I didn’t know that. That is strange. Honestly, I wouldn’t have expected that.

Of course, I can’t read the article …

July 28, 2003 @ 5:41 am | Comment

I’ll send you a cut/paste….

July 28, 2003 @ 6:41 am | Comment

Thanks for that link, Richard. It’s very sad and disappointing to read. Whilst still under the thumb of Communism, the Chinese women cannot even benefit from the equality that they were supposed to receive. How will China go on with such disgusting treatment of its women, who, after all, do the majority of backbreaking and necessary work? It’s a sad testament to the priorities of its misled government.

July 28, 2003 @ 11:12 am | Comment

K, I ask myself the same question (and many variations of it) constantly: how can China go on doing this, doing that, brutalizing its populace, tolerating obscene corruption, jailing innocents and even killing them…. My optimistic side wants to say not much longer, now that the world is watching them as they join the WTO and host the Olympics and develop further. Then, my more realistic side says, China has been brutalizing its citizens and tolerating corruption and wanton imprisonment and forced slavery for literally thousands of years. Maybe these outrages — which to most Chinese are apparently just the normal state of affairs — simply will not go away. Maybe in the coastal cities, but certainly not in the countryside, where most of the people live — at least not anytime soon.

July 28, 2003 @ 1:03 pm | Comment

The more I read on China, the more I fear the future of the country. Women’s issues are close to my heart, so I see the degeneration of their living conditions a very scary slippery slope. Not only women suffer, though. As you pointed out, those in the countryside are not benefitting from the capitalist explosion, but they are not aided by communism either. It’s like they’ve got the worst position ever in the history of that country. Peasants have always been downtrodden and used, but in China, it seems like they’re stuck between two systems with no way out. The politicians are not going to offer more of a political freedom, the benefits of free trade and WTO are not going to (sorry to borrow Reagan’s term)”trickle down” to them. It is scary.

I think the West is illuding themselves that free trade, joining the WTO and the Olympics will help China’s human rights and the situation ot its people. The cities will grow and prosper and the countryside will become more and more impoverished, causing a massive migration (to rival that of the past) into the cities where people will live in squallor, slums and degradation.

This isn’t Communism! This is pre-Revolutionary status quo in China (and Russia). Karl Marx must be rolling in his grave.

July 28, 2003 @ 5:39 pm | Comment

Btw, that meant to be “deluding”, not illuding, which isn’t even a word.

July 28, 2003 @ 5:50 pm | Comment

Something you don’t mention is that things were much better for women under communism in China than in feudal times or the current (proto-fascism?) times. I’m currently reading Philip Short’s biography on Mao, and it’s interesting to see how passtionaly Mao felt about women’s rights. At least in the early days.

I think a large part of the dismal situation China’s rural woman face is at least partly economic. As far as I can tell, Korea is just chauvinistic as China (if not more) yet girls in Korea have more opportunities (less likely to be kidnapped, less likely to become prostitutes) because it doesn’t cost half the family’s income to send them to school.

K, I can’t disagree with you more. Yes, China is facing terrible problems with the growth of income inequality. Some people are worse off than before (particularly in the northeast), but for the VAST majority of people living in the countryside (especially those along the southeast), things are unimaginably better. Will free trade help the human rights situation? In the short term, more than likely not. But in terms of economic quality of life, more and freer trade is the only route.

July 29, 2003 @ 1:24 am | Comment

On this argument I have to side with K. Sure, in a country that has experienced huge progress in the past 25 years, there’s been some improvement in the lives of the peasants. But most still live in dire poverty and there is a constant terror among the CCP that this is where the next revolution will begin. The corruption, the ongoing poverty, the spread of AIDS, the unbelievable discrepancy between their quality of life and that of the city dwellers, the government’s traditional pattern of ignoring them — the seeds are there, and all they need is some water. One catastrophe, like a run on the banks, and the peasants are poised to rise up once again….

About women having it better under Mao (spoken like a true Maoist) — We are in the 21st century. Look at where the Chinese warlords fled, namely Taiwan, and look at how they treat women today. They have grown with the times. In China, they are still back in another era. Yes, women can drive tractors now, but if you read that article and countless others, you will see that for women, at least in the hinterlands, China is still stuck in the dark ages. Kidnappings, enforced slavery, brutalization, being scorned by society — if you want to defend the Party’s track record when it comes to the lives of peasant women it’s your privilige. I’d love to hear what the women themselves would say about your argument.

July 29, 2003 @ 1:56 am | Comment

Wayne and Richard,

I grew up in Communism (Poland, far removed from Communism of China, but closer than life under Democracy), so need no introduction to the benefits and vices of the system.

Under Communism women were better treated and had access to the similar benefits that men did. Mao was pro-women, ignoring all his other sins, and tried to improve their lot in life. But this isn’t the case anymore. In a country that relies on cheap labour and the willingness (and necessity) of its women to do the majority of it, women are important. They are the invisible force that drives China, but they are not being helped at all. How many times do we have to read about kidnapping women either for marriage or prostitution? How many times do we have to read about infantincide of girls? What will happen to China 30, 40 years from now when the number of men outnumber the women because the girls have either been killed or have committed suicide? Will this help those remaining? No, because they will be kidnapped and sold for marriage and/or prostitution.

By improving the lot of city dwellers, we do not necessarily improve the lot of those in the countryside. Those in the countryside, as Richard pointed out, have experienced some improvement, but has it been enormously positive? I don’t think so. If it were, there wouldn’t be streams of young men rushing into the cities to do backbreaking work. In comparison to those in the cities, those in the countryside are ignorant, desperately poor, live in unhygienic conditions with little chance of improvement, education or help from the government.

I believe that if girls are allowed to go to school (free or for much less), that is only half the solution. It does no good to have lots of educated women that are then shut up at home and told to mind the stove, while the men go out and do the actual work. As the article stated, women are being laid off from work in dramatic numbers, when compared to the men. It’s unfair.

I’m not sure that free trade will benefit those in the countryside. The financial benefits will be reinvested in the cities, in those who already have money, in enterprises that will make even more money.

I think many, many, many generations will come and go before the impoverished Chinese peasant will see any of that money.

The combination of both Capitalism (greed and its principals of cheap labour) and Communism (repression, political silence, few human rights) in China is not a good one. And women, peasants and, finally, the country will suffer.

All imho.

July 29, 2003 @ 12:10 pm | Comment

Thanks K, you hit on a lot of the topics I’ve tried to get across in this blog for a year now.

So many of us are so dazzled by the apparent brilliance of the Chinese economy and the obvious improvement of quality of life in the coastal cities that we’d rather not think about the wretched lives of most Chinese