que Zhou Enlai 周恩来 et Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 ont étudié, ou au moins séjourné, au sein de l'IFCL. Pourtant, aucune trace dans les archives administratives ne permet de valider cette assertion.
(...)
Xi Jinping, le président actuel de la République Populaire de Chine, viendra lors de son voyage diplomatique en France visiter l'institut le mercredi 26 mars 2014.
Και ένα σχόλιο που το υπογράφουν δύο πανεπιστημιακοί κινεζικών σπουδών της Λυόν (mediapart):
‘In the Steps of Deng Xiaoping’ - Xi Jinping’s Visit to Lyon, Academic Freedom, and the Re-Writing of History
24 mars 2014 | Par G.B. Lee
President of China, and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, is visiting France this week. Airbus contracts will be signed, and French wine exports discussed, but the Chinese delegation has also decided to incorporate a cultural and historical aspect to events by visiting the site of the former Sino-French University Institute (1921-1946) located in Lyon. At first sight this visit would seem to be a wonderful photo-opportunity for the city of Lyon. However, are local and national politicians aware of the political and symbolic implications of this decision? Prudence is demanded when history is turned into a show by a state determined to control public utterances and historical accounts concerning it both at home, and now abroad. Indeed, the Chinese news stories already circulating show that a main objective of Chinese coverage of the visit is to emphasise a return to the orthodox sources of Communist Party legitimacy by allusion to the supposed presence of Communist Chinese legends Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping in Lyon. The latter however is a total historical fallacy. A second objective is demonstrating the PRC is retrospectively responsible for and in control of all of China’s modern history irrespective of its past political colours.
Sticking to the seemingly political and symbolic neutrality of economics would have permitted the City of Lyon to save face. Certainly, hosting a state visit of the leader of the largest dictatorship on earth is less than glorious, but the attractive contracts sugar-coat the pill that would otherwise have been difficult to swallow.
However, Lyon also benefits from a very particular historical relationship with China, and not simply through its well-known silk trade connections. Thanks to the history of the Sino-French University Institute, Lyon was fortunate in being the site of a unique intellectual, academic and educational experiment with China. Between 1921 and 1946, numerous residents of this elite college for Chinese students would become celebrated pioneering academics and scientists, certain of them occupying high functions, while others became famous authors, poets and painters. For a long time neglected in France, this venture initiated by progressive and anarchist Chinese intellectuals is well-known in China itself, and constitutes an important episode in the country’s political and intellectual history.
Over the past few years the Lyon municipal authorities have come to understand the potential of this major cultural capital and a small museum telling the Institute’s story has been created in its former premises. During his visit President Xi will visit Fort St. Irénée — the original site of the Sino-French Institute now student accommodation for French and foreign students alike. In preparation for the President’s visit the original 1921 Chinese and French names of the institute engraved over the old archway have been re-gilded, and a nearby building requisitioned for a temporary exhibition which the Chinese leader will briefly visit on 26th March.
Thus unique heritage was obviously a deciding factor in the choice of the Chinese President’s extra-Parisian leg of his visit (other cities such as Lille and, the home to Airbus, Toulouse, had also been contenders for this favour), but it would be naive to think that this decision was motivated by anything but Chinese internal political considerations. The authorities of the People’s Republic of China know better than anyone that History, it its spectacular and falsified version, is a remarkable tool in reinforcing the legitimacy of power.
President Xi JInping’s visit to Lyon will necessarily be the opening item on China's flagship news programmes this coming week. Footage of the President in this mythic Sino-French melting-pot will be no less fictional than the successful Chinese TV soap « Our Years in France » which told the story of young Chinese revolutionary students in 1920s France, and which also evoked the history of the Institute. Over images of the great leader in Lyon, the news announcer will mention the homage rendered to the late revered leaders Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, held to be illustrious former residents of the Institute, even though in the Archives there is no trace of their ever having been there. The message will be clear: Xi Jinping is returning to the historic sources of the Chinese Communist movement and confirming his alignment with his hardline predecessor.
The fact that Lyon’s Sino-French Institute had no connection with the Chinese Communist Party, and that the Chinese and French founders of this atypical institution took the trouble to inscribe political and religious neutrality into its rules of conduct, are mere details. The media show could not care less about historical truth. And beyond the supposed Communist legacy of the Institute, is quite simply the PRC state’s desire to recuperate, and monopolize the telling of, all modern history, even that in which the Chinese Communist Party had no part.
However, the Chinese authorities know that history must be manipulated with caution, for it can reflect back badly. The exhibition in honour of Xi Jinping, approved in advance by the Chinese authorities, will note that one of the founding fathers of the Sino-French Institute was a certain Cai Yuanpei, who came to Lyon several times, notably to sign the founding charter of this institution which would prepare its students for advanced study in France. The exhibition will also mention that Cai Yuanpei was a great educator, a one-time Minister of Education, and former President of Peking University.
What it will not foreground is that Cai Yuanpei was an ardent defender of the independence of universities, of freedom of expression and of intellectual pluralism. Even less likely will be any mention of his role as a founder of the Chinese League for the Defence of Civil Rights. Indeed, the politically liberal and humanist opinions of Cai Yuanpei are the antithesis of the policy currently implemented by the new Chinese President, and the situation in Chinese universities today, even in the relatively tolerant Peking University, would doubtless have led the illustrious Cai Yuanpei to despair.
Over the past few months, the hardening of political control, of censorship and suppression of dissident voices has led to some spectacular consequences. There are numerous examples: In October 2013, Xia Yeliang, known for his opinions in favour of political reform, was fired from Peking University on the grounds of academic incompetence; in December 2013, Zhang Xuezhong, Professor of Law at the East China University of Politics and Law suffered the same fate for his calls to respect the 1982 Chinese constitution; even more serious is the case of the renowned and respected professor at the Central Nationalities University, Ilham Tohti, a pacific and moderate defender of the rights of the Uighur minority, who was arrested several weeks ago and accused without any foundation of the crime of promoting separatism, a crime punishable by death. Several of his research students are also in detention. All have been denied legal representation.
What a paradox then to see the leader of a state engaged in a ferocious struggle against independent voices now taking advantage of a photo opportunity in an institution founded by the historic defender of intellectual and academic freedom, Cai Yuanpei. And how unfortunate for Lyon that Xi Jinping should have chosen the city to reinvent and exploit history so as to reinforce his legitimacy during the 25th anniversary year of the fateful Spring of 1989 that ended so disastrously for China’s people. Let us recall that the 4th June Massacre at Tiananmen, where students had gathered to demand greater freedom, and the bloody and violent repression that followed it, were ordered by Deng Xiaoping, then in supreme command of the country.
Reporting on the preparation for the Lyon visit, the local newspaper tells us that the Chinese delegation will want to walk ’’in the steps of Deng Xiaoping.’’ What is certain is that in terms of political and intellectual heritage, it is undeniable that Xi Jinping's Lyon pilgrimage honors the methods of Deng Xiaoping rather than the hopes of Cai Yuanpei.
Gregory B. Lee, Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Florent Villard, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Institut franco-chinois de Lyon
Fondé septembre 1921 grâce au concours d'intellectuels et d'hommes politiques en France et en Chine, l'Institut franco-chinois de Lyon ( IFCL - 里昂中法大学 Lǐ'áng zhōng fǎ dàxué) était une école réservée aux étudiants Chinois. Elle avait pour fonction principale de préparer ces étudiants aux études universitaires en France. Les personnalités à l'initiative du projet furent notamment Li Shizeng 李石曾, Wu Zhihui 吴稚挥 et Chu Minyi 褚民谊, des intellectuels Chinois basés en France, fondateurs d'un groupe anarchiste positiviste et cosmopolite, Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, philosophe et recteur de l'université de Pékin, Maurice Courant, Professeur de Chinois à l'Université de Lyon, Paul Joubin, Recteur de l'académie de Lyon et Edouard Herriot, Maire de Lyon.
