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Music from the turbulent period of the Cultural Revolution featured prominently at event at the Great Hall of the People (South China Morning Post)
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Την ίδια ώρα, στην Κίνα...
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50ή επέτειος της Πολιτιστικής Επανάστασης σήμερα. Η μεγαλύτερη στην παγκόσμια Ιστορία επιχείρηση μαζικής χειραγώγησης του πνεύματος αμφισβήτησης και διαμαρτυρίας της νεολαίας με σκοπό τη φραξιονιστική επικράτηση και την εκκαθάριση των πολιτικών αντιπάλων στα ανώτατα κλιμάκια της εξουσίας. Και επίσης, προκειμένου για τη Δύση, η δεύτερη μεγαλύτερη απόδειξη (μετά τη στήριξη των Δυτικών κομουνιστών στο σταλινισμό) του πόσο απύθμενα αφελείς και τυφλωμένοι μπορεί να είναι οι απλοί πιστοί αλλά και οι διανοούμενοι μιας ολοκληρωτικής ιδεολογίας (του μπολσεβικισμού σε όλες του τις εκδοχές), όταν αυτή συμπλέκεται μ' έναν αντιδυτικό εξωτισμό, και του πόσο τα όσα βλέπουν, λατρεύουν και επενδύουν κάποιοι σ' ένα γεγονός (εν προκειμένω στην Πολιτιστική Επανάσταση) μπορεί να μην έχουν την παραμικρή σχέση με τον πραγματικό χαρακτήρα αυτού του γεγονότος.
Among left-wing sympathizers, China’s star rose as the Soviet Union’s fell. Revelations concerning forced labor camps, the cruel suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, as well as Khrushchev’s flirtations with the heresies of “peaceful coexistence” combined to discredit the Soviet experiment in “really existing socialism.” It became increasingly clear that Soviet Marxism had forfeited all progressive claims. It had degenerated into a repellent, authoritarian “science of legitimation” (Rudolf Bahro). Conversely, the repute of Communist China benefited from misleading images of a simple but joyous people working shoulder to shoulder to construct a genuinely humane version of socialism.
Maoism’s global prestige was further enhanced when, in 1966, the Great Helmsman launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. To outsiders, the Cultural Revolution seemed like a laudable effort to reactivate Chinese communism’s original revolutionary élan, thereby avoiding the bureaucratic ossification afflicting Soviet communism. The fact that reliable information concerning the Cultural Revolution’s manifold sanguinary excesses was hard to come by worked distinctly to China’s advantage. Western journalists’ celebratory accounts depicting the glories of the Chinese road to socialism helped to reinforce existing pro-Chinese predispositions and convictions.
(...)
Were the story of French intellectuals and Maoism purely a tale of political folly, it would hardly be worth recounting. In retrospect, the Maoist intoxication that gripped France during the early 1970s stands out as a generational rite of passage. Among students and intellectuals, the identification with Cultural Revolutionary China became an exit strategy to escape from the straitjacket of orthodox Marxism. Early on, revolutionary China ceased being an empirical point of reference. Instead, it became a trope: a projection of the gauchiste political imaginary. As the Maoists themselves later explained, the issue became the “China in our heads.”
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9127.pdf
Among left-wing sympathizers, China’s star rose as the Soviet Union’s fell. Revelations concerning forced labor camps, the cruel suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, as well as Khrushchev’s flirtations with the heresies of “peaceful coexistence” combined to discredit the Soviet experiment in “really existing socialism.” It became increasingly clear that Soviet Marxism had forfeited all progressive claims. It had degenerated into a repellent, authoritarian “science of legitimation” (Rudolf Bahro). Conversely, the repute of Communist China benefited from misleading images of a simple but joyous people working shoulder to shoulder to construct a genuinely humane version of socialism.
Maoism’s global prestige was further enhanced when, in 1966, the Great Helmsman launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. To outsiders, the Cultural Revolution seemed like a laudable effort to reactivate Chinese communism’s original revolutionary élan, thereby avoiding the bureaucratic ossification afflicting Soviet communism. The fact that reliable information concerning the Cultural Revolution’s manifold sanguinary excesses was hard to come by worked distinctly to China’s advantage. Western journalists’ celebratory accounts depicting the glories of the Chinese road to socialism helped to reinforce existing pro-Chinese predispositions and convictions.
(...)
Were the story of French intellectuals and Maoism purely a tale of political folly, it would hardly be worth recounting. In retrospect, the Maoist intoxication that gripped France during the early 1970s stands out as a generational rite of passage. Among students and intellectuals, the identification with Cultural Revolutionary China became an exit strategy to escape from the straitjacket of orthodox Marxism. Early on, revolutionary China ceased being an empirical point of reference. Instead, it became a trope: a projection of the gauchiste political imaginary. As the Maoists themselves later explained, the issue became the “China in our heads.”
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9127.pdf
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Silence from China on CR anniversary (Jun Mai / SCMP)
Mainland media met the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution with silence in a reflection of Beijing’s eagerness to contain discussion and avoid embarrassment over one of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history.
A party directive issued on May 16, 1966, that launched a campaign to rid the country of “representatives of the bourgeoisie” plunged the nation into 10 years of turmoil and violent class struggle that would leave at least 1.72 million dead.
In a speech on China’s economy first made public last Tuesday, President Xi Jinping called the revolution a “decade of catastrophe” that had stalled the country’s industrialisation.
But when the anniversary arrived, while international media dug through photo and story archives to provide extensive coverage, official Chinese outlets such as People’s Daily stayed away from the topic.
The website ifeng.com, which belongs to the Hong Kong-based Phoenix Media Group, briefly ran a piece featuring street interviews with people on the mainland, asking them their thoughts on the revolution.
One woman, asked for the worst part of the revolution, replied that it was the Nanking Massacre – an event which in fact happened almost 30 years earlier, in 1937 during the Japanese invasion of China.
A man said he had no memory of what happened in “ancient times”, while some said they would take part in the revolution because “everyone was doing it”.
The report was deleted from the website, then reappeared and was deleted for a second time.
This month’s publication of Yanhuang Chunqiu, a monthly political magazine run by party liberals, was delayed a week as its editors and censor disagreed over articles on the revolution. One article was removed, a source close to the magazine said.
No official commemoration was held on the mainland, following the lead of previous anniversary dates, and online discussions on Weibo were censored.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei offered a single sentence in response to a question about the anniversary in yesterday’s daily press briefing.
“The Chinese government already made the correct verdict on it long ago,” Hong said.
Mainland media met the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution with silence in a reflection of Beijing’s eagerness to contain discussion and avoid embarrassment over one of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history.
A party directive issued on May 16, 1966, that launched a campaign to rid the country of “representatives of the bourgeoisie” plunged the nation into 10 years of turmoil and violent class struggle that would leave at least 1.72 million dead.
In a speech on China’s economy first made public last Tuesday, President Xi Jinping called the revolution a “decade of catastrophe” that had stalled the country’s industrialisation.
But when the anniversary arrived, while international media dug through photo and story archives to provide extensive coverage, official Chinese outlets such as People’s Daily stayed away from the topic.
The website ifeng.com, which belongs to the Hong Kong-based Phoenix Media Group, briefly ran a piece featuring street interviews with people on the mainland, asking them their thoughts on the revolution.
One woman, asked for the worst part of the revolution, replied that it was the Nanking Massacre – an event which in fact happened almost 30 years earlier, in 1937 during the Japanese invasion of China.
A man said he had no memory of what happened in “ancient times”, while some said they would take part in the revolution because “everyone was doing it”.
The report was deleted from the website, then reappeared and was deleted for a second time.
This month’s publication of Yanhuang Chunqiu, a monthly political magazine run by party liberals, was delayed a week as its editors and censor disagreed over articles on the revolution. One article was removed, a source close to the magazine said.
No official commemoration was held on the mainland, following the lead of previous anniversary dates, and online discussions on Weibo were censored.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei offered a single sentence in response to a question about the anniversary in yesterday’s daily press briefing.
“The Chinese government already made the correct verdict on it long ago,” Hong said.
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People’s Daily breaks silence on CR
By CHRIS BUCKLEY / NYT
BEIJING — Fifty years to the day since Communist Party leaders formally set in motion Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, miring China in a decade of bloody political upheaval, the party’s main newspaper broke the general silence about the anniversary and urged people to accept the past condemnation of the event and focus on the future.
“History always advances, and we sum up and absorb the lessons of history in order to use it as a mirror to better advance,” said the commentary, which appeared late Monday on the website of the newspaper, People’s Daily, after a day when official news outlets were mostly mute about the anniversary. “We must certainly fix in our memories the historic lessons of the Cultural Revolution.”
The article was the party’s most high-level public comment so far on the 50th anniversary of the revolution, Mao’s effort to cleanse and reinvigorate Communism by attacking his own colleagues and unleashing the Red Guards, fervent student militants recruited to enforce his cause. It also appeared in the print edition of People’s Daily on tuesday, on an inside page.
But the commentary broke no new ground. It asserted that the Communist Party’s verdict condemning the Cultural Revolution, delivered in a resolution in 1981, was “unshakably scientific and authoritative,” and urged Chinese people to rally around President Xi Jinping and his policies.
“There will not be a re-enactment of a mistake like the Cultural Revolution,” it said.
The commentary was unlikely to satisfy historians and people who lived through that time and have called for a more candid and thorough examination of its lessons. Chinese news organizations, under the weight of censorship, have overwhelmingly ignored the anniversary, and have found no room to note the traumatic turning point in modern Chinese history, during which perhaps a million or more people were killed.
“The more time passes, the more difficult it’s become to acknowledge these mistakes,” said Dai Jianzhong, a sociologist in Beijing who attended the high school that was the birthplace of the first Red Guards. “Intellectual closure has left the younger generation almost completely ignorant of the past.”
Another exception to the silence was Global Times, an avidly nationalist newspaper that speaks more bluntly than most of the state-run news media. Late Monday, it also issued a commentary that dismissed the idea that China could ever undergo a repeat of the Cultural Revolution and urged people to focus on the party’s achievements.
