New Site

The blog has a new home (and more regular posts). See http://guanxiblog.com.

Why were Chinese people so angry about the attempts to seize the torch in the international torch relay?

Susan Brownwell from the China Beat has a fascinating post describing a visit by an Olympic torchbearer to a primary school in the earthquake-stricken town of Deyang in Sichuan province. She follows the story by putting on her anthropologist hat to discuss the torch’s significance as a symbol and source of international friction:

Against the background of the furor over the international torch relay, observing the reverence and emotion for The Torch and The Torchbearer made me suddenly see how cynical we are, more often than not, in the West, as a product of our secularized, rationalized society in which there are only small spaces in which it is acceptable to express reverence for symbols. A picture appeared in my mind which is an exaggeration but perhaps with a kernel of truth: In China, the majority of public expressions take place in a vast field of rituals and symbols, while the protest zones that were recently announced for the Olympic Games are the small, circumscribed spaces where critical analytical thought is expressed. In the US, the majority of public expressions take place in a vast field of critical analytical thought, while ritual expression takes place in small, circumscribed places like churches and, arguably, sports events. I realized that at least part of the anger that many Chinese people felt at the disruptions of the international torch relay was the result of the (to them) appalling and uncivilized lack of respect for a nearly-sacred object.

Homeward Bound

I'm down to a little over a week to go before I head back stateside. I've been in Kunming for nearly two years now. Not really feeling too nostalgic. Actually a lot more concerned about getting all my stuff back home in one piece. September 1st I'll be starting grad school back in D.C. In the meantime I'll be bouncing around visiting friends and family. I don't know how much I'll be updating this from here on out but I've back-dated some writing I've posted on Facebook and some other places. Scroll down to see what I've been up to and what I've been ranting about.

Here's a random collection of pictures I've taken since last August.

Economist Misses the Mark on Kunming

The Economist magazine's "Correspondent's Diary" trekked through southwest China. This is what they wrote about Kunming:

"Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, is an affluent city. Large foreign cars fill the roads; billboards with advertisements for large foreign cars line them. These vehicles, along with the coal-fired power stations and nearby heavy industry, create a thick, hazy pollution soup that sits permanently above the town." [Read more...]

It's hard to figure out where to start. I never really liked this kind of journalism. Leaning far too heavily on snap impressions gleaned from a day or two of travel, this unnamed correspondent makes mistakes that could easily have been avoided with some basic background research.

I'm not sure what day the reporter visited the city, but Kunming's air quality is downright pristine when compared to other inland Chinese cities like Xi'an or Wuhan. In fact, Kunming ranked 4th out of the 31 major cities with at least 351 days of "fairly good" air quality by China's National Bureau of Statistics.* A major factor behind this ranking is the relative absence of heavy industry. Yunnan doesn't have a ton of mega-manufacturers. Those that are present, like the Kunming Iron & Steel Company (abbreviated in Chinese as Kungang), tend to operate a safe distance from Kunming. In Kungang's case, 20 miles (32 km) away. The larger factories closer to Kunming - like cigarette manufacturing - are generally less heavily polluting. Meanwhile car ownership, while increasing rapidly, still lags far behind the more industrialized centers to the east. The city government has taken at least a symbolic interest in addressing auto emissions by holding monthly car-free days. They're also planting a heck of a lot of trees.

Similarly, the reporter's "affluence" argument is a bit problematic. To begin with, the evidence is shaky. Smog is clearly not what it's made out to be. And a smattering of high-end retail hardly counts as anything besides a convenient anecdote. I'm no economist but if you look at GDP per capita Kunming (at ¥7,833, US$1,141) doesn't hold up so well when compared to other cities like Shanghai (¥57,310, US$8,346), Chengdu (¥20,625, US$3,004), or even Nanning (¥16,121, US$2,348). Even discussing affluence in broad general terms can obscure the fact that while a small but growing number do sport Gucci bags and drive BMWs, the vast majority survive on less than US$200 per month.

I'm not out to poo-poo travel writing. Last September The New York Times travel section ran a terrific piece on Kunming. Unfortunately, this reporter just didn't do his or her homework.

*The figures are from 2004, the last year I could locate specific numbers. In 2006, Kunming was listed as Class II, meaning it had "fairly good" air quality. Only two cities in 2006 - Lhasa and Haikou (the provincial capital of Hainan) - were listed as Class I, meaning they had "excellent" air quality. Most of the other cities in the Class II category were either located directly on the shore or had far smaller populations than Kunming.