Situé au sein du Fort St Irénée dans le 5e arrondissement de Lyon, l'Institut hébergea, entre 1921 et 1946, 473 étudiants, dont 51 filles, originaires de différentes provinces chinoises (Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Fujian, Shandong, etc). Parmi ces étudiants, 140 réalisèrent une thèse de doctorat dans une université française, pour la plupart au sein des facultés de l'Université de Lyon. Les disciplines choisies par ces étudiants couvraient l’ensemble du champ académique de l’époque : Médecine, Sciences naturelles, Biologie, Pharmacie, Mathématiques, Lettres, Géographie, Histoire, Droit. Certains étudiants de l'IFCL sont devenus ensuite des scientifiques réputés, des universitaires de renom, des écrivains ou des artistes reconnus.
Après leur passage à l'IFCL, la plupart de ces étudiants ont vécu dans ce qui deviendra la République Populaire de Chine. Après la Guerre civile entre nationalistes et communistes (1946-1949), certains se sont ensuite installés à Taiwan ou à Hong-Kong. Leurs trajectoires plurielles reflètent l'histoire chaotique de la Chine moderne et contemporaine. Parmi les étudiants remarquables de l'IFCL, nous pouvons citer les personnalités suivantes: Zheng Dazhang 郑大章, doctorant de Marie Curie et pionnier des études sur le radium en Chine; Zhang Xi 张玺, précurseur de l'océanographie chinoise; Yang Kun 楊堃, fondateur des études ethnologiques en Chine ; le célèbre poète et essayiste moderniste Dai Wangshu 戴望舒, ; Su Xuelin 苏雪林, une des premières femmes écrivains dans l'histoire de la littérature moderne chinoise, professeur à l'Université Chenggong de Tainan (Taiwan); La peintre Pan Yuliang 潘玉良; le mathématicien et ancien Ministre de la justice de la République de Chine (Taiwan), Zheng Yanfen 郑严芬.
Une légende tenace accrédite l'idée que Zhou Enlai 周恩来 et Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 ont étudié, ou au moins séjourné, au sein de l'IFCL. Pourtant, aucune trace dans les archives administratives ne permet de valider cette assertion.
(...)
Xi Jinping, le président actuel de la République Populaire de Chine, viendra lors de son voyage diplomatique en France visiter l'institut le mercredi 26 mars 2014.
Και ένα σχόλιο που το υπογράφουν δύο πανεπιστημιακοί κινεζικών σπουδών της Λυόν (mediapart):
‘In the Steps of Deng Xiaoping’ - Xi Jinping’s Visit to Lyon, Academic Freedom, and the Re-Writing of History
24 mars 2014 | Par G.B. Lee
President of China, and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, is visiting France this week. Airbus contracts will be signed, and French wine exports discussed, but the Chinese delegation has also decided to incorporate a cultural and historical aspect to events by visiting the site of the former Sino-French University Institute (1921-1946) located in Lyon. At first sight this visit would seem to be a wonderful photo-opportunity for the city of Lyon. However, are local and national politicians aware of the political and symbolic implications of this decision? Prudence is demanded when history is turned into a show by a state determined to control public utterances and historical accounts concerning it both at home, and now abroad. Indeed, the Chinese news stories already circulating show that a main objective of Chinese coverage of the visit is to emphasise a return to the orthodox sources of Communist Party legitimacy by allusion to the supposed presence of Communist Chinese legends Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping in Lyon. The latter however is a total historical fallacy. A second objective is demonstrating the PRC is retrospectively responsible for and in control of all of China’s modern history irrespective of its past political colours.
Sticking to the seemingly political and symbolic neutrality of economics would have permitted the City of Lyon to save face. Certainly, hosting a state visit of the leader of the largest dictatorship on earth is less than glorious, but the attractive contracts sugar-coat the pill that would otherwise have been difficult to swallow.
However, Lyon also benefits from a very particular historical relationship with China, and not simply through its well-known silk trade connections. Thanks to the history of the Sino-French University Institute, Lyon was fortunate in being the site of a unique intellectual, academic and educational experiment with China. Between 1921 and 1946, numerous residents of this elite college for Chinese students would become celebrated pioneering academics and scientists, certain of them occupying high functions, while others became famous authors, poets and painters. For a long time neglected in France, this venture initiated by progressive and anarchist Chinese intellectuals is well-known in China itself, and constitutes an important episode in the country’s political and intellectual history.
Over the past few years the Lyon municipal authorities have come to understand the potential of this major cultural capital and a small museum telling the Institute’s story has been created in its former premises. During his visit President Xi will visit Fort St. Irénée — the original site of the Sino-French Institute now student accommodation for French and foreign students alike. In preparation for the President’s visit the original 1921 Chinese and French names of the institute engraved over the old archway have been re-gilded, and a nearby building requisitioned for a temporary exhibition which the Chinese leader will briefly visit on 26th March.
Thus unique heritage was obviously a deciding factor in the choice of the Chinese President’s extra-Parisian leg of his visit (other cities such as Lille and, the home to Airbus, Toulouse, had also been contenders for this favour), but it would be naive to think that this decision was motivated by anything but Chinese internal political considerations. The authorities of the People’s Republic of China know better than anyone that History, it its spectacular and falsified version, is a remarkable tool in reinforcing the legitimacy of power.
President Xi JInping’s visit to Lyon will necessarily be the opening item on China's flagship news programmes this coming week. Footage of the President in this mythic Sino-French melting-pot will be no less fictional than the successful Chinese TV soap « Our Years in France » which told the story of young Chinese revolutionary students in 1920s France, and which also evoked the history of the Institute. Over images of the great leader in Lyon, the news announcer will mention the homage rendered to the late revered leaders Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, held to be illustrious former residents of the Institute, even though in the Archives there is no trace of their ever having been there. The message will be clear: Xi Jinping is returning to the historic sources of the Chinese Communist movement and confirming his alignment with his hardline predecessor.
The fact that Lyon’s Sino-French Institute had no connection with the Chinese Communist Party, and that the Chinese and French founders of this atypical institution took the trouble to inscribe political and religious neutrality into its rules of conduct, are mere details. The media show could not care less about historical truth. And beyond the supposed Communist legacy of the Institute, is quite simply the PRC state’s desire to recuperate, and monopolize the telling of, all modern history, even that in which the Chinese Communist Party had no part.
However, the Chinese authorities know that history must be manipulated with caution, for it can reflect back badly. The exhibition in honour of Xi Jinping, approved in advance by the Chinese authorities, will note that one of the founding fathers of the Sino-French Institute was a certain Cai Yuanpei, who came to Lyon several times, notably to sign the founding charter of this institution which would prepare its students for advanced study in France. The exhibition will also mention that Cai Yuanpei was a great educator, a one-time Minister of Education, and former President of Peking University.
What it will not foreground is that Cai Yuanpei was an ardent defender of the independence of universities, of freedom of expression and of intellectual pluralism. Even less likely will be any mention of his role as a founder of the Chinese League for the Defence of Civil Rights. Indeed, the politically liberal and humanist opinions of Cai Yuanpei are the antithesis of the policy currently implemented by the new Chinese President, and the situation in Chinese universities today, even in the relatively tolerant Peking University, would doubtless have led the illustrious Cai Yuanpei to despair.