“We’ve said bye-bye to the Cultural Revolution long ago,” said the commentary, written under a pen name usually used by Hu Xijin, the chief editor of the newspaper. “Today, we can say one more time that the Cultural Revolution cannot and will not stage a comeback.”
The party condemned the Cultural Revolution decades ago, but leaders have been hesitant to openly air controversies from recent history, and that reluctance has intensified under Mr. Xi.
Since taking power in 2012, he has sought to shore up Mao’s revered status as the founding father of Communist rule. The general silence surrounding the Cultural Revolution anniversary has reflected that political mood, according to historians and people who lived through that time.
“The official summary was very simple — that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster, a calamity,” said Zheng Yi, a former Cultural Revolution student radical who became a writer and now lives in Virginia. “But nowadays, China discourages even studying the history and lessons of the Cultural Revolution.”
He added, “In some ways, the social divisions are even bigger today than they were then, and the leaders don’t like to expose how they could fall from power.”
Mao started the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” in the belief that the Communist Party had become corrupt and compromised, and that a scorching mass political movement was needed to cleanse and reinvigorate the revolution.
At a meeting on May 16, 1966, leaders approved a notice laying out his belief that the revolution was menaced from within. The full document did not become public until a year later, but its repercussions were quickly felt. Many of the officials who approved it were later pushed from office, accused of resisting Mao’s will, and they were often grievously abused by Red Guards and radical officials.
Years of political tumult followed, and when Mao died in 1976, his successors quickly arrested radical supporters of the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the party formally condemned the revolution, and there was a burst of memoirs, recantations and histories. But in later years, especially under Mr. Xi, that candor has receded.
Yet the silence has not been total.
Throughout this year, liberal journals and websites have published memoirs and essays urging greater reflection about the lessons of the Cultural Revolution. But there have also been commentaries on far-left Chinese websites defending Mao’s policies, and one even suggested that the country needed a “Cultural Revolution 2.0.” (That article was later removed from a neo-Maoist website.)
“After decades without education in the history of the Cultural Revolution and the terrible things and great destruction that happened, young people are rarely told of these things, and so younger officials and students don’t really understand it,” Yin Hongbiao, a historian of the Cultural Revolution and a professor at Peking University, said in a telephone interview. In 1966, he was a junior secondary student who watched the Red Guard movement spread and engulf Beijing.
“Some people project their discontent with the present onto the past,” Mr. Yin said. “So it seems to them that life was better in the Mao era.”
By CHRIS BUCKLEY / NYT
BEIJING — Fifty years to the day since Communist Party leaders formally set in motion Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, miring China in a decade of bloody political upheaval, the party’s main newspaper broke the general silence about the anniversary and urged people to accept the past condemnation of the event and focus on the future.
“History always advances, and we sum up and absorb the lessons of history in order to use it as a mirror to better advance,” said the commentary, which appeared late Monday on the website of the newspaper, People’s Daily, after a day when official news outlets were mostly mute about the anniversary. “We must certainly fix in our memories the historic lessons of the Cultural Revolution.”
The article was the party’s most high-level public comment so far on the 50th anniversary of the revolution, Mao’s effort to cleanse and reinvigorate Communism by attacking his own colleagues and unleashing the Red Guards, fervent student militants recruited to enforce his cause. It also appeared in the print edition of People’s Daily on tuesday, on an inside page.
But the commentary broke no new ground. It asserted that the Communist Party’s verdict condemning the Cultural Revolution, delivered in a resolution in 1981, was “unshakably scientific and authoritative,” and urged Chinese people to rally around President Xi Jinping and his policies.
“There will not be a re-enactment of a mistake like the Cultural Revolution,” it said.
The commentary was unlikely to satisfy historians and people who lived through that time and have called for a more candid and thorough examination of its lessons. Chinese news organizations, under the weight of censorship, have overwhelmingly ignored the anniversary, and have found no room to note the traumatic turning point in modern Chinese history, during which perhaps a million or more people were killed.
“The more time passes, the more difficult it’s become to acknowledge these mistakes,” said Dai Jianzhong, a sociologist in Beijing who attended the high school that was the birthplace of the first Red Guards. “Intellectual closure has left the younger generation almost completely ignorant of the past.”
Another exception to the silence was Global Times, an avidly nationalist newspaper that speaks more bluntly than most of the state-run news media. Late Monday, it also issued a commentary that dismissed the idea that China could ever undergo a repeat of the Cultural Revolution and urged people to focus on the party’s achievements.
“We’ve said bye-bye to the Cultural Revolution long ago,” said the commentary, written under a pen name usually used by Hu Xijin, the chief editor of the newspaper. “Today, we can say one more time that the Cultural Revolution cannot and will not stage a comeback.”
The party condemned the Cultural Revolution decades ago, but leaders have been hesitant to openly air controversies from recent history, and that reluctance has intensified under Mr. Xi.
Since taking power in 2012, he has sought to shore up Mao’s revered status as the founding father of Communist rule. The general silence surrounding the Cultural Revolution anniversary has reflected that political mood, according to historians and people who lived through that time.
“The official summary was very simple — that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster, a calamity,” said Zheng Yi, a former Cultural Revolution student radical who became a writer and now lives in Virginia. “But nowadays, China discourages even studying the history and lessons of the Cultural Revolution.”
He added, “In some ways, the social divisions are even bigger today than they were then, and the leaders don’t like to expose how they could fall from power.”
Mao started the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” in the belief that the Communist Party had become corrupt and compromised, and that a scorching mass political movement was needed to cleanse and reinvigorate the revolution.
At a meeting on May 16, 1966, leaders approved a notice laying out his belief that the revolution was menaced from within. The full document did not become public until a year later, but its repercussions were quickly felt. Many of the officials who approved it were later pushed from office, accused of resisting Mao’s will, and they were often grievously abused by Red Guards and radical officials.
Years of political tumult followed, and when Mao died in 1976, his successors quickly arrested radical supporters of the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the party formally condemned the revolution, and there was a burst of memoirs, recantations and histories. But in later years, especially under Mr. Xi, that candor has receded.
Yet the silence has not been total.
Throughout this year, liberal journals and websites have published memoirs and essays urging greater reflection about the lessons of the Cultural Revolution. But there have also been commentaries on far-left Chinese websites defending Mao’s policies, and one even suggested that the country needed a “Cultural Revolution 2.0.” (That article was later removed from a neo-Maoist website.)
“After decades without education in the history of the Cultural Revolution and the terrible things and great destruction that happened, young people are rarely told of these things, and so younger officials and students don’t really understand it,” Yin Hongbiao, a historian of the Cultural Revolution and a professor at Peking University, said in a telephone interview. In 1966, he was a junior secondary student who watched the Red Guard movement spread and engulf Beijing.
“Some people project their discontent with the present onto the past,” Mr. Yin said. “So it seems to them that life was better in the Mao era.”
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The writer and translator Yang Jiang has passed away in Beijing at the age of 104. Her involvement with world literature makes her a topic of attention in many languages, especially English, Spanish, German, and French. This makes for some interesting obituaries with different perspectives!
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1954515/best-selling-writer-one-half-chinese-literary-super
http://www.vivelohoy.com/entretenimiento/8629635/muere-a-los-104-anos-la-escritora-china-yang-jiang
http://www.morgenpost.de/kultur/article207605701/Schriftstellerin-Yang-Jiang-stirbt-im-Alter-von-104.html
http://french.china.org.cn/china/txt/2016-05/25/content_38536231.htm
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/yang-jiang-chinese-writer-and-translator-of-don-quixote-dies-at-104/2016/05/25/3cd99df0-2297-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1954515/best-selling-writer-one-half-chinese-literary-super
http://www.vivelohoy.com/entretenimiento/8629635/muere-a-los-104-anos-la-escritora-china-yang-jiang
http://www.morgenpost.de/kultur/article207605701/Schriftstellerin-Yang-Jiang-stirbt-im-Alter-von-104.html
http://french.china.org.cn/china/txt/2016-05/25/content_38536231.htm
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/yang-jiang-chinese-writer-and-translator-of-don-quixote-dies-at-104/2016/05/25/3cd99df0-2297-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html
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10 Chinese Women Whose Writing Should Be Translated
Writing from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
(Literary Hub, από Paper Republic)Writing from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
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Chinese lawyer not giving up despite torture (Taipei Times)
One of China’s best-known dissident lawyers said his newly launched memoir is his latest act of resistance to show he has not been silenced by years of solitary confinement and torture, accounts of which have drawn international criticism of Beijing.
In an exclusive interview with AP, Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), 52, who has been living under near-constant surveillance by Chinese authorities since his release from jail in 2014, said he wrote his book “to expose the truth and crimes of this regime.”
The Chinese-language book, titled Stand Up China 2017 — China’s Hope: What I Learned During Five Years as a Political Prisoner, was launched in Hong Kong on Tuesday at an event attended by Gao’s daughter.
“This book is my way of posing resistance,” Gao said in Monday night’s interview, which was conducted over a messaging app instead of by phone to circumvent surveillance and interruption. “I wrote it secretly because I had to hide from the minders who watch me around the clock.”
He said he kept the book a secret even from his family to avoid endangering them.
In the book, Gao recounts the torture he says he endured, as well as the three years he spent in solitary confinement. It was the strength of his Christian faith and his unwavering hope for China that sustained him in that period of isolation, he said.
China’s Public Security Ministry had no immediate response to a request for comment on the book.
Gao’s interview and book come as Chinese authorities wage what rights groups say is one of the most severe crackdowns on the country’s rights-defending legal community in recent memory. Several Chinese rights lawyers have been arrested on state subversion charges that carry potential life sentences. Activists say the use of such charges indicates that the ruling Communist Party sees this group of lawyers as a threat to its grip on power.
Authorities are also putting lawyers on trial on other charges. On Friday, Xia Lin (夏霖), a rights lawyer whose clients have included dissident artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未), will stand trial in Beijing for fraud.
Gao had won international renown for his courage in defending members of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement and fighting for farmers’ land rights. After he was detained, he upset the authorities by publicly denouncing the torture he said he had suffered.