2004 data: http://www.allcountries.org/[...]

2006 data: http://www.china.org.cn/[...]

Why Drilling for Oil in ANWR is a Bad Idea

Recently my dad has been fixated on the need for more oil drilling along the Gulf Coast and the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I zeroed in on ANWR, looked at the pro-drilling arguments, and tried to figure out a coherent counterargument. This is what I got:

I don't believe that conservation advocates are distorting the actual risk to wildlife. Rather, they seem to me to be making an ethically valid defense of settled policy dating back to the Theodore Roosevelt administration. As Roosevelt (a Republican) himself said in 1907:

"To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed."

If you start from that basis and see the policy implications through to the Nixon-era Clean Air and Water Acts (1970 and 1972 respectively -- during the administration of another Republican), I think it is fair to argue that the burden of proof for ANWR drilling lies with the pro-drilling advocates. Specifically, they need to show that:

A) drilling in protected areas fulfills a clear and imminent economic or national security need, and/or

B) the benefits of drilling will outweigh the potential cost to wildlife and Native inhabitants.

At first glance, the drilling advocates seem to have shoo-in when it comes to economic and national security. Gasoline prices now average above $4.00 a gallon and basic supply/demand suggests that as supply stagnates and demand increases (largely from China and India), prices will continue to move upward. Furthermore, because the demand increase is external, domestic conservation efforts may still yield a net demand increase worldwide. To complicate matters, the major oil supplying nations are typically some combination of unfriendly (Venezuela), unsavory (Saudi Arabia), or unstable (Iraq). Because the United States is heavily dependent on oil – and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future – boosting domestic production can protect market stability and take the edge off our dealing with Chavez and the other shadowy characters that dominate OPEC.

That said, the oil market is not as straightforward as some might suggest. The market itself is convoluted and indirect. But even more important and more straightforward, exporters and importers are co-dependent. Oil has a severely distorting effect on producer nations' economies. Just as Americans are rightfully concerned about our dependency, exporters are concerned in equal or greater measure. Norway is a classic example. When the country began pumping oil in the 1970s the economy skyrocketed. However when prices collapsed in 1986 the fall was devastating. The economy overheated, inflation set in, and the currency exchange rate tanked. Governments have tried to learn the lesson through modernization and diversification (think Dubai) but have more often failed as a result of corruption and incompetence (Saudi Arabia).

Therefore the key thing to remember is that even countries with rouge-like tendencies realize that their continued prosperity and influence is inextricably bound to continued Western demand, and by extension the continued health of the U.S. and European economies. While some might point to the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks, there is now broad consensus that both incidents hurt exporters more than importers and failed to accomplish their intended political objectives. Counterintuitively, past instability actually bolsters the case for current and future stability. That means that even radical political ideology won't ultimately derail normal economic activity. The Saudis will turn a blind eye to radical Islamist activity. Chavez will shout down Bush at the UN. But neither will shutter the spickit.

Regarding the second point ("B"):

Obviously, progress has been made in drilling technology. These advancements include horizontal wells that require fewer vertical entry points. That said, the support structure required for a $22+ billion effort will necessarily result in industrial development and major disruption of the very wildlife ANWR is designed to protect. Drilling advocates have tried to downplay these concerns by promoting potential solutions like temporary ice roads. Yet these proposals are more disingenuous than might first appear. Artic warming patterns over the past 30 years has reduced the number of hard-tundra winter days by at least half. To maintain economic feasibility, it is likely that the planned ice roads will have to be replaced by disruptive gravel or pavement alternatives that will long outlast the drilling operations.

None of this considers the impact of pipelines, human occupation, or the potential for oil spills. You think it was traumatic watching Al Gore's computer generated polar bears claw onto sinking ice chunks? Imagine them swimming through the wreckage of a second Exxon Valdez.

Finally, I'm not sure if the numbers really add up. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is 7.14 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in ANWR with a small chance that another 3.26 billion barrels could be found. Those numbers actually rise to 9.7 and 14.6 billion barrels respectively when taking into account that the actual legislation on the table also eliminates protection for nearby Native American lands.

Even back in 1973 when the United States was a net importer of only 6.0 billion barrels per year, the ANWR fields could have served domestic demand for a year or two. In 2005 (the last year statistics are available from the U.S. government's Energy Information Agency) net imports had ballooned to 12.5 billion barrels, and had increased by at least 500 million barrels per year since 2000. These numbers do illustrate a steady decrease in domestic production, but they also suggest a failure to seriously invest in alternative energy sources.