Over the past few months, the hardening of political control, of censorship and suppression of dissident voices has led to some spectacular consequences. There are numerous examples: In October 2013, Xia Yeliang, known for his opinions in favour of political reform, was fired from Peking University on the grounds of academic incompetence; in December 2013, Zhang Xuezhong, Professor of Law at the East China University of Politics and Law suffered the same fate for his calls to respect the 1982 Chinese constitution; even more serious is the case of the renowned and respected professor at the Central Nationalities University, Ilham Tohti, a pacific and moderate defender of the rights of the Uighur minority, who was arrested several weeks ago and accused without any foundation of the crime of promoting separatism, a crime punishable by death. Several of his research students are also in detention. All have been denied legal representation.
What a paradox then to see the leader of a state engaged in a ferocious struggle against independent voices now taking advantage of a photo opportunity in an institution founded by the historic defender of intellectual and academic freedom, Cai Yuanpei. And how unfortunate for Lyon that Xi Jinping should have chosen the city to reinvent and exploit history so as to reinforce his legitimacy during the 25th anniversary year of the fateful Spring of 1989 that ended so disastrously for China’s people. Let us recall that the 4th June Massacre at Tiananmen, where students had gathered to demand greater freedom, and the bloody and violent repression that followed it, were ordered by Deng Xiaoping, then in supreme command of the country.
Reporting on the preparation for the Lyon visit, the local newspaper tells us that the Chinese delegation will want to walk ’’in the steps of Deng Xiaoping.’’ What is certain is that in terms of political and intellectual heritage, it is undeniable that Xi Jinping's Lyon pilgrimage honors the methods of Deng Xiaoping rather than the hopes of Cai Yuanpei.
Gregory B. Lee, Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Florent Villard, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
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Νεότερο άρθρο του Michael Cole στο The Diplomat:
Riot Police Crack Down on Taiwanese Protesters
The standoff over a controversial trade agreement between Taiwan and China that began on March 19 with the occupation of the legislature took a turn for the worse on March 23 after riot police turned on protesters who had occupied the nearby Executive Yuan, injuring several dozens.
Sunday night’s dramatic events occurred a day after an unsuccessful meeting between Premier Jiang Yi-huah and Lin Fei-fan, one of the leaders of the “sunflower revolution,” and following an international press conference by President Ma Ying-jeou, who refused to meet the group’s demands. Since March 19, tens of thousands of Taiwanese have protested outside the legislature, while about 300 — mostly students — remain shacked up inside the building.
The alliance against the services trade pact, an amalgam of student organizations, lawyers, and civic organizations, had initially demanded that the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA), signed in China in June 2013, be reviewed clause-by-clause by the legislature, that a mechanism be set to monitor future agreements with China, and that President Ma apologize for the crisis. It later changed its demands by requesting that the pact be annulled altogether and calling for a national conference on the matter.
Many Taiwanese, including leading economists and politicians, fear that the problematic pact, which was negotiated behind closed doors, will damage vulnerable sectors of Taiwan’s economy. Others fear it plays into Beijing’s unification goals. Although 70 percent of the public favors a line-by-line review of the agreement, President Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) broke a promise on March 19 (following deadlock in the legislature) to hold such a review and sent it directly to a plenary session for a vote, sparking the crisis (the KMT has a legislative majority and the Central Committee has threatened any dissenter with suspension).
With no sign of a resolution in sight, a group of protesters slipped past security at the Executive Yuan, the seat of the Cabinet, at 7:35 p.m. on March 23. Immediately the group inside the legislature distanced itself from the action in a press release, though from the leadership on the ground it was obvious that they belonged to the alliance. By 8:30 p.m., a few thousand people were occupying the compound. Following a brief standoff with police, protesters broke into the building through the main door or by climbing ladders to upper windows. Aside from damage to the main doors and two broken windows, there were no other signs of damage to the building. Several thousand people also gathered on Zhongxiao Road in front of the building.
Although police authorities had not acted on orders to evict the activists from the legislature — relations have in fact been rather cordial, with protesters often applauding and thanking law enforcement — Sunday’s occupation of the Executive Yuan was a major escalation, and soon there was chatter that police would intervene. The Cabinet gave the order at 10:30 p.m. and told police to do everything necessary to evict the occupiers by 11 p.m. In response, the Democratic Front Against Cross Strait Trade In Services, one of the groups orchestrating the occupation at the legislature, issued a press release, in which it called on the authorities, “to not use violence to suppress the protesters.” It also called on the government “to not release emergency orders and to not mobilize the armed forces.”
As hundreds of police with shields and batons formed a line in front of the Executive Yuan, an even larger contingent of riot police, flanked by truck-mounted water cannons, faced off with protesters behind the building on Beiping Road. At about midnight, the order was given to rid the area of protesters. About 200 riot police, armed with shields and batons, descended on the protesters as the latter were about to sit down and shouted “please don’t use force against us.” At one side, a young woman, crying, called out to her boyfriend who was among the protesters. Several black-clad riot police swung their batons at young protesters, while police used their PVC shields to hit sitting protesters on the legs. Several dozens of protesters were eventually taken out — oftentimes shoved violently and dragged around — while police pushed out of the area. Protesters complained that the riot police had masked their badge numbers. Journalists who identified themselves as such and showed identification were also ordered to leave.
According to unconfirmed reports, as many as 50 protesters had sustained injuries in clashes with police since the beginning of the occupation.
Meanwhile, at the main site of the Executive Yuan, political leaders from the opposition, including Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang and Tsai Ing-wen, the party’s presidential candidate in 2012 and a former chairperson, joined the group in a bid to prevent a police crackdown. This did not prevent police from moving in. At 2 a.m., police ordered media to leave the Executive Yuan, whereupon riot squads stormed the building and evicted the several dozen protesters who were still inside. Based on accounts by activists and the state of those who were taken out of the building, riot police used excessive force to expel them. Several protesters had head injuries and cuts. One woman, wearing a blazon from the small opposition party Taiwan Solidarity Union, lay unconscious on the ground.
By then, about 600 riot police and several hundred more law-enforcement officers were deployed at the Executive Yuan, while a few thousands protesters remained. Clashes were still occurring at 4:30 a.m., with police using water cannons and tear gas against protesters, who by then were shouting slogans calling on Ma and Jiang to step down.
Although the decision to occupy the Executive Yuan — which did not seem to be supported by everybody inside the legislature — may have undermined the alliance’s image with the public, images of police brutality against predominantly school-age protesters were likely to mitigate the initial drawback and exacerbate public resentment with the administration. Conversely, some critics observed that the alliance’s decision to change its demand from a full review of the pact in the legislature to its annulment may have closed the door on possible negotiations and forced a weakened Ma administration into a corner.
Μου αρέσει η κάλυψή του.
Νά και η περιοχή στο Google Maps. Η πινέζα συν το κίτρινο αστέρι είναι η Βουλή (Legislative Yuan), το δε σκέτο κίτρινο αστέρι είναι η έδρα της κυβέρνησης (行政院) στις οδούς Zhongxiao, Zhongshan και Beiping.
Riot Police Crack Down on Taiwanese Protesters
The standoff over a controversial trade agreement between Taiwan and China that began on March 19 with the occupation of the legislature took a turn for the worse on March 23 after riot police turned on protesters who had occupied the nearby Executive Yuan, injuring several dozens.
Sunday night’s dramatic events occurred a day after an unsuccessful meeting between Premier Jiang Yi-huah and Lin Fei-fan, one of the leaders of the “sunflower revolution,” and following an international press conference by President Ma Ying-jeou, who refused to meet the group’s demands. Since March 19, tens of thousands of Taiwanese have protested outside the legislature, while about 300 — mostly students — remain shacked up inside the building.
The alliance against the services trade pact, an amalgam of student organizations, lawyers, and civic organizations, had initially demanded that the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA), signed in China in June 2013, be reviewed clause-by-clause by the legislature, that a mechanism be set to monitor future agreements with China, and that President Ma apologize for the crisis. It later changed its demands by requesting that the pact be annulled altogether and calling for a national conference on the matter.