When Gao was released from prison straight into house arrest in August 2014, the formerly outspoken lawyer could barely walk or speak a full, intelligible sentence, raising concerns that one of the most inspirational figures in China’s rights movement had been permanently broken — physically and mentally. Since then, he has kept a low profile, giving the AP his first interview in five years early last year.
International rights groups have condemned Gao’s treatment both in and out of custody, and the US government has urged China to allow him to come to the US to be reunited with his family if he chooses. His wife lives in San Francisco.
Presenting Gao’s book in Hong Kong on Tuesday was his 23-year-old daughter, Grace Geng [πολύ όμορφη!], who said it has been seven years since she last saw her father. Geng said her father was not well and that his teeth in particular needed urgent treatment that he has been denied. She said she, her mother and brother, who all fled to the US in 2009, have limited communication with him.
“At the very beginning, I did not totally understand. I wondered why our father couldn’t be with us,” said Geng, sobbing with emotion. “But ... after some time, I came to think of his decision as truly great. He loves the Chinese people so much that he put his family in second place. I think that what he thinks is very, very great, so I am very proud of it.”
In a sign of the chill Beijing’s influence has cast over Hong Kong, Gao’s book is being published in Taiwan and will not at first be sold in the semi-autonomous Chinese-controlled city, Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Albert Ho (何俊仁 ) told the AP.
Books on sensitive political topics have increasingly been pulled from mainstream Hong Kong bookstores or consigned to the back shelves. Several men associated with one of the leading independent publishers of such tomes briefly went missing last year amid strong suspicions they had been taken away by the Chinese security services.
During the interview with the AP, Gao said that he missed his family deeply, but chose to remain in China in the hope of someday playing a role in changing the country. Gao said he didn’t fear being taken back to prison.
“Once one has chosen to engage in combat, then there is no such thing as giving up. It is defeating to think about those things,” he said.
“My only worry is that I have affected the lives of my wife and children,” he said. “I’m indebted to them eternally, because I love them more than my own life, but I cannot attend to their needs now.”
One of China’s best-known dissident lawyers said his newly launched memoir is his latest act of resistance to show he has not been silenced by years of solitary confinement and torture, accounts of which have drawn international criticism of Beijing.
In an exclusive interview with AP, Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), 52, who has been living under near-constant surveillance by Chinese authorities since his release from jail in 2014, said he wrote his book “to expose the truth and crimes of this regime.”
The Chinese-language book, titled Stand Up China 2017 — China’s Hope: What I Learned During Five Years as a Political Prisoner, was launched in Hong Kong on Tuesday at an event attended by Gao’s daughter.
“This book is my way of posing resistance,” Gao said in Monday night’s interview, which was conducted over a messaging app instead of by phone to circumvent surveillance and interruption. “I wrote it secretly because I had to hide from the minders who watch me around the clock.”
He said he kept the book a secret even from his family to avoid endangering them.
In the book, Gao recounts the torture he says he endured, as well as the three years he spent in solitary confinement. It was the strength of his Christian faith and his unwavering hope for China that sustained him in that period of isolation, he said.
China’s Public Security Ministry had no immediate response to a request for comment on the book.
Gao’s interview and book come as Chinese authorities wage what rights groups say is one of the most severe crackdowns on the country’s rights-defending legal community in recent memory. Several Chinese rights lawyers have been arrested on state subversion charges that carry potential life sentences. Activists say the use of such charges indicates that the ruling Communist Party sees this group of lawyers as a threat to its grip on power.
Authorities are also putting lawyers on trial on other charges. On Friday, Xia Lin (夏霖), a rights lawyer whose clients have included dissident artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未), will stand trial in Beijing for fraud.
Gao had won international renown for his courage in defending members of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement and fighting for farmers’ land rights. After he was detained, he upset the authorities by publicly denouncing the torture he said he had suffered.
When Gao was released from prison straight into house arrest in August 2014, the formerly outspoken lawyer could barely walk or speak a full, intelligible sentence, raising concerns that one of the most inspirational figures in China’s rights movement had been permanently broken — physically and mentally. Since then, he has kept a low profile, giving the AP his first interview in five years early last year.
International rights groups have condemned Gao’s treatment both in and out of custody, and the US government has urged China to allow him to come to the US to be reunited with his family if he chooses. His wife lives in San Francisco.
Presenting Gao’s book in Hong Kong on Tuesday was his 23-year-old daughter, Grace Geng [πολύ όμορφη!], who said it has been seven years since she last saw her father. Geng said her father was not well and that his teeth in particular needed urgent treatment that he has been denied. She said she, her mother and brother, who all fled to the US in 2009, have limited communication with him.
“At the very beginning, I did not totally understand. I wondered why our father couldn’t be with us,” said Geng, sobbing with emotion. “But ... after some time, I came to think of his decision as truly great. He loves the Chinese people so much that he put his family in second place. I think that what he thinks is very, very great, so I am very proud of it.”
In a sign of the chill Beijing’s influence has cast over Hong Kong, Gao’s book is being published in Taiwan and will not at first be sold in the semi-autonomous Chinese-controlled city, Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Albert Ho (何俊仁 ) told the AP.
Books on sensitive political topics have increasingly been pulled from mainstream Hong Kong bookstores or consigned to the back shelves. Several men associated with one of the leading independent publishers of such tomes briefly went missing last year amid strong suspicions they had been taken away by the Chinese security services.
During the interview with the AP, Gao said that he missed his family deeply, but chose to remain in China in the hope of someday playing a role in changing the country. Gao said he didn’t fear being taken back to prison.
“Once one has chosen to engage in combat, then there is no such thing as giving up. It is defeating to think about those things,” he said.
“My only worry is that I have affected the lives of my wife and children,” he said. “I’m indebted to them eternally, because I love them more than my own life, but I cannot attend to their needs now.”
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[Ο Zhuangzi είναι ο κορυφαίος ταοϊστής φιλόσοφος]
The first English-language study of its kind, Liu Jianmei’s Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature is an impressive and ambitious work that investigates as well as situates Zhuangzi’s thought within the formation of Chinese literary modernity. Liu traces the rises and falls of Zhuangzi in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as manifested in the works of an array of intellectuals and writers, thereby demonstrating the enduring influence of Zhuangzi on modern China’s literary and cultural scenes—a process she describes as “a return to the classic” (回歸古典) (3).
One of the key goals of the book is to show how and why modern Chinese intellectuals and writers have appropriated, reinterpreted, and even twisted Zhuangzi for various purposes under different social and political circumstances. Such a perspective of inquiry is illuminating and important to our understanding of the New Culture Movement (ca. 1915-1925), during which Chinese intellectuals were torn between the bipolar forces of Western modernity and Chinese tradition and were constantly faced with the dilemma of either maintaining a local cultural identity or creating a new one that matched a global order in which China no longer was—nor could be imagined as—the center. This historical situation compelled Chinese intellectuals to reengage with and reassess their cultural roots, in an attempt to root out the origins of what they viewed as China’s social, political, economic, and cultural weakness and decay.
Perspectives on China’s decline vis-a-vis its traditions varied from intellectual to intellectual. Liu begins with Guo Moruo, whose interpretations of Zhuangzi underwent multiple transformations throughout his life. In his early years, he was an enthusiastic advocate of Zhuangzi, disseminating as well as developing Daoist philosophy. He eulogized the thought of Zhuangzi by writing a series of articles and poems that emphasize a harmonious relation between man and nature. Liu observes that the Zhuangzian ideas of “oneness with the Dao” (26) and “forgetting the self” (29) were characteristic of his writings at that time. However, in the 1940s, Guo started to apply Marxist historical materialism to his elaboration of Zhuangzi, arguing that Zhuangzi’s “tendency to be cynical and misanthropic” (39) was a result of the sage’s historical context and lamenting that the ruling class had for two thousand years misused Zhuangzi’s “crafty philosophy” (39). While Guo broadly targeted the ideology of the ruling class in the 1940s, in the 1960s he began to specifically disparage Zhuangzi’s thought as “a cunning trap of class deception” (41). Guo’s transformation from a supporter of Zhuangzi in the May Fourth period to a Marxist ideologue thoroughly critical of Zhuangzi’s philosophy during the height of the Cultural Revolution exemplifies the uneven fate of Zhuangzi in the modern era.
Compared to Guo’s radically changing attitude, Lu Xun was a persistent and adamant critic of Zhuangzi. While many scholars have pointed out that Lu Xun drew inspiration from aspects of Zhuangzi’s writings, his criticism of Daoist philosophy is abundantly evident.[1] For most of his early career as a writer, Lu Xun rejected the (Daoist) life of a recluse, insisting on intervening in social reality and committing himself to the life of a cultural warrior against feudalism and social injustice.[2]
Liu points out that, to further reflect on the ineffectual nature of the Daoist personality, Lu Xun wrote The True Story of Ah-Q, in which the main protagonist convinces himself of his “spiritual victory” whenever he is subjected to humiliation and defeat. This imagined victory supplanting a cruel and harsh reality is reminiscent of Zhuangzi’s ideal of “sitting and forgetting” (坐忘) and “no-self” (無己) according to Liu (68). When evaluating Lu Xun’s consistently negative attitude toward Zhuangzi and Daoist philosophy, Liu argues that such an attitude is understandable, because it reflected the national crisis Lu Xun faced and the accompanying sense of urgency he felt at that historical juncture (65).
Liu next turns to Lin Yutang, whose adherence to Zhuangzi was rare in the politically-charged atmosphere of the time and contrasted with the May Fourth (e.g., Lu Xun) criticism of Daoism. Although Lin did not show much interest in Zhuangzi during the New Culture Movement, he became a proponent of Zhuangzi after 1927, endorsing a literature of leisure that emphasizes the value of personal freedom rather than social conformity. In addition, he promoted the discourse of humor by seeing Zhuangzi as “the ancestor of Chinese humor” (107) who always discussed worldly affairs wittily and freely. This seemingly apolitical interpretation of Zhuangzi, however, was actually a political response to utilitarian social perspectives being promoted by others. Lin’s humorous and light-hearted perspective on life was unwelcome in the atmosphere of 1930s China when both leftist and rightist intellectuals were avidly pursuing national salvation through various reform agenda. His promotion of “leisure life” ultimately failed (111).