Such investments have come along too slowly and too half-heartedly for a country that remains the world leader in scientific R&D funding and new patent applications. Not long ago politicians from across the political spectrum were excited about the potential for corn and switch grass based ethanol. Yet, as growing acreage is converted from food production to energy production, ranchers have taken a hit and food prices have risen. This is due partly to the falling dominoes of unintended consequences, but equally the result of willful (and politically-motivated) ignorance on the part of policymakers. Other ideas – like hybrid technology – are slowly gaining traction, but are not bold enough to actually solve the overarching fossil fuel dependency. For once I won't throw any political bombs, but I do think aggressive development of hydrogen and/or electric technology is a far more effective solution to America's foreign oil dependency than mucking around ANWR.

Sichuan Earthquake

I took these photos about three weeks after the May 15th earthquake in Sichuan. They are from Mianzhu, a small city outside Chengdu. Most of the buildings left standing in the pictures are structurally unstable and need to be torn down. Until new permanent homes can be built, most residents live in tents or temporary trailers set up by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), China's military. Still, Mianzhu suffered minor damage in comparison to the quake's epicenter in Wenchuan.

Fear and Loathing in Beijing

What’s happening in China? Somehow Tibet, CNN, Nicholas Sarkozy, Carrefour, and the Olympics have all been ensnared in a schizophrenic fireball of collective idiotic fury.

For a while I was intrigued. I enjoyed sharing perspectives with Chinese friends. Partly it was genuine curiosity. Partly it must have been a dose of egoism. Even a basic conversation about Tibet requires all sorts of factual interjections. No, the Dalai Lama did not mastermind the violence. No, Tibet is not autonomous just because its official name ends in “Autonomous Region.” No, Tibet has not “ALWAYS” been a part of China.

Yet something has changed over the past week or two. The CCP has been gradually ratcheting up tensions since their mouthpiece Xinhua declared CNN was “biased.” It’s hard to argue that there isn’t some degree of misunderstanding in the West, but the accusation seems just a bit rich coming from a propaganda outlet.

The anti-media drumbeat soon morphed into a Carrefour boycott, ostensibly because the French president said he won’t be going to Beijing and because the torch relay was disrupted in Paris. There were also rumors that a major shareholder in the supermarket chain funds the Dalai Lama (a response came out this weekend that sounded eerily like “I am not now, nor have I ever been…”). In any case reason took a back seat to emotion. No tangible “aim” has been announced from what I have heard. Rather the main goal seems to be showing the world how tough and scary the Chinese can be.

Enter schizophrenia. Initially the CCP indirectly signaled its support for the boycott simply by letting the message spread via online message boards (nearly all non-approved mass movements are quickly filtered out by government censors). It wasn’t long before the party/state-run papers got onboard. Yet on the eve of massive demonstrations in Wuhan and other cities, Xinhua cautioned, “Patriotic fervor should be channeled into a rational track and must be transformed into real action toward doing our work well.”

Perhaps the CCP is just beginning to worry that the darkening anti-foreign tone could turn on the government. Ultranationalism – festering on a closed circuit of propagandized media, education, and political culture – is hard to control once it’s in full force. Those shopping in defiance of the Carrefour ban are denounced by screaming fanatics as “national traitors” (爱国贼). Some fare even worse. Grace Wang, a Chinese student at Duke University who was photographed alongside pro-Tibetan protesters, had personal information posted online including her national identification number and her parents’ address. She received several threats including one that read: “If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces.” Her parents’ home has been pelted with rocks and they are now reportedly in hiding. And just when I thought I might have been reading a little too much into the news headlines, I saw a Chinese friend had written this: “现在在中国不存在什么洋鬼子，他们就像乞丐一样，可以换 一个名字了，洋垃圾!!” (Roughly it translates as: “Now China does not have foreign devils. Actually they are beggars. A better name would be ‘foreign trash’!”)

Anyway, thanks for the welcome mat but as far as I’m concerned the Chinese can take their nationalism and their second Cultural Revolution and shove it. I don’t think I’m totally out of line on this. I’ve said basically the same thing before to “these colors don’t bleed” Americans. Ultranationalism is not a selling point. And it certainly has no place at the Olympics. If Beijing 2008 fails it will be solely the product of Chinese xenophobia.

It’s still too early to tell how this all will play out, but if this angry absurdity gets much worse or lasts much longer I’ll be heading home and I have a feeling a lot of people will be thinking twice before visiting Beijing in August.