Many Taiwanese, including leading economists and politicians, fear that the problematic pact, which was negotiated behind closed doors, will damage vulnerable sectors of Taiwan’s economy. Others fear it plays into Beijing’s unification goals. Although 70 percent of the public favors a line-by-line review of the agreement, President Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) broke a promise on March 19 (following deadlock in the legislature) to hold such a review and sent it directly to a plenary session for a vote, sparking the crisis (the KMT has a legislative majority and the Central Committee has threatened any dissenter with suspension).
With no sign of a resolution in sight, a group of protesters slipped past security at the Executive Yuan, the seat of the Cabinet, at 7:35 p.m. on March 23. Immediately the group inside the legislature distanced itself from the action in a press release, though from the leadership on the ground it was obvious that they belonged to the alliance. By 8:30 p.m., a few thousand people were occupying the compound. Following a brief standoff with police, protesters broke into the building through the main door or by climbing ladders to upper windows. Aside from damage to the main doors and two broken windows, there were no other signs of damage to the building. Several thousand people also gathered on Zhongxiao Road in front of the building.
Although police authorities had not acted on orders to evict the activists from the legislature — relations have in fact been rather cordial, with protesters often applauding and thanking law enforcement — Sunday’s occupation of the Executive Yuan was a major escalation, and soon there was chatter that police would intervene. The Cabinet gave the order at 10:30 p.m. and told police to do everything necessary to evict the occupiers by 11 p.m. In response, the Democratic Front Against Cross Strait Trade In Services, one of the groups orchestrating the occupation at the legislature, issued a press release, in which it called on the authorities, “to not use violence to suppress the protesters.” It also called on the government “to not release emergency orders and to not mobilize the armed forces.”
As hundreds of police with shields and batons formed a line in front of the Executive Yuan, an even larger contingent of riot police, flanked by truck-mounted water cannons, faced off with protesters behind the building on Beiping Road. At about midnight, the order was given to rid the area of protesters. About 200 riot police, armed with shields and batons, descended on the protesters as the latter were about to sit down and shouted “please don’t use force against us.” At one side, a young woman, crying, called out to her boyfriend who was among the protesters. Several black-clad riot police swung their batons at young protesters, while police used their PVC shields to hit sitting protesters on the legs. Several dozens of protesters were eventually taken out — oftentimes shoved violently and dragged around — while police pushed out of the area. Protesters complained that the riot police had masked their badge numbers. Journalists who identified themselves as such and showed identification were also ordered to leave.
According to unconfirmed reports, as many as 50 protesters had sustained injuries in clashes with police since the beginning of the occupation.
Meanwhile, at the main site of the Executive Yuan, political leaders from the opposition, including Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang and Tsai Ing-wen, the party’s presidential candidate in 2012 and a former chairperson, joined the group in a bid to prevent a police crackdown. This did not prevent police from moving in. At 2 a.m., police ordered media to leave the Executive Yuan, whereupon riot squads stormed the building and evicted the several dozen protesters who were still inside. Based on accounts by activists and the state of those who were taken out of the building, riot police used excessive force to expel them. Several protesters had head injuries and cuts. One woman, wearing a blazon from the small opposition party Taiwan Solidarity Union, lay unconscious on the ground.
By then, about 600 riot police and several hundred more law-enforcement officers were deployed at the Executive Yuan, while a few thousands protesters remained. Clashes were still occurring at 4:30 a.m., with police using water cannons and tear gas against protesters, who by then were shouting slogans calling on Ma and Jiang to step down.
Although the decision to occupy the Executive Yuan — which did not seem to be supported by everybody inside the legislature — may have undermined the alliance’s image with the public, images of police brutality against predominantly school-age protesters were likely to mitigate the initial drawback and exacerbate public resentment with the administration. Conversely, some critics observed that the alliance’s decision to change its demand from a full review of the pact in the legislature to its annulment may have closed the door on possible negotiations and forced a weakened Ma administration into a corner.
Μου αρέσει η κάλυψή του.
Νά και η περιοχή στο Google Maps. Η πινέζα συν το κίτρινο αστέρι είναι η Βουλή (Legislative Yuan), το δε σκέτο κίτρινο αστέρι είναι η έδρα της κυβέρνησης (行政院) στις οδούς Zhongxiao, Zhongshan και Beiping.
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Kobe University Chinese scholar goes missing in China
By THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
A Chinese-born academic at Kobe University who has done prize-winning research on ethnic Uighurs in China seems to have vanished into thin air after returning to his homeland for a brief visit.
University officials are trying to contact 57-year-old Wang Ke, a professor of area cultural studies in the Faculty of Intercultural Studies.
Wang's specialty is modern Chinese philosophical history, but he is also known for his research on the Uighurs.
According to Kobe University officials, Wang departed for China on March 1, and planned to return to Japan on March 10.
However, on March 10, he phoned his family in Japan and told them his return would be delayed because he needed to look in on his mother in Xian who he said was not feeling well.
Family members have not heard from him since his phone call. They also checked on Wang's mother and found out that she was not ill. They subsequently conferred with Kobe University officials on March 19.
Wang had been scheduled to attend a symposium in Singapore on March 21. However, symposium sponsors said they were contacted by Wang, who told them he would not be able to attend.
Wang was born in Henan province, China. He completed the doctoral program at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1994. He has been a professor at Kobe University since 2001.
In 1996, his book about the Uighur independence movement during the 1930s and 40s was awarded the prestigious Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities.
It is not the first time a Japan-based researcher has not been heard from while visiting China.
In July 2013, China detained Zhu Jianrong, a professor of international relations and Chinese history at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo, while he was visiting China. Zhu was released in January and returned to Japan.
Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur economist calling for fair political treatment of the Turkic ethnic group in China, has been held in detention since January.
By THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
A Chinese-born academic at Kobe University who has done prize-winning research on ethnic Uighurs in China seems to have vanished into thin air after returning to his homeland for a brief visit.
University officials are trying to contact 57-year-old Wang Ke, a professor of area cultural studies in the Faculty of Intercultural Studies.
Wang's specialty is modern Chinese philosophical history, but he is also known for his research on the Uighurs.
According to Kobe University officials, Wang departed for China on March 1, and planned to return to Japan on March 10.
However, on March 10, he phoned his family in Japan and told them his return would be delayed because he needed to look in on his mother in Xian who he said was not feeling well.
Family members have not heard from him since his phone call. They also checked on Wang's mother and found out that she was not ill. They subsequently conferred with Kobe University officials on March 19.
Wang had been scheduled to attend a symposium in Singapore on March 21. However, symposium sponsors said they were contacted by Wang, who told them he would not be able to attend.
Wang was born in Henan province, China. He completed the doctoral program at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1994. He has been a professor at Kobe University since 2001.
In 1996, his book about the Uighur independence movement during the 1930s and 40s was awarded the prestigious Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities.
It is not the first time a Japan-based researcher has not been heard from while visiting China.
In July 2013, China detained Zhu Jianrong, a professor of international relations and Chinese history at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo, while he was visiting China. Zhu was released in January and returned to Japan.
Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur economist calling for fair political treatment of the Turkic ethnic group in China, has been held in detention since January.
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(China Digital Times)
As Russia steps-up its occupation of Crimea, China’s government censors were quick to forbid news organizations from making any connection to China’s own sovereignty “issues.” Weibo comments linking the Crimean referendum with Xinjiang, Taiwan, or Tibetan independence were deleted.
(...)
This week’s Minitrues, or censorship instructions issued to the media by government authorities, include (...) from the Central Propaganda Department, instructions that “all media must refrain from hyping or exaggerating the referendum in Crimea.”