It was not until Lin emigrated to the United States in 1936 that he had an opportunity to revive the “leisure life” as an emphasis on the aesthetic and creative sides of human nature. Unlike the politically-intense milieu in China, America’s modernization and industrialization required a philosophy of life that could help citizens escape from the pressures and disillusionment of their alienating society. It was here, Liu shows, that Lin’s Daoist-inspired worldview found belated approval. Lin’s success in the U.S. was also facilitated by his ability to introduce and articulate Daoist philosophy in English. He wrote English-language novels such as Moment in Peking (1939) and The Unexpected Island (1955) to express his interpretation of Daoism. In the former, he created two protagonists who embody an all-embracing Daoist dualism. In the latter, he depicted an imagined utopian community combining Daoist and ancient Greek cultures. Liu demonstrates how Lin’s application of Zhuangzian philosophy to Western individuals and contexts might represent “a fruitful source of an alternative conception of modernity” (106).
Liu’s inquiry into the modern fate of Zhuangzi is not limited to the New Culture Movement. She also ventures into the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, during which the prevailing assessment of Zhuangzi in the PRC was that of a reactionary idealist and irreconcilable enemy of the working class. Chinese intellectuals at the time expended a great deal of effort criticizing Zhuangzi from a rigid Marxist model of class struggle. Guan Feng is the most extreme example in this regard. Liu chronicles that Guan saw in Zhuangzi’s ideas “the residual power of slave masters” (奴隸主殘餘勢力) (145), and invoked Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah-Q, asserting that “Zhuangzi’s subjective idealism has these characteristics: nihilism, Ah Q’s spirit, sophistry, and pessimism” (146). Guan Feng’s criticism of Zhuangzi and Daoism is more malicious than Lu Xun’s, since the former’s fanatic belief in revolutionary collectivism completely ruled out any possibility of affirming the Daoist advocation of a free mind. Liu thus suggests that, if Lu Xun’s literary writing can be seen as putting Zhuangzi in a “literary court” (文學法庭), Guan’s even more hostile and irrational accusation of Daoism can be understood as putting Zhuangzi in “the court of politics” (政治法庭) (144).[3]
Zhuangzi experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s. After the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Chinese intellectuals finally had a chance to re-engage with Zhuangzi in ways that were previously impossible. While some tried to revive an originary Zhuangzi, others appealed to Western worldviews in order to critically reassess Daoist philosophy. For example, Liu Xiaofeng compared the spirit of Christian salvation with the roaming spirit of Zhuangzi, prioritizing the former as the absolute truth from which the latter could be judged (156). By regarding (Christian) God as the only source of ultimate truth, Liu Jianmei argues, Liu Xiaofeng bolstered “the binarism of East-versus-West, ignoring the incommensurable capacities and historical contexts between the two systems of thought” (156). After being tried in a “literary court” in the 1920s and a “political court” in the Mao era, the 1980s saw Zhuangzi being tried in a “religious court” (宗教法庭) (154).
Liu also explores themes that stem from Zhuangzi, Daoism, and even Chan Buddhism in the works of contemporary Chinese writers such as Gao Xingjian and Yan Lianke. Gao, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, is known for his exilic pursuit of spiritual freedom. Gao’s self-exile from his Chinese homeland can be interpreted as a political protest and as an aesthetic adventure—both of which have featured prominently in some of his works. Soul Mountain (靈山), one of Gao’s best known works, depicts the main protagonist’s physical and spiritual journey to find a place called “soul mountain.” Mixing anecdotal plots, lyrical meditations, and fantastic dreams, the story “unfolds a cosmic vision of human existence presented by certain recurring motifs such as death, darkness, solitude, wandering, the mountain, love, and sex” (215). Although Gao never specifies in the novel what is meant by “soul mountain,” the language of Chan Buddhism that permeates the novel indicates that this sacred place is akin to a kind of spiritual freedom found only in the mind of the individual and not in the outer world (216-7). Liu argues that Gao’s insistence on the attainment of spiritual freedom echoes Zhuangzi’s and Chan Buddhism’s notions of spiritual transcendence, and is therefore resistant to any hegemonic political ideology or regime.
In contrast to Gao’s emphasis on and pursuit of inner peace, Liu demonstrates how the works of Yan Lianke manifest the inner conflict of a modern Chinese writer vacillating between different literary traditions and subject positions. On the one hand, Yan carries on the May Fourth belief in the necessity of social intervention; on the other, he reiterates the classical literary theme of a reclusive utopian community that can be traced back to Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming. Liu takes Yan’s 2004 Lenin’s Kisses (受活) as an example. The novel traces the history of a small village of disabled people called Shouhuo (受活, literally “pleasure”) as it is drawn from an idyllic pastoral state into disastrous participation in a “heavenly” socialist commune, after which its idyllic pre-commune state can never be restored (189). By portraying a pair of failed ideal societies (one traditional, one modern), Yan not only reveals the utopia complex of modern Chinese intellectuals and writers, but also demonstrates how difficult it is to search for an alternative to modernity.
Liu’s scholarship demonstrates the kind of erudition and precision that are needed in research that encompasses both modern and traditional literary discourses. By surveying a variety of twentieth and twenty-first century Chinese intellectuals and writers, the book traces the different ways in which Zhuangzi has been interpreted, reinterpreted, and misinterpreted in the modern era. While Liu’s representative writers have been thoughtfully selected, some readers might be left wondering about Liu’s own assessment of Zhuangzi and how she positions herself vis-à-vis the various interpretations of Zhuangzi. For instance, one might ask if Liu believes in an original and authentic Zhuangzi? And, to what extent she runs the risk of essentializing or prioritizing certain interpretations or aspects of Zhuangzi? Such issues of method and approach are important considerations that Liu does not address in the book.[4] These issues aside, Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature is an invaluable source for any study of modern Chinese literature. It highlights an important question that merits further research in the future: how have modern Chinese intellectuals and writers encountered and creatively engaged with China’s literary and cultural traditions? Where the Daoist tradition and Zhuangzi are concerned, Liu’s book has provided a very interesting and convincing answer to this question—and set a standard worthy of emulation.
Carlos Yu-Kai Lin
University of Pennsylvania
Notes:
[1] For example, in The Chinese Prose Poem: A Study of Lu Xun’s Wild Grass (Yecao) (New York: Cambria Press, 2014), Kaldis addresses both poles of Lu Xun’s ambivalence towards Zhuangzi and Daoism.
[2] While Lu Xun might agree with aspects of Zhuangzi’s pursuit of individual spiritual freedom, his consistent rejection of Confucian traditionalism dovetailed with his disapproval of the Daoist philosophy of nonaction or inaction (無為), as opposed to the necessity of action and response (有為). As Lu Xun argues in his famous 1907 essay, “On the Power of Mara Poetry” (摩羅詩力說): “The core of Laozi’s 5,000-word book is ‘Don’t disturb anyone’s mind,’ which requires one first to make dead wood of his mind and propagate inaction; acts of inaction transform society, and the world has peace. What an art!” (cited on p. 63). Lu Xun’s contempt for Daoist nonaction is obvious.
[3] “Idealism” and “materialism” were two of the most popular terms associated with Zhuangzi in the 1960s. In addition to Guan Feng’s adjudication of Zhuangzi, Hou Wairu saw Zhuangzi’s philosophy as “subjective idealism” while Yan Beiming viewed Zhuangzi’s thought as “objective idealism.” Ren Jiyu claimed Zhuangzi was a philosopher of “materialism” (45).
[4] Liu does discuss the fact that both Hu Shi and Lu Xun invoked evolution when they sought to reinterpret Zhuangzi. However, she finds Hu Shi’s use of the concept of evolution “partial” (58) and “problematic” (46) while Lu Xun’s is deemed “understandable” (65) and “dialectical” (58) in light of his “sense of urgency about achieving Chinese modernity” (65). However, considering the fact that this sense of urgency was arguably shared by all May Fourth intellectuals, providing an apology for Lu Xun alone doesn’t do justice to those who were equally burdened with the task of finding a way to achieve Chinese modernity. When exploring such issues, it is helpful to distinguish Darwin’s biological idea of natural selection and scientific method from the social Darwinism developed by Darwin’s followers that captured the imagination of a generation of thinkers famously “obsessed” with China’s modern plight. Such a clarification makes for a more nuanced understanding of not only May Fourth intellectuals’ appropriation of the notion of evolution but also the general intellectual upheaval of early twentieth-century China.
Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature
By Liu Jianmei
Reviewed by Carlos Yu-kai Lin
MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright June, 2016)
By Liu Jianmei
Reviewed by Carlos Yu-kai Lin
MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright June, 2016)
The first English-language study of its kind, Liu Jianmei’s Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature is an impressive and ambitious work that investigates as well as situates Zhuangzi’s thought within the formation of Chinese literary modernity. Liu traces the rises and falls of Zhuangzi in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as manifested in the works of an array of intellectuals and writers, thereby demonstrating the enduring influence of Zhuangzi on modern China’s literary and cultural scenes—a process she describes as “a return to the classic” (回歸古典) (3).
One of the key goals of the book is to show how and why modern Chinese intellectuals and writers have appropriated, reinterpreted, and even twisted Zhuangzi for various purposes under different social and political circumstances. Such a perspective of inquiry is illuminating and important to our understanding of the New Culture Movement (ca. 1915-1925), during which Chinese intellectuals were torn between the bipolar forces of Western modernity and Chinese tradition and were constantly faced with the dilemma of either maintaining a local cultural identity or creating a new one that matched a global order in which China no longer was—nor could be imagined as—the center. This historical situation compelled Chinese intellectuals to reengage with and reassess their cultural roots, in an attempt to root out the origins of what they viewed as China’s social, political, economic, and cultural weakness and decay.
Perspectives on China’s decline vis-a-vis its traditions varied from intellectual to intellectual. Liu begins with Guo Moruo, whose interpretations of Zhuangzi underwent multiple transformations throughout his life. In his early years, he was an enthusiastic advocate of Zhuangzi, disseminating as well as developing Daoist philosophy. He eulogized the thought of Zhuangzi by writing a series of articles and poems that emphasize a harmonious relation between man and nature. Liu observes that the Zhuangzian ideas of “oneness with the Dao” (26) and “forgetting the self” (29) were characteristic of his writings at that time. However, in the 1940s, Guo started to apply Marxist historical materialism to his elaboration of Zhuangzi, arguing that Zhuangzi’s “tendency to be cynical and misanthropic” (39) was a result of the sage’s historical context and lamenting that the ruling class had for two thousand years misused Zhuangzi’s “crafty philosophy” (39). While Guo broadly targeted the ideology of the ruling class in the 1940s, in the 1960s he began to specifically disparage Zhuangzi’s thought as “a cunning trap of class deception” (41). Guo’s transformation from a supporter of Zhuangzi in the May Fourth period to a Marxist ideologue thoroughly critical of Zhuangzi’s philosophy during the height of the Cultural Revolution exemplifies the uneven fate of Zhuangzi in the modern era.
Compared to Guo’s radically changing attitude, Lu Xun was a persistent and adamant critic of Zhuangzi. While many scholars have pointed out that Lu Xun drew inspiration from aspects of Zhuangzi’s writings, his criticism of Daoist philosophy is abundantly evident.[1] For most of his early career as a writer, Lu Xun rejected the (Daoist) life of a recluse, insisting on intervening in social reality and committing himself to the life of a cultural warrior against feudalism and social injustice.[2]
Liu points out that, to further reflect on the ineffectual nature of the Daoist personality, Lu Xun wrote The True Story of Ah-Q, in which the main protagonist convinces himself of his “spiritual victory” whenever he is subjected to humiliation and defeat. This imagined victory supplanting a cruel and harsh reality is reminiscent of Zhuangzi’s ideal of “sitting and forgetting” (坐忘) and “no-self” (無己) according to Liu (68). When evaluating Lu Xun’s consistently negative attitude toward Zhuangzi and Daoist philosophy, Liu argues that such an attitude is understandable, because it reflected the national crisis Lu Xun faced and the accompanying sense of urgency he felt at that historical juncture (65).
Liu next turns to Lin Yutang, whose adherence to Zhuangzi was rare in the politically-charged atmosphere of the time and contrasted with the May Fourth (e.g., Lu Xun) criticism of Daoism. Although Lin did not show much interest in Zhuangzi during the New Culture Movement, he became a proponent of Zhuangzi after 1927, endorsing a literature of leisure that emphasizes the value of personal freedom rather than social conformity. In addition, he promoted the discourse of humor by seeing Zhuangzi as “the ancestor of Chinese humor” (107) who always discussed worldly affairs wittily and freely. This seemingly apolitical interpretation of Zhuangzi, however, was actually a political response to utilitarian social perspectives being promoted by others. Lin’s humorous and light-hearted perspective on life was unwelcome in the atmosphere of 1930s China when both leftist and rightist intellectuals were avidly pursuing national salvation through various reform agenda. His promotion of “leisure life” ultimately failed (111).
It was not until Lin emigrated to the United States in 1936 that he had an opportunity to revive the “leisure life” as an emphasis on the aesthetic and creative sides of human nature. Unlike the politically-intense milieu in China, America’s modernization and industrialization required a philosophy of life that could help citizens escape from the pressures and disillusionment of their alienating society. It was here, Liu shows, that Lin’s Daoist-inspired worldview found belated approval. Lin’s success in the U.S. was also facilitated by his ability to introduce and articulate Daoist philosophy in English. He wrote English-language novels such as Moment in Peking (1939) and The Unexpected Island (1955) to express his interpretation of Daoism. In the former, he created two protagonists who embody an all-embracing Daoist dualism. In the latter, he depicted an imagined utopian community combining Daoist and ancient Greek cultures. Liu demonstrates how Lin’s application of Zhuangzian philosophy to Western individuals and contexts might represent “a fruitful source of an alternative conception of modernity” (106).
Liu’s inquiry into the modern fate of Zhuangzi is not limited to the New Culture Movement. She also ventures into the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, during which the prevailing assessment of Zhuangzi in the PRC was that of a reactionary idealist and irreconcilable enemy of the working class. Chinese intellectuals at the time expended a great deal of effort criticizing Zhuangzi from a rigid Marxist model of class struggle. Guan Feng is the most extreme example in this regard. Liu chronicles that Guan saw in Zhuangzi’s ideas “the residual power of slave masters” (奴隸主殘餘勢力) (145), and invoked Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah-Q, asserting that “Zhuangzi’s subjective idealism has these characteristics: nihilism, Ah Q’s spirit, sophistry, and pessimism” (146). Guan Feng’s criticism of Zhuangzi and Daoism is more malicious than Lu Xun’s, since the former’s fanatic belief in revolutionary collectivism completely ruled out any possibility of affirming the Daoist advocation of a free mind. Liu thus suggests that, if Lu Xun’s literary writing can be seen as putting Zhuangzi in a “literary court” (文學法庭), Guan’s even more hostile and irrational accusation of Daoism can be understood as putting Zhuangzi in “the court of politics” (政治法庭) (144).[3]
Zhuangzi experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s. After the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Chinese intellectuals finally had a chance to re-engage with Zhuangzi in ways that were previously impossible. While some tried to revive an originary Zhuangzi, others appealed to Western worldviews in order to critically reassess Daoist philosophy. For example, Liu Xiaofeng compared the spirit of Christian salvation with the roaming spirit of Zhuangzi, prioritizing the former as the absolute truth from which the latter could be judged (156). By regarding (Christian) God as the only source of ultimate truth, Liu Jianmei argues, Liu Xiaofeng bolstered “the binarism of East-versus-West, ignoring the incommensurable capacities and historical contexts between the two systems of thought” (156). After being tried in a “literary court” in the 1920s and a “political court” in the Mao era, the 1980s saw Zhuangzi being tried in a “religious court” (宗教法庭) (154).
Liu also explores themes that stem from Zhuangzi, Daoism, and even Chan Buddhism in the works of contemporary Chinese writers such as Gao Xingjian and Yan Lianke. Gao, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, is known for his exilic pursuit of spiritual freedom. Gao’s self-exile from his Chinese homeland can be interpreted as a political protest and as an aesthetic adventure—both of which have featured prominently in some of his works. Soul Mountain (靈山), one of Gao’s best known works, depicts the main protagonist’s physical and spiritual journey to find a place called “soul mountain.” Mixing anecdotal plots, lyrical meditations, and fantastic dreams, the story “unfolds a cosmic vision of human existence presented by certain recurring motifs such as death, darkness, solitude, wandering, the mountain, love, and sex” (215). Although Gao never specifies in the novel what is meant by “soul mountain,” the language of Chan Buddhism that permeates the novel indicates that this sacred place is akin to a kind of spiritual freedom found only in the mind of the individual and not in the outer world (216-7). Liu argues that Gao’s insistence on the attainment of spiritual freedom echoes Zhuangzi’s and Chan Buddhism’s notions of spiritual transcendence, and is therefore resistant to any hegemonic political ideology or regime.
In contrast to Gao’s emphasis on and pursuit of inner peace, Liu demonstrates how the works of Yan Lianke manifest the inner conflict of a modern Chinese writer vacillating between different literary traditions and subject positions. On the one hand, Yan carries on the May Fourth belief in the necessity of social intervention; on the other, he reiterates the classical literary theme of a reclusive utopian community that can be traced back to Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming. Liu takes Yan’s 2004 Lenin’s Kisses (受活) as an example. The novel traces the history of a small village of disabled people called Shouhuo (受活, literally “pleasure”) as it is drawn from an idyllic pastoral state into disastrous participation in a “heavenly” socialist commune, after which its idyllic pre-commune state can never be restored (189). By portraying a pair of failed ideal societies (one traditional, one modern), Yan not only reveals the utopia complex of modern Chinese intellectuals and writers, but also demonstrates how difficult it is to search for an alternative to modernity.
Liu’s scholarship demonstrates the kind of erudition and precision that are needed in research that encompasses both modern and traditional literary discourses. By surveying a variety of twentieth and twenty-first century Chinese intellectuals and writers, the book traces the different ways in which Zhuangzi has been interpreted, reinterpreted, and misinterpreted in the modern era. While Liu’s representative writers have been thoughtfully selected, some readers might be left wondering about Liu’s own assessment of Zhuangzi and how she positions herself vis-à-vis the various interpretations of Zhuangzi. For instance, one might ask if Liu believes in an original and authentic Zhuangzi? And, to what extent she runs the risk of essentializing or prioritizing certain interpretations or aspects of Zhuangzi? Such issues of method and approach are important considerations that Liu does not address in the book.[4] These issues aside, Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature is an invaluable source for any study of modern Chinese literature. It highlights an important question that merits further research in the future: how have modern Chinese intellectuals and writers encountered and creatively engaged with China’s literary and cultural traditions? Where the Daoist tradition and Zhuangzi are concerned, Liu’s book has provided a very interesting and convincing answer to this question—and set a standard worthy of emulation.
Carlos Yu-Kai Lin
University of Pennsylvania
Notes:
[1] For example, in The Chinese Prose Poem: A Study of Lu Xun’s Wild Grass (Yecao) (New York: Cambria Press, 2014), Kaldis addresses both poles of Lu Xun’s ambivalence towards Zhuangzi and Daoism.
[2] While Lu Xun might agree with aspects of Zhuangzi’s pursuit of individual spiritual freedom, his consistent rejection of Confucian traditionalism dovetailed with his disapproval of the Daoist philosophy of nonaction or inaction (無為), as opposed to the necessity of action and response (有為). As Lu Xun argues in his famous 1907 essay, “On the Power of Mara Poetry” (摩羅詩力說): “The core of Laozi’s 5,000-word book is ‘Don’t disturb anyone’s mind,’ which requires one first to make dead wood of his mind and propagate inaction; acts of inaction transform society, and the world has peace. What an art!” (cited on p. 63). Lu Xun’s contempt for Daoist nonaction is obvious.