CDT collects and translates sensitive words blocked on Sina Weibo. See CDT’s most recent finds or browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words.
As Russia steps-up its occupation of Crimea, China’s government censors were quick to forbid news organizations from making any connection to China’s own sovereignty “issues.” Weibo comments linking the Crimean referendum with Xinjiang, Taiwan, or Tibetan independence were deleted.
(...)
This week’s Minitrues, or censorship instructions issued to the media by government authorities, include (...) from the Central Propaganda Department, instructions that “all media must refrain from hyping or exaggerating the referendum in Crimea.”
CDT collects and translates sensitive words blocked on Sina Weibo. See CDT’s most recent finds or browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words.
Costas
¥
Οι τελευταίες εξελίξεις από την Ταϊπέι:
Taipei Times (3/26/14)
Protesters willing to meet with Ma
FOR ALL TO WITNESS:Student protest leaders said a meeting with the president to address the trade pact siege should be held in a public setting
By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
The leaders of student protesters occupying the legislative chamber and civic group representatives yesterday agreed to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) without preconditions, as they called for lawmakers’ support for the passage of an act on the oversight of cross-strait agreements.
The protesters made the statement in response to remarks by Presidential Office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏), who said that Ma is willing to meet with representatives of protesting students “without any preconditions” to help end the standoff over the cross-strait trade agreement and allow the legislature to get back on track.
Lee said Ma is willing to invite representatives of the protesters to the Presidential Office in Taipei to discuss the pact and listen to their views if it will help end the student-led occupation of the legislature that began on Tuesday last week.
Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), a National Taiwan University graduate student and one of the student leaders, said the protesters agreed to have a conversation with Ma without preconditions and proposed two questions that have attracted wide attention for the potential discussion between the two sides.
“The first question is whether there is a need for the institutionalization of the supervision of cross-strait agreements, and the second is whether such a supervision mechanism needs to be in place before reviewing the cross-strait service trade agreement,” Lin said.
Lin added that the students are willing to converse with Ma “in a public setting” and to discuss “in concrete terms” the questions mentioned.
“By the time we get there to have the conversation, we will not want to take extra time to give him a lecture,” Lin said. Another student leader, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), a graduate student at National Tsing Hua University, said that the conversation should not be a private one that can be heard only by the representatives, but one that is open to public witness.
The protest leaders and civil group representatives said that the minutes of the latest legislative meeting on March 17, made public yesterday, showed that the review of the trade pact, which according to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers has been completed, was not documented.
It means that the issue has been returned to the legislature’s Internal Administrative Committee pending further discussion, the group said.
“We ask the government not to hold any negotiations with the Chinese government until the institutionalization of the supervision of cross-strait agreements. The trade pact must be returned to the Executive Yuan until such institutionalization is completed,” Chen said.
The group called on legislators to promise to respond to their three requests.
“Our first request is that the legalization of a ‘cross-strait agreement oversight act’ be initiated during this legislative plenary session. The second is that any reviews of cross-strait agreements be held off until legislation is finalized. And finally, that the bill be placed on the legislature’s Procedure Committee agenda,” Chen said.
Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a research fellow at Academia Sinica, said that the call is “aimed at each legislator rather than only at the party caucus.”
While some, mainly the media, have been asking what the protesters’ “exit strategy” is, Lin said: “It is president Ma who needs to have an ‘exit strategy.’
Taipei Times (3/26/14)
Protesters willing to meet with Ma
FOR ALL TO WITNESS:Student protest leaders said a meeting with the president to address the trade pact siege should be held in a public setting
By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
The leaders of student protesters occupying the legislative chamber and civic group representatives yesterday agreed to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) without preconditions, as they called for lawmakers’ support for the passage of an act on the oversight of cross-strait agreements.
The protesters made the statement in response to remarks by Presidential Office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏), who said that Ma is willing to meet with representatives of protesting students “without any preconditions” to help end the standoff over the cross-strait trade agreement and allow the legislature to get back on track.
Lee said Ma is willing to invite representatives of the protesters to the Presidential Office in Taipei to discuss the pact and listen to their views if it will help end the student-led occupation of the legislature that began on Tuesday last week.
Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), a National Taiwan University graduate student and one of the student leaders, said the protesters agreed to have a conversation with Ma without preconditions and proposed two questions that have attracted wide attention for the potential discussion between the two sides.
“The first question is whether there is a need for the institutionalization of the supervision of cross-strait agreements, and the second is whether such a supervision mechanism needs to be in place before reviewing the cross-strait service trade agreement,” Lin said.
Lin added that the students are willing to converse with Ma “in a public setting” and to discuss “in concrete terms” the questions mentioned.
“By the time we get there to have the conversation, we will not want to take extra time to give him a lecture,” Lin said. Another student leader, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), a graduate student at National Tsing Hua University, said that the conversation should not be a private one that can be heard only by the representatives, but one that is open to public witness.
The protest leaders and civil group representatives said that the minutes of the latest legislative meeting on March 17, made public yesterday, showed that the review of the trade pact, which according to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers has been completed, was not documented.
It means that the issue has been returned to the legislature’s Internal Administrative Committee pending further discussion, the group said.
“We ask the government not to hold any negotiations with the Chinese government until the institutionalization of the supervision of cross-strait agreements. The trade pact must be returned to the Executive Yuan until such institutionalization is completed,” Chen said.
The group called on legislators to promise to respond to their three requests.
“Our first request is that the legalization of a ‘cross-strait agreement oversight act’ be initiated during this legislative plenary session. The second is that any reviews of cross-strait agreements be held off until legislation is finalized. And finally, that the bill be placed on the legislature’s Procedure Committee agenda,” Chen said.
Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a research fellow at Academia Sinica, said that the call is “aimed at each legislator rather than only at the party caucus.”
While some, mainly the media, have been asking what the protesters’ “exit strategy” is, Lin said: “It is president Ma who needs to have an ‘exit strategy.’
Costas
¥
Η είδηση θα ήταν φαιδρή, αν δεν είχε ψηφιστεί πρόσφατα ο νόμος για τις "διαδικτυακές φήμες", που τιμωρεί με φυλάκιση όποιον "διασπείρει ψευδείς ειδήσεις ή συκοφαντίες" στο ίντερνετ και το ποστ του ή το άρθρο του αναδημοσιευτεί 500 φορές και πάνω. Λοιπόν, μετά την πρόσφατη επίσκεψη της Μισέλ Ομπάμα στην ΛΔΚ, ένας γνωστός καθηγητής πανεπιστημίου (που υποτίθεται ότι κατάγεται από το σόι του Κομφούκιου) ο οποίος είχε παλιότερα αποκαλέσει σε εκπομπή της δημόσιας τηλεόρασης τους κατοίκους του Χονγκ Κονγκ "σκυλιά", υπήρξε πρωταγωνιστής της εξής ιστορίας (ΝΥΤ) [τα παχιά δικά μου]:
It was just after Michelle Obama, the American first lady, had extolled the glories of free speech, during a talk last Saturday at the prestigious Peking University, that the student allegedly blurted out her sarcastic retort to the guest of honor.
“Is America’s strength a result of the U.S. secret services listening to the voices of its citizens?” the young woman supposedly asked. “Could you tell me in America what the difference is between ‘listening to’ and ‘listening in’?”
Kong Qingdong, a professor at the university who relayed the exchange via his microblog account on Sina Weibo, described the first lady’s response this way: “Dumbfounded by the question, Michelle Obama eventually replied that she was not there to talk about politics,” Mr. Kong wrote, stirring a maelstrom of indignation from some of his two million followers.