[3] “Idealism” and “materialism” were two of the most popular terms associated with Zhuangzi in the 1960s. In addition to Guan Feng’s adjudication of Zhuangzi, Hou Wairu saw Zhuangzi’s philosophy as “subjective idealism” while Yan Beiming viewed Zhuangzi’s thought as “objective idealism.” Ren Jiyu claimed Zhuangzi was a philosopher of “materialism” (45).
[4] Liu does discuss the fact that both Hu Shi and Lu Xun invoked evolution when they sought to reinterpret Zhuangzi. However, she finds Hu Shi’s use of the concept of evolution “partial” (58) and “problematic” (46) while Lu Xun’s is deemed “understandable” (65) and “dialectical” (58) in light of his “sense of urgency about achieving Chinese modernity” (65). However, considering the fact that this sense of urgency was arguably shared by all May Fourth intellectuals, providing an apology for Lu Xun alone doesn’t do justice to those who were equally burdened with the task of finding a way to achieve Chinese modernity. When exploring such issues, it is helpful to distinguish Darwin’s biological idea of natural selection and scientific method from the social Darwinism developed by Darwin’s followers that captured the imagination of a generation of thinkers famously “obsessed” with China’s modern plight. Such a clarification makes for a more nuanced understanding of not only May Fourth intellectuals’ appropriation of the notion of evolution but also the general intellectual upheaval of early twentieth-century China.
Costas
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Bookseller’s associates challenge his account
Source: NYT (6/19/16)
Hong Kong Bookseller Finds Associates Challenging His Account of Detention
By MICHAEL FORSYTHE
HONG KONG — Adopting the mantle of a whistle-blower rarely comes without consequences. Edward J. Snowden is in exile in Russia for leaking secrets of the National Security Agency. Michael Winston, who gained fame for exposing Countrywide Financial’s mortgage policies, spent years battling lawsuits. Now, in Hong Kong, it is Lam Wing-kee’s turn to feel the heat.
Many people in Hong Kong consider Mr. Lam a hero. His dramatic recounting on Thursday of his apprehension by the Chinese police, his forced confession and months of detention for committing an act that is not a crime in his native Hong Kong — selling politically sensitive books filled with gossip and speculation about China’s leaders — led thousands of people to come out on the streets on Saturday to show their support for him.
But people close to him, including his former colleagues and a woman who says she is his girlfriend, are now making public rebuttals about what he said, in accounts published by Sing Tao Daily, a pro-Beijing newspaper. In the case of the girlfriend — identified only by her surname, Hu — the criticism is stinging.
Ms. Hu, 37, interviewed by Sing Tao in mainland China, said Mr. Lam had deceived her into mailing banned books to customers in the mainland, which she said she had not known was a crime. She also said in the interview, which was published on Sunday, that “cursed Lam is not a man” and that, contrary to what he had told the news media, the Chinese authorities did not deny him legal representation.
On Saturday, the same newspaper published interviews with two of the other detained booksellers, Lui Por and Cheung Chi-ping, who both disputed Mr. Lam’s claim that televised confessions from this year in which they tearfully admitted to illegal book sales in China had been scripted by the mainland police. Mr. Cheung was quoted by the paper as saying, “I had no idea that Lam Wing-kee was such a dishonest person.”
Their comments followed similar rebuttals by another of Mr. Lam’s former colleagues, Lee Bo. Mr. Lee is arguably the most famous of the booksellers, because it was his disappearance from a Hong Kong neighborhood in late December that brought the story of the missing booksellers to a global audience. On Friday, Mr. Lee again reiterated that he had, contrary to what Mr. Lam had said, voluntarily traveled to the mainland to help the police there with a case.
A fifth person connected with the Hong Kong bookseller saga, Gui Minhai, was plucked from his seaside condo in Thailand. He remains in mainland police custody and has not commented on Mr. Lam’s statements.
Albert Ho, a Hong Kong lawyer and pro-democracy lawmaker, represented Mr. Snowden during his time in Hong Kong in 2013. On Thursday afternoon, his secretary received notice that Mr. Lam had called him and wanted to meet.
Mr. Lam had been planning to head back to the mainland under an agreement with the Chinese police but suddenly decided to go public with an account of his time in custody.
Mr. Ho does not, at present, serve as Mr. Lam’s lawyer, but it was in a conference room near Mr. Ho’s office in the legislative building that Mr. Lam gave his news conference.
Hong Kong, despite having returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, operates under a separate legal system and does not have an extradition agreement with the mainland.
Mr. Ho said the reaction of Mr. Lam’s girlfriend and former colleagues was “as expected” because of the tremendous pressure that, he said, the Chinese police place on their relatives. The public nature of Mr. Lam’s revelations — before more than 80 journalists — contrasted sharply with the highly controlled, terse statements given to a pro-Beijing newspaper, Mr. Ho said by telephone.
“The other people, they looked timid, they look shy in appearing before reporters — they only gave their version to certain very selective, biased media,” Mr. Ho said. “I think common sense will tell the Hong Kong people which version is true.”
Source: NYT (6/19/16)
Hong Kong Bookseller Finds Associates Challenging His Account of Detention
By MICHAEL FORSYTHE
HONG KONG — Adopting the mantle of a whistle-blower rarely comes without consequences. Edward J. Snowden is in exile in Russia for leaking secrets of the National Security Agency. Michael Winston, who gained fame for exposing Countrywide Financial’s mortgage policies, spent years battling lawsuits. Now, in Hong Kong, it is Lam Wing-kee’s turn to feel the heat.
Many people in Hong Kong consider Mr. Lam a hero. His dramatic recounting on Thursday of his apprehension by the Chinese police, his forced confession and months of detention for committing an act that is not a crime in his native Hong Kong — selling politically sensitive books filled with gossip and speculation about China’s leaders — led thousands of people to come out on the streets on Saturday to show their support for him.
But people close to him, including his former colleagues and a woman who says she is his girlfriend, are now making public rebuttals about what he said, in accounts published by Sing Tao Daily, a pro-Beijing newspaper. In the case of the girlfriend — identified only by her surname, Hu — the criticism is stinging.
Ms. Hu, 37, interviewed by Sing Tao in mainland China, said Mr. Lam had deceived her into mailing banned books to customers in the mainland, which she said she had not known was a crime. She also said in the interview, which was published on Sunday, that “cursed Lam is not a man” and that, contrary to what he had told the news media, the Chinese authorities did not deny him legal representation.
On Saturday, the same newspaper published interviews with two of the other detained booksellers, Lui Por and Cheung Chi-ping, who both disputed Mr. Lam’s claim that televised confessions from this year in which they tearfully admitted to illegal book sales in China had been scripted by the mainland police. Mr. Cheung was quoted by the paper as saying, “I had no idea that Lam Wing-kee was such a dishonest person.”
Their comments followed similar rebuttals by another of Mr. Lam’s former colleagues, Lee Bo. Mr. Lee is arguably the most famous of the booksellers, because it was his disappearance from a Hong Kong neighborhood in late December that brought the story of the missing booksellers to a global audience. On Friday, Mr. Lee again reiterated that he had, contrary to what Mr. Lam had said, voluntarily traveled to the mainland to help the police there with a case.
A fifth person connected with the Hong Kong bookseller saga, Gui Minhai, was plucked from his seaside condo in Thailand. He remains in mainland police custody and has not commented on Mr. Lam’s statements.
Albert Ho, a Hong Kong lawyer and pro-democracy lawmaker, represented Mr. Snowden during his time in Hong Kong in 2013. On Thursday afternoon, his secretary received notice that Mr. Lam had called him and wanted to meet.
Mr. Lam had been planning to head back to the mainland under an agreement with the Chinese police but suddenly decided to go public with an account of his time in custody.
Mr. Ho does not, at present, serve as Mr. Lam’s lawyer, but it was in a conference room near Mr. Ho’s office in the legislative building that Mr. Lam gave his news conference.
Hong Kong, despite having returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, operates under a separate legal system and does not have an extradition agreement with the mainland.
Mr. Ho said the reaction of Mr. Lam’s girlfriend and former colleagues was “as expected” because of the tremendous pressure that, he said, the Chinese police place on their relatives. The public nature of Mr. Lam’s revelations — before more than 80 journalists — contrasted sharply with the highly controlled, terse statements given to a pro-Beijing newspaper, Mr. Ho said by telephone.
“The other people, they looked timid, they look shy in appearing before reporters — they only gave their version to certain very selective, biased media,” Mr. Ho said. “I think common sense will tell the Hong Kong people which version is true.”
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Source: China Real Time (6/17/16)
Study Finds China’s Ecosystems Have Become Healthier
By Te-Ping Chen
China’s skies may be toxic, and its rivers fetid and prone to sudden infestations of pig carcasses. But according to a new study, the country’s environmental battle has also been making quiet, measurable progress.
The paper, a collaboration between U.S. and Chinese researchers published in this week’s issue of Science, found that China’s ecosystems have become healthier and more resilient against such disasters as sandstorms and flooding. The authors partly credit what they describe as the world’s largest government-backed effort to restore natural habitats such as forests and grasslands, totaling some $150 billion in spending since 2000.
“In a more and more turbulent world, with climate change unfolding, it’s really crucial to measure these kinds of things,” says Gretchen Daily, a Stanford biology professor and a senior author on the paper.
The study didn’t examine air, water or soil quality, all deeply entrenched problems for the country.
Beijing’s investments in promoting better ecosystem protection were triggered after a spate of disasters in the 1990s. In particular, authors note, two decades after China started to liberalize its economy, rampant deforestation and soil erosion triggered devastating floods along the Yangtze River in 1998, killing thousands and causing some $36 billion in property damage.
The government subsequently embarked on an effort to try to forestall such environmental catastrophes. According to the study, in the decade following, carbon sequestration went up 23%, soil retention went up 13% and flood mitigation by 13%, with sandstorm prevention up by 6%.
The paper also involved authors from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Minnesota, among other institutions. Data was collected by remote sensing and a team of some 3,000 scientists across China, said Ms. Daily, who praised the “big-data” approach to tracking the quality of China’s ecosystems.
“The whole world is waking up to the need to invest in natural capital as the basis for green growth,” she said.
Reforestation was one particular bright spot, she said. Under the country’s founding father, Mao Zedong, China razed acres of forests to fuel steel-smelting furnaces. To reverse the trend–and combat creeping desertification in the country’s north — the country embarked on a project in 1978 to build a “Great Green Wall” of trees. Today, authorities say that 22% of the country is covered by forest, up 1.3 percentage points compared with 2008.
The authors note that the study has limits. While China has reported improving levels of air quality in the past year, urban residents still choke under regular “airpocalypses.” The majority of Chinese cities endure levels of smog that exceed both Chinese and World Health Organization health standards.
“You can plant trees till the end of time,” says Ms. Daily. “But they’ll never be enough to clean up the air.”
– Te-Ping Chen
Study Finds China’s Ecosystems Have Become Healthier
By Te-Ping Chen
China’s skies may be toxic, and its rivers fetid and prone to sudden infestations of pig carcasses. But according to a new study, the country’s environmental battle has also been making quiet, measurable progress.
The paper, a collaboration between U.S. and Chinese researchers published in this week’s issue of Science, found that China’s ecosystems have become healthier and more resilient against such disasters as sandstorms and flooding. The authors partly credit what they describe as the world’s largest government-backed effort to restore natural habitats such as forests and grasslands, totaling some $150 billion in spending since 2000.
“In a more and more turbulent world, with climate change unfolding, it’s really crucial to measure these kinds of things,” says Gretchen Daily, a Stanford biology professor and a senior author on the paper.
The study didn’t examine air, water or soil quality, all deeply entrenched problems for the country.
Beijing’s investments in promoting better ecosystem protection were triggered after a spate of disasters in the 1990s. In particular, authors note, two decades after China started to liberalize its economy, rampant deforestation and soil erosion triggered devastating floods along the Yangtze River in 1998, killing thousands and causing some $36 billion in property damage.
The government subsequently embarked on an effort to try to forestall such environmental catastrophes. According to the study, in the decade following, carbon sequestration went up 23%, soil retention went up 13% and flood mitigation by 13%, with sandstorm prevention up by 6%.
The paper also involved authors from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Minnesota, among other institutions. Data was collected by remote sensing and a team of some 3,000 scientists across China, said Ms. Daily, who praised the “big-data” approach to tracking the quality of China’s ecosystems.
“The whole world is waking up to the need to invest in natural capital as the basis for green growth,” she said.
Reforestation was one particular bright spot, she said. Under the country’s founding father, Mao Zedong, China razed acres of forests to fuel steel-smelting furnaces. To reverse the trend–and combat creeping desertification in the country’s north — the country embarked on a project in 1978 to build a “Great Green Wall” of trees. Today, authorities say that 22% of the country is covered by forest, up 1.3 percentage points compared with 2008.
The authors note that the study has limits. While China has reported improving levels of air quality in the past year, urban residents still choke under regular “airpocalypses.” The majority of Chinese cities endure levels of smog that exceed both Chinese and World Health Organization health standards.
“You can plant trees till the end of time,” says Ms. Daily. “But they’ll never be enough to clean up the air.”
– Te-Ping Chen
Costas
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Mao Zedong, Founding Father of the People’s Republic of China, Conspired with the Japanese Army
by ENDO Homare, Director, Center of International Relations, Tokyo University of Social Welfare, Professor Emeritus, University of Tsukuba
Conspiracy between Mao Zedong and local agencies of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Mao Zedong requested truce between the CPC forces and the Japanese Army
Let’s drag the Sino-Japanese War out as long as possible
Imprisonment of all the spies to silence them
Why Mao Zedong was grateful to the Imperial Japanese Army after the creation of the PRC
Mao Zedong never once celebrated the day commemorating victory over Japan
Mao Zedong did not even teach Chinese school children about the Nanjing Massacre
by ENDO Homare, Director, Center of International Relations, Tokyo University of Social Welfare, Professor Emeritus, University of Tsukuba
Conspiracy between Mao Zedong and local agencies of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Mao Zedong requested truce between the CPC forces and the Japanese Army
Let’s drag the Sino-Japanese War out as long as possible
Imprisonment of all the spies to silence them
Why Mao Zedong was grateful to the Imperial Japanese Army after the creation of the PRC
Mao Zedong never once celebrated the day commemorating victory over Japan
Mao Zedong did not even teach Chinese school children about the Nanjing Massacre
Costas
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China Suspends Diplomatic Contact With Taiwan
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ (NYT 25 Ιουν. '16)
BEIJING — In a sign of growing friction between China and Taiwan, mainland diplomats said Saturday that they had suspended contact with their Taiwanese counterparts because the island’s new leader would not endorse the idea of a single Chinese nation.
Beijing said it had cut off communication because President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan failed to endorse the idea that Taiwan and the mainland are part of one China, a concept known as the 1992 Consensus.
The move was the latest effort by the Chinese government, led by President Xi Jinping, to increase pressure on Ms. Tsai, who took office last month and has unsettled Beijing with her reluctance to disavow calls for Taiwanese independence.
“The cross-strait communication mechanism has been suspended because Taiwan did not recognize the 1992 Consensus, the political basis for the One China principle,” An Fengshan, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a statement posted on its website.
Taiwanese officials said Saturday that they would continue to try to communicate with their mainland counterparts. “We hope Taiwan and the mainland can continue to have benign interaction, which is good for both sides,” said Tung Chen-yuan, a government spokesman in Taipei.
Patrick M. Cronin, a senior adviser at the Center for a New American Security, called the decision by Beijing to halt talks a “warning shot across the bow.” He said mainland officials were growing increasingly nervous about an independence movement in Taiwan and were seeking to hinder Ms. Tsai’s domestic agenda, including her promise to revive a slowing economy.
“China will deny carrots and signal red lines for President Tsai as she grapples with her fundamental challenge, which is righting the economy,” Dr. Cronin said.
Taiwan and China have been estranged since the Communist revolution of 1949. Under Ms. Tsai’s immediate predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, the two sides forged closer economic and political ties.
Ms. Tsai has taken a more cautious approach, openly criticizing Chinese officials and warmly embracing China’s historic rivals like Japan. Her party, the Democratic Progressives, has traditionally advocated Taiwanese independence, a move the mainland has threatened to counter with military force.
Ms. Tsai has said she wants to maintain the status quo in cross-strait relations, but she has stopped short of offering an unequivocal endorsement of the One China policy.
In 1992, Taiwan and the mainland agreed to consider themselves part of a single Chinese nation, but each side embraces a different interpretation of what that means.
Mainland officials treat the consensus as a prerequisite for normal relations, and threatened to suspend contact if Ms. Tsai did not endorse the principle. The state media published a series of scathing editorials, including one in which a People’s Liberation Army general suggested that Ms. Tsai, Taiwan’s first female president, held extremist views because she was unmarried.
On Saturday, the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing revealed that talks with the Mainland Affairs Council in Taipei had been suspended since May, soon after Ms. Tsai’s inauguration. The two entities represent one of the primary channels of communication between China and Taiwan, overseeing discussions related to trade, law, education and culture.
Tensions between the two sides increased in recent weeks, after Cambodia, an ally of Beijing, decided to deport to mainland China 25 Taiwanese citizens accused of participating in an internet scheme. It was the third instance in recent months of China’s seeking to prosecute citizens of Taiwan on its soil.
On Saturday, Chinese officials defended their handling of the case, saying efforts to crack down on internet schemes were legitimate and supported by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Analysts said the decision to suspend talks was probably the beginning of a campaign by Beijing to increase pressure on Taiwan.
China has several methods by which it could further constrain Ms. Tsai. It could seek to lure away Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies with promises of lucrative infrastructure investments. It could also place restrictions on Chinese tourism to the island, which has increased significantly in recent years, becoming a bright spot for the otherwise struggling Taiwanese economy.
“The big unknown is the business community,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. “China will be reaching out to all the segments that are going to be dissatisfied with Tsai’s policies.”
The timing of Beijing’s announcement, just as Ms. Tsai departed for Latin America on her first overseas trip as president, seemed aimed at undermining her leadership, analysts said.
“By refusing to communicate, Beijing is making it more difficult for the Taiwanese government to fulfill its obligations to its citizens and as a member of international society,” said Jonathan Sullivan, the director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham in England.
He added, “Beijing is saying, ‘We don’t care about inconvenience and are prepared to inhibit the management of cross-strait interactions if we don’t get what we want.’”
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ (NYT 25 Ιουν. '16)
BEIJING — In a sign of growing friction between China and Taiwan, mainland diplomats said Saturday that they had suspended contact with their Taiwanese counterparts because the island’s new leader would not endorse the idea of a single Chinese nation.
Beijing said it had cut off communication because President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan failed to endorse the idea that Taiwan and the mainland are part of one China, a concept known as the 1992 Consensus.
The move was the latest effort by the Chinese government, led by President Xi Jinping, to increase pressure on Ms. Tsai, who took office last month and has unsettled Beijing with her reluctance to disavow calls for Taiwanese independence.
“The cross-strait communication mechanism has been suspended because Taiwan did not recognize the 1992 Consensus, the political basis for the One China principle,” An Fengshan, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a statement posted on its website.
Taiwanese officials said Saturday that they would continue to try to communicate with their mainland counterparts. “We hope Taiwan and the mainland can continue to have benign interaction, which is good for both sides,” said Tung Chen-yuan, a government spokesman in Taipei.
Patrick M. Cronin, a senior adviser at the Center for a New American Security, called the decision by Beijing to halt talks a “warning shot across the bow.” He said mainland officials were growing increasingly nervous about an independence movement in Taiwan and were seeking to hinder Ms. Tsai’s domestic agenda, including her promise to revive a slowing economy.
“China will deny carrots and signal red lines for President Tsai as she grapples with her fundamental challenge, which is righting the economy,” Dr. Cronin said.
Taiwan and China have been estranged since the Communist revolution of 1949. Under Ms. Tsai’s immediate predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, the two sides forged closer economic and political ties.
Ms. Tsai has taken a more cautious approach, openly criticizing Chinese officials and warmly embracing China’s historic rivals like Japan. Her party, the Democratic Progressives, has traditionally advocated Taiwanese independence, a move the mainland has threatened to counter with military force.