There was only one problem with Mr. Kong’s story: It was completely untrue, according to reporters and students who attended the event.
(...)
Although Mr. Kong boasts a huge following from Chinese neo-leftists and nationalists, he has plenty of enemies. In recent years, editors at Xinhua, the state news agency, and students at Peking University have campaigned, unsuccessfully, to have him dismissed from the university.
(...)
Throughout the week, as it became apparent that he had fabricated the exchange between Mrs. Obama and the imaginary female student, Mr. Kong found himself on the receiving end of online anger and indignant newspaper commentaries.
“This is the hijacking of rumors in the name of patriotism,” the Shenzhen Daily News wrote in an editorial.
As reposts of his tale reached tens of thousands, high-profile commentators called on the authorities to investigate his online behavior. Among them was Ren Zhiqiang, a property magnate with more than 19 million followers on Sina Weibo, who noted that Mr. Kong’s made-up story had exceeded 500 repostings, the threshold that would allow the authorities to prosecute him for “spreading rumors” under a new law that carries a three-year jail term.
As of Thursday, however, Mr. Kong remained unshackled, and unrepentant.
“All of you are dogs of America,” one of his posts read, “and traitors to China.”
It was just after Michelle Obama, the American first lady, had extolled the glories of free speech, during a talk last Saturday at the prestigious Peking University, that the student allegedly blurted out her sarcastic retort to the guest of honor.
“Is America’s strength a result of the U.S. secret services listening to the voices of its citizens?” the young woman supposedly asked. “Could you tell me in America what the difference is between ‘listening to’ and ‘listening in’?”
Kong Qingdong, a professor at the university who relayed the exchange via his microblog account on Sina Weibo, described the first lady’s response this way: “Dumbfounded by the question, Michelle Obama eventually replied that she was not there to talk about politics,” Mr. Kong wrote, stirring a maelstrom of indignation from some of his two million followers.
There was only one problem with Mr. Kong’s story: It was completely untrue, according to reporters and students who attended the event.
(...)
Although Mr. Kong boasts a huge following from Chinese neo-leftists and nationalists, he has plenty of enemies. In recent years, editors at Xinhua, the state news agency, and students at Peking University have campaigned, unsuccessfully, to have him dismissed from the university.
(...)
Throughout the week, as it became apparent that he had fabricated the exchange between Mrs. Obama and the imaginary female student, Mr. Kong found himself on the receiving end of online anger and indignant newspaper commentaries.
“This is the hijacking of rumors in the name of patriotism,” the Shenzhen Daily News wrote in an editorial.
As reposts of his tale reached tens of thousands, high-profile commentators called on the authorities to investigate his online behavior. Among them was Ren Zhiqiang, a property magnate with more than 19 million followers on Sina Weibo, who noted that Mr. Kong’s made-up story had exceeded 500 repostings, the threshold that would allow the authorities to prosecute him for “spreading rumors” under a new law that carries a three-year jail term.
As of Thursday, however, Mr. Kong remained unshackled, and unrepentant.
“All of you are dogs of America,” one of his posts read, “and traitors to China.”
Costas
¥
Large Crowds Fill Taipei Streets in Protest Over China Trade Bill
By AUSTIN RAMZY (ΝΥΤ)
Large crowds of demonstrators took to the streets of Taipei to protest efforts by the government to approve a trade pact with Beijing and show support for the students who have occupied Taiwan’s legislature for nearly two weeks.
Organizers estimated that at least 350,000 people were gathered, as of 2 p.m., on the streets around the Presidential Office Building to express discontent over a pact that would open up dozens of service fields to cross-strait investment. Police counted 116,000 demonstrators by 4 p.m., according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, while some television news stations put the number as high as 700,000.
After President Ma Ying-jeou’s ruling party, the Kuomintang, pushed the pact onto the floor of the legislature without an item-by-item review, as previously promised, hundreds of protesters, mostly college students, stormed the legislature chamber on March 18. They have remained, with crowds of supporters filling the streets outside.
The trade pact has spurred concerns that it would harm local businesses and increase Beijing’s influence over Taiwan, a self-ruled island it claims as part of its territory. While many demonstrators are opposed to the service trade pact, the most widely held complaint was that the measure has not been sufficiently examined. A poll before the occupation of the legislature indicated that more than 70 percent of respondents supported a line-by-line review of the pact.
“The level of public trust with President Ma and his government is really low throughout the country, and the review of this pact has been very cursory,” said Wu Hsiang-min, a 30-year-old engineer who joined the black-clad protesters Sunday in central Taipei. “So I felt that if the students were willing to stand up on this matter, then I should stand up, too.”
On Saturday, Mr. Ma attempted to respond to some of the students’ demands, saying he would back an itemized review of the trade pact and a law that would allow the legislature to more closely monitor agreements with Beijing.
Mr. Ma said he was opposed to demands that the pact, which was signed by quasi-governmental organizations representing Taiwan and China last year but still needs legislative approval, should be withdrawn. The president has said that the deal is necessary for Taiwan’s economy to maintain its competitiveness with regional rivals like South Korea, and that failure to approve it could harm Taiwan’s ability to enter into other trade agreements.
Mr. Ma’s Kuomintang controls the legislature, with 65 of 113 seats, meaning it can eventually win approval of the measure. Protesters had called for Mr. Ma, as the party’s chairman, to relax rules that enforce discipline on voting by its members in the expectation that some K.M.T. legislators might oppose aspects of the pact. Mr. Ma said Saturday that such decisions were made by the party’s legislative caucus and not directly under his control.
On Saturday, a much smaller demonstration of a few thousand people gathered outside Taipei’s central train station to show support for Mr. Ma’s government. “I want the students to leave the legislature,” said Chang Wei-feng, 24, from Taichung in central Taiwan. “You can’t use this sort of occupation in the middle of a democratic process.”
By AUSTIN RAMZY (ΝΥΤ)
Large crowds of demonstrators took to the streets of Taipei to protest efforts by the government to approve a trade pact with Beijing and show support for the students who have occupied Taiwan’s legislature for nearly two weeks.
Organizers estimated that at least 350,000 people were gathered, as of 2 p.m., on the streets around the Presidential Office Building to express discontent over a pact that would open up dozens of service fields to cross-strait investment. Police counted 116,000 demonstrators by 4 p.m., according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, while some television news stations put the number as high as 700,000.
After President Ma Ying-jeou’s ruling party, the Kuomintang, pushed the pact onto the floor of the legislature without an item-by-item review, as previously promised, hundreds of protesters, mostly college students, stormed the legislature chamber on March 18. They have remained, with crowds of supporters filling the streets outside.
The trade pact has spurred concerns that it would harm local businesses and increase Beijing’s influence over Taiwan, a self-ruled island it claims as part of its territory. While many demonstrators are opposed to the service trade pact, the most widely held complaint was that the measure has not been sufficiently examined. A poll before the occupation of the legislature indicated that more than 70 percent of respondents supported a line-by-line review of the pact.
“The level of public trust with President Ma and his government is really low throughout the country, and the review of this pact has been very cursory,” said Wu Hsiang-min, a 30-year-old engineer who joined the black-clad protesters Sunday in central Taipei. “So I felt that if the students were willing to stand up on this matter, then I should stand up, too.”
On Saturday, Mr. Ma attempted to respond to some of the students’ demands, saying he would back an itemized review of the trade pact and a law that would allow the legislature to more closely monitor agreements with Beijing.
Mr. Ma said he was opposed to demands that the pact, which was signed by quasi-governmental organizations representing Taiwan and China last year but still needs legislative approval, should be withdrawn. The president has said that the deal is necessary for Taiwan’s economy to maintain its competitiveness with regional rivals like South Korea, and that failure to approve it could harm Taiwan’s ability to enter into other trade agreements.
Mr. Ma’s Kuomintang controls the legislature, with 65 of 113 seats, meaning it can eventually win approval of the measure. Protesters had called for Mr. Ma, as the party’s chairman, to relax rules that enforce discipline on voting by its members in the expectation that some K.M.T. legislators might oppose aspects of the pact. Mr. Ma said Saturday that such decisions were made by the party’s legislative caucus and not directly under his control.
On Saturday, a much smaller demonstration of a few thousand people gathered outside Taipei’s central train station to show support for Mr. Ma’s government. “I want the students to leave the legislature,” said Chang Wei-feng, 24, from Taichung in central Taiwan. “You can’t use this sort of occupation in the middle of a democratic process.”
Costas
¥
Και από την Guardian:
More than 100,000 protesters rally in Taiwan against trade pact with China
Protesters say deal was rushed through and could leave Taiwan beholden to China's Communist party leaders
By Reuters
More than 100,000 protesters took to the streets of Taiwan's capital on Sunday as a two-week-long campaign against a trade pact with China gathered steam, piling further pressure on the island's leader.
The rally in Taipei – where many were dressed in black and some clutched sunflowers to symbolise hope – was one of the largest in recent years in Taiwan, an island that split from China over six decades ago after a civil war.
Protesters say the deal to open 80 of China's service sectors to Taiwan and 64 Taiwanese sectors to China was rushed through, and could leave Taiwan increasingly beholden to China's Communist party leaders.
Some called for the resignation of Taiwan's China-friendly president Ma Ying-jeou, whose popularity has plunged despite helping to improve ties with China since taking office in 2008.
"We must safeguard our island's interests," said Chin Mei Ching, a 29-year-old mother who was pushing her one-year-old daughter in a buggy. "We have to guard against China using the economy to control us."
A coalition of student and civil groups behind the demonstration said that around 500,000 people had massed in streets near the presidential palace and the parliament building that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a fortnight.
Police put the figure at 116,000.
Police erected steel barricades to prevent protesters from reaching major government buildings including the cabinet offices that were raided by students last Sunday, sparking scuffles and the use of water cannon by police.
"We will not back down," said Lin Fei Fan, one of the student leaders behind the occupation of Taiwan's legislature. "The large turnout today shows there is a clear majority in Taiwan that demands President Ma address our concerns in an acceptable manner." Activists have plastered anti-Ma banners on the legislature walls, and stacks of armchairs block the exits.
Ma has said the trade agreement is necessary for Taiwan's economic future, but opponents say the deal could hurt small Taiwanese companies. Many also worry the pact will allow Beijing to expand its influence over a fiercely independent and proudly democratic territory that China sees as a renegade province.
More than 100,000 protesters rally in Taiwan against trade pact with China
Protesters say deal was rushed through and could leave Taiwan beholden to China's Communist party leaders
By Reuters
More than 100,000 protesters took to the streets of Taiwan's capital on Sunday as a two-week-long campaign against a trade pact with China gathered steam, piling further pressure on the island's leader.
The rally in Taipei – where many were dressed in black and some clutched sunflowers to symbolise hope – was one of the largest in recent years in Taiwan, an island that split from China over six decades ago after a civil war.
Protesters say the deal to open 80 of China's service sectors to Taiwan and 64 Taiwanese sectors to China was rushed through, and could leave Taiwan increasingly beholden to China's Communist party leaders.
Some called for the resignation of Taiwan's China-friendly president Ma Ying-jeou, whose popularity has plunged despite helping to improve ties with China since taking office in 2008.
"We must safeguard our island's interests," said Chin Mei Ching, a 29-year-old mother who was pushing her one-year-old daughter in a buggy. "We have to guard against China using the economy to control us."
A coalition of student and civil groups behind the demonstration said that around 500,000 people had massed in streets near the presidential palace and the parliament building that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a fortnight.
Police put the figure at 116,000.
Police erected steel barricades to prevent protesters from reaching major government buildings including the cabinet offices that were raided by students last Sunday, sparking scuffles and the use of water cannon by police.
"We will not back down," said Lin Fei Fan, one of the student leaders behind the occupation of Taiwan's legislature. "The large turnout today shows there is a clear majority in Taiwan that demands President Ma address our concerns in an acceptable manner." Activists have plastered anti-Ma banners on the legislature walls, and stacks of armchairs block the exits.
Ma has said the trade agreement is necessary for Taiwan's economic future, but opponents say the deal could hurt small Taiwanese companies. Many also worry the pact will allow Beijing to expand its influence over a fiercely independent and proudly democratic territory that China sees as a renegade province.
Costas
¥
Years After Revolt, Chinese Village Glumly Returns to Polls
By DAN LEVIN (NYT)
WUKAN, China — After staging a very public revolt against official corruption and then voting in remarkably unfettered democratic elections, the people who live in this southern Chinese village returned to the polls on Monday amid torrential rains and growing fears that the Communist Party was taking back control of their local government.
In December 2011, villagers in Wukan, a fishing hamlet of 15,000 in Guangdong Province, took to the streets in large protests, chased out local party officials they accused of illegal real estate deals and engaged in an 11-day standoff with armed security forces. After drawing the attention of the international news media, the confrontation ended peacefully when senior Communist Party officials from the provincial capital agreed to allow free elections and promised to investigate the land deals at the heart of the protests.
In March 2012, residents voted into office a number of the protest leaders, raising hopes, however faint, that the so-called Wukan model of grass-roots democratic participation might be the start of a political overhaul in a nation governed by single-party authoritarian rule.
Yet as they arrived on Monday at a heavily guarded schoolyard to begin the process of electing a new seven-member village committee, many voters said they had come to view their earlier electoral success as the beginning of the end of local self-governance.
“There’s a lot less enthusiasm this time around,” said Wang Jinzhen, 62, after she stuffed her paper ballot into a locked metal box. “We still haven’t gotten our land back. The municipal and township governments are corrupt, and they don’t want to help us solve this problem.”
Such widespread disenchantment was heightened by the Communist Party’s recent moves to undo Wukan’s hard-won political independence. Early last month, villagers said, higher-level authorities in Donghai township, which includes Wukan, appointed a formerly ousted official to be the next deputy secretary of the Wukan party committee, and he will be joined by four of his former colleagues.
Villagers were particularly outraged by the arrests on bribery charges of two protest leaders they elected in 2012, Yang Semao and Hong Ruichao, just weeks before Monday’s election. Mr. Yang was later released on bail, though Mr. Hong remains in custody. Another protest leader fled to the United States this year and is seeking political asylum based on claims that he, too, will become a target of the authorities for challenging their rule.
The Chinese government introduced local village elections in the 1980s, but party officials often decide who runs or rig the results to maintain power. Analysts said the shortcomings of Wukan’s independently elected leaders, hamstrung by higher authorities or perhaps because of their own failings, had exposed the limitations of village-level democracy in China and the risks of trying to push those boundaries.
“The government just does whatever it wants, and if you say anything they arrest you,” said Cai Keizhou, 35, a driver who participated in the 2011 protests. “It’s like an adult beating a child.”
Holding a crimson umbrella beneath a propaganda banner that read “civilized election; fair competition,” Mr. Yang, 47, who was hoping to be elected village chief, had a simple explanation for his detention, “We’re not collaborators.”
As for the corruption charges, Mr. Yang has acknowledged accepting 20,000 renminbi, or about $3,200, in bribes but said he immediately donated half to a local school and returned the remaining amount. He would not say who gave him the money. Although the authorities first questioned Mr. Yang and Mr. Hong about the bribery accusations last May, they only decided to detain them two weeks ago, raising suspicions that their detentions were aimed at preventing them from running again.
A bigger concern among voters, however, was the lack of resolution over the land deals that prompted the initial protests. The land, more than 1,000 acres of farmland jointly owned by the villagers, had been sold to developers by the former party secretary, Xue Chang, who held the post for more than three decades before he was ousted during the rebellion. He was later convicted on corruption charges. Despite a promised investigation by the provincial government, only a small portion of the land, some of which contains a pig farm, a hotel and other properties, has been returned.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, about 400 villagers returned to the streets in protest last April. Only after the village chief, Lin Zuluan, sat down to negotiate with officials in Lufeng city, which oversees Wukan, did people return to their homes. But Mr. Lin, a former protest leader, has become a target of popular frustration, with some villagers saying he has become too close to the authorities he once challenged. “I used to idolize Lin but no longer,” said Hong Ruiqin, 37, a hairdresser whose brother remains in police detention on bribery charges.
On Monday night, local authorities announced that Mr. Lin had been re-elected with more than 5,000 of more than 8,000 votes. Voting will resume on Tuesday to elect two deputy chiefs and four committee members. “The election in 2012 was voted on emotions and feelings,” Mr. Lin told journalists in his living room after his victory. “Now it’s much more mature. We have a clearer understanding of democracy.”
Land disputes are a major cause of unrest in China. About 90,000 protests or other expressions of civil unrest occur across the country each year, two-thirds of them related to land appropriated by local authorities who then resell the property to commercial developers with little or no compensation provided to the former occupants, according to a 2011 survey by the Landesa Rural Development Institute of Seattle, Renmin University in Beijing and Michigan State University.
In Wukan, many villagers expected that their political victory two years ago would end the need for street protests over land. Li Fan, an elections expert who runs the World and China Institute in Beijing, said they sorely misread China’s political reality. “Even though the elected village committee in Wukan represented the people’s interests, it still didn’t have any power to deal with higher-level governments or big state-owned enterprises that have strong political connections,” he said. “Wukan’s last election was very successful, but it solved nothing. Even if it’s a success this time around, it won’t solve anything either.”
Yet villagers unhappy with the performance of their elected leadership turned out in droves to support it anyway. According to the authorities, voter turnout on Monday was above 90 percent. “If you don’t vote at all, the municipal government will just install the old corrupt officials,” said Hong Xiaozhuang, 19, a high school student. “But if you vote there’s still a silver lining of hope.”
By DAN LEVIN (NYT)
WUKAN, China — After staging a very public revolt against official corruption and then voting in remarkably unfettered democratic elections, the people who live in this southern Chinese village returned to the polls on Monday amid torrential rains and growing fears that the Communist Party was taking back control of their local government.
In December 2011, villagers in Wukan, a fishing hamlet of 15,000 in Guangdong Province, took to the streets in large protests, chased out local party officials they accused of illegal real estate deals and engaged in an 11-day standoff with armed security forces. After drawing the attention of the international news media, the confrontation ended peacefully when senior Communist Party officials from the provincial capital agreed to allow free elections and promised to investigate the land deals at the heart of the protests.
In March 2012, residents voted into office a number of the protest leaders, raising hopes, however faint, that the so-called Wukan model of grass-roots democratic participation might be the start of a political overhaul in a nation governed by single-party authoritarian rule.
Yet as they arrived on Monday at a heavily guarded schoolyard to begin the process of electing a new seven-member village committee, many voters said they had come to view their earlier electoral success as the beginning of the end of local self-governance.
“There’s a lot less enthusiasm this time around,” said Wang Jinzhen, 62, after she stuffed her paper ballot into a locked metal box. “We still haven’t gotten our land back. The municipal and township governments are corrupt, and they don’t want to help us solve this problem.”
Such widespread disenchantment was heightened by the Communist Party’s recent moves to undo Wukan’s hard-won political independence. Early last month, villagers said, higher-level authorities in Donghai township, which includes Wukan, appointed a formerly ousted official to be the next deputy secretary of the Wukan party committee, and he will be joined by four of his former colleagues.
Villagers were particularly outraged by the arrests on bribery charges of two protest leaders they elected in 2012, Yang Semao and Hong Ruichao, just weeks before Monday’s election. Mr. Yang was later released on bail, though Mr. Hong remains in custody. Another protest leader fled to the United States this year and is seeking political asylum based on claims that he, too, will become a target of the authorities for challenging their rule.
The Chinese government introduced local village elections in the 1980s, but party officials often decide who runs or rig the results to maintain power. Analysts said the shortcomings of Wukan’s independently elected leaders, hamstrung by higher authorities or perhaps because of their own failings, had exposed the limitations of village-level democracy in China and the risks of trying to push those boundaries.
“The government just does whatever it wants, and if you say anything they arrest you,” said Cai Keizhou, 35, a driver who participated in the 2011 protests. “It’s like an adult beating a child.”
Holding a crimson umbrella beneath a propaganda banner that read “civilized election; fair competition,” Mr. Yang, 47, who was hoping to be elected village chief, had a simple explanation for his detention, “We’re not collaborators.”
As for the corruption charges, Mr. Yang has acknowledged accepting 20,000 renminbi, or about $3,200, in bribes but said he immediately donated half to a local school and returned the remaining amount. He would not say who gave him the money. Although the authorities first questioned Mr. Yang and Mr. Hong about the bribery accusations last May, they only decided to detain them two weeks ago, raising suspicions that their detentions were aimed at preventing them from running again.
A bigger concern among voters, however, was the lack of resolution over the land deals that prompted the initial protests. The land, more than 1,000 acres of farmland jointly owned by the villagers, had been sold to developers by the former party secretary, Xue Chang, who held the post for more than three decades before he was ousted during the rebellion. He was later convicted on corruption charges. Despite a promised investigation by the provincial government, only a small portion of the land, some of which contains a pig farm, a hotel and other properties, has been returned.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, about 400 villagers returned to the streets in protest last April. Only after the village chief, Lin Zuluan, sat down to negotiate with officials in Lufeng city, which oversees Wukan, did people return to their homes. But Mr. Lin, a former protest leader, has become a target of popular frustration, with some villagers saying he has become too close to the authorities he once challenged. “I used to idolize Lin but no longer,” said Hong Ruiqin, 37, a hairdresser whose brother remains in police detention on bribery charges.
On Monday night, local authorities announced that Mr. Lin had been re-elected with more than 5,000 of more than 8,000 votes. Voting will resume on Tuesday to elect two deputy chiefs and four committee members. “The election in 2012 was voted on emotions and feelings,” Mr. Lin told journalists in his living room after his victory. “Now it’s much more mature. We have a clearer understanding of democracy.”
Land disputes are a major cause of unrest in China. About 90,000 protests or other expressions of civil unrest occur across the country each year, two-thirds of them related to land appropriated by local authorities who then resell the property to commercial developers with little or no compensation provided to the former occupants, according to a 2011 survey by the Landesa Rural Development Institute of Seattle, Renmin University in Beijing and Michigan State University.
In Wukan, many villagers expected that their political victory two years ago would end the need for street protests over land. Li Fan, an elections expert who runs the World and China Institute in Beijing, said they sorely misread China’s political reality. “Even though the elected village committee in Wukan represented the people’s interests, it still didn’t have any power to deal with higher-level governments or big state-owned enterprises that have strong political connections,” he said. “Wukan’s last election was very successful, but it solved nothing. Even if it’s a success this time around, it won’t solve anything either.”
Yet villagers unhappy with the performance of their elected leadership turned out in droves to support it anyway. According to the authorities, voter turnout on Monday was above 90 percent. “If you don’t vote at all, the municipal government will just install the old corrupt officials,” said Hong Xiaozhuang, 19, a high school student. “But if you vote there’s still a silver lining of hope.”