Ms. Tsai has said she wants to maintain the status quo in cross-strait relations, but she has stopped short of offering an unequivocal endorsement of the One China policy.
In 1992, Taiwan and the mainland agreed to consider themselves part of a single Chinese nation, but each side embraces a different interpretation of what that means.
Mainland officials treat the consensus as a prerequisite for normal relations, and threatened to suspend contact if Ms. Tsai did not endorse the principle. The state media published a series of scathing editorials, including one in which a People’s Liberation Army general suggested that Ms. Tsai, Taiwan’s first female president, held extremist views because she was unmarried.
On Saturday, the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing revealed that talks with the Mainland Affairs Council in Taipei had been suspended since May, soon after Ms. Tsai’s inauguration. The two entities represent one of the primary channels of communication between China and Taiwan, overseeing discussions related to trade, law, education and culture.
Tensions between the two sides increased in recent weeks, after Cambodia, an ally of Beijing, decided to deport to mainland China 25 Taiwanese citizens accused of participating in an internet scheme. It was the third instance in recent months of China’s seeking to prosecute citizens of Taiwan on its soil.
On Saturday, Chinese officials defended their handling of the case, saying efforts to crack down on internet schemes were legitimate and supported by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Analysts said the decision to suspend talks was probably the beginning of a campaign by Beijing to increase pressure on Taiwan.
China has several methods by which it could further constrain Ms. Tsai. It could seek to lure away Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies with promises of lucrative infrastructure investments. It could also place restrictions on Chinese tourism to the island, which has increased significantly in recent years, becoming a bright spot for the otherwise struggling Taiwanese economy.
“The big unknown is the business community,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. “China will be reaching out to all the segments that are going to be dissatisfied with Tsai’s policies.”
The timing of Beijing’s announcement, just as Ms. Tsai departed for Latin America on her first overseas trip as president, seemed aimed at undermining her leadership, analysts said.
“By refusing to communicate, Beijing is making it more difficult for the Taiwanese government to fulfill its obligations to its citizens and as a member of international society,” said Jonathan Sullivan, the director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham in England.
He added, “Beijing is saying, ‘We don’t care about inconvenience and are prepared to inhibit the management of cross-strait interactions if we don’t get what we want.’”
Costas
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China court tells writer to apologise for challenging propaganda
By AFP (HK Free Press, 28 Ιουν. '16)
A Chinese court has ordered the former chief editor of an influential magazine to apologise for challenging an official account of history, as Beijing further tightens limits on freedom of speech.
Hong Zhenkuai cast doubt on the story of the “Five Warriors of Mount Langyashan”, who allegedly jumped off a cliff while fighting the Japanese during World War II rather than surrender.
They are touted as patriotic heroes in schoolbooks and propaganda by China’s ruling Communist Party as part of its nationalistic narrative.
But Hong pointed out discrepancies in the story in two 2013 articles for his progressive magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, questioning whether two of the five had jumped at all.
The Beijing Xicheng District People’s Court ruled Monday that he had “tarnished their reputation and honour”, and hurt the feelings of their two sons, plaintiffs Ge Changsheng and Song Fubao, along with those of the Chinese people as a whole.
The court gave Hong three days to issue a public apology, it said in a statement on its website. It was unclear what penalty he would face should he fail to do so.
The Langyashan soldiers were “a key component of the spirit of the Chinese nation”, the court said.
As a Chinese citizen, it added, Hong should have known better than to “diminish their heroic image and spiritual value”.
“The defendant had the ability to control the potential damaging consequences that arose out of the articles but did not do so,” it said.
“His judgement is clearly faulty and he should bear legal responsibility. The freedom of speech that he advocates is clearly insufficient as a defence against his legal wrongs.”
China has imposed ever-tighter restrictions on freedom of speech and the press since Xi Jinping became president in 2013.
The Communist Party tolerates no opposition to its rule and newspapers, websites, and broadcast media are strictly controlled. An army of censors patrols social media and many Western news websites are blocked.
Yanhuang Chunqiu was once one of the country’s most outspoken political magazines, known for pieces that challenge official historical narratives, but has faced increased scrutiny and censorship in recent years. In 2015 it was forced to cancel its annual conference under government pressure for the first time in its decades-long history.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted one of the judges in the Five Warriors case as saying: “Free speech is not without boundaries, and it should be protected on the premise that it does not infringe on other people’s legal rights.”
By AFP (HK Free Press, 28 Ιουν. '16)
A Chinese court has ordered the former chief editor of an influential magazine to apologise for challenging an official account of history, as Beijing further tightens limits on freedom of speech.
Hong Zhenkuai cast doubt on the story of the “Five Warriors of Mount Langyashan”, who allegedly jumped off a cliff while fighting the Japanese during World War II rather than surrender.
They are touted as patriotic heroes in schoolbooks and propaganda by China’s ruling Communist Party as part of its nationalistic narrative.
But Hong pointed out discrepancies in the story in two 2013 articles for his progressive magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, questioning whether two of the five had jumped at all.
The Beijing Xicheng District People’s Court ruled Monday that he had “tarnished their reputation and honour”, and hurt the feelings of their two sons, plaintiffs Ge Changsheng and Song Fubao, along with those of the Chinese people as a whole.
The court gave Hong three days to issue a public apology, it said in a statement on its website. It was unclear what penalty he would face should he fail to do so.
The Langyashan soldiers were “a key component of the spirit of the Chinese nation”, the court said.
As a Chinese citizen, it added, Hong should have known better than to “diminish their heroic image and spiritual value”.
“The defendant had the ability to control the potential damaging consequences that arose out of the articles but did not do so,” it said.
“His judgement is clearly faulty and he should bear legal responsibility. The freedom of speech that he advocates is clearly insufficient as a defence against his legal wrongs.”
China has imposed ever-tighter restrictions on freedom of speech and the press since Xi Jinping became president in 2013.
The Communist Party tolerates no opposition to its rule and newspapers, websites, and broadcast media are strictly controlled. An army of censors patrols social media and many Western news websites are blocked.
Yanhuang Chunqiu was once one of the country’s most outspoken political magazines, known for pieces that challenge official historical narratives, but has faced increased scrutiny and censorship in recent years. In 2015 it was forced to cancel its annual conference under government pressure for the first time in its decades-long history.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted one of the judges in the Five Warriors case as saying: “Free speech is not without boundaries, and it should be protected on the premise that it does not infringe on other people’s legal rights.”
Costas
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The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China (China Daily)
Costas
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Discord Between China’s Top Two Leaders Spills Into the Open
President Xi and Premier Li offer conflicting messages on the economy, showing a crack in party’s united front (WSJ)
President Xi and Premier Li offer conflicting messages on the economy, showing a crack in party’s united front (WSJ)
Hooligan Sparrow
Το ντοκιμαντέρ προβλήθηκε τον περασμένο Μάρτιο στο 18ο Φεστιβάλ Ντοκιμαντέρ Θεσσαλονίκης. Μου άρεσε η παρακάτω πρόσφατη κριτική παρουσίαση από τον Matt Fagerholm, εκ των διαδόχων του Ebert.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hooligan-sparrow-2016
This jarring documentary on women's rights in China amid governmental intimidation premiered at Sundance.
She offered to work for free at one of China's brothels. That was an offer that the media couldn't refuse to cover, and Ye Haiyan gained notoriety, drawing attention to China's deplorable sex-services industry. Nicknamed “Hooligan Sparrow” for her vigilant promotion of women's rights in China, Ye Haiyan became a government target.
Hooligan Sparrow follows Ye Haiyan and her fellow activists, who protest a case where six elementary-school age girls were sexually abused by their principal. In that case, the Chinese educational/governmental bureaucracy protected the accused and began to apply pressure to Ye Haiyan for exposing this injustice. She had long been a target for her exposure of the harsh conditions of the brothels, which number in the thousands across China.
This guerrilla-style documentary is brave. The filmmaker, Nanfu Wang, also was subject to Chinese suppression and had to shoot this doc on the sly. Wang was under constant pressure, her equipment destroyed and her person threatened. Utilizing hidden-camera subterfuges and deceptively placed microphones, Wang has managed to uncover in the process another human-rights outrage in China, the thug-like nature of government's intrusion into private lives.
Nearly the entire film is shot with hand-held cameras, with only personal interviews conducted in a non-hostile situation. Throughout, Wang makes a virtue out of necessity: Her on-the-run scoping and jarring cuts infuse the film with a sense of desperate danger befitting its subject matter.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/hooligan-sparrow-sundance-review-861632
She offered to work for free at one of China's brothels. That was an offer that the media couldn't refuse to cover, and Ye Haiyan gained notoriety, drawing attention to China's deplorable sex-services industry. Nicknamed “Hooligan Sparrow” for her vigilant promotion of women's rights in China, Ye Haiyan became a government target.
Hooligan Sparrow follows Ye Haiyan and her fellow activists, who protest a case where six elementary-school age girls were sexually abused by their principal. In that case, the Chinese educational/governmental bureaucracy protected the accused and began to apply pressure to Ye Haiyan for exposing this injustice. She had long been a target for her exposure of the harsh conditions of the brothels, which number in the thousands across China.
This guerrilla-style documentary is brave. The filmmaker, Nanfu Wang, also was subject to Chinese suppression and had to shoot this doc on the sly. Wang was under constant pressure, her equipment destroyed and her person threatened. Utilizing hidden-camera subterfuges and deceptively placed microphones, Wang has managed to uncover in the process another human-rights outrage in China, the thug-like nature of government's intrusion into private lives.
Nearly the entire film is shot with hand-held cameras, with only personal interviews conducted in a non-hostile situation. Throughout, Wang makes a virtue out of necessity: Her on-the-run scoping and jarring cuts infuse the film with a sense of desperate danger befitting its subject matter.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/hooligan-sparrow-sundance-review-861632
Το ντοκιμαντέρ προβλήθηκε τον περασμένο Μάρτιο στο 18ο Φεστιβάλ Ντοκιμαντέρ Θεσσαλονίκης. Μου άρεσε η παρακάτω πρόσφατη κριτική παρουσίαση από τον Matt Fagerholm, εκ των διαδόχων του Ebert.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hooligan-sparrow-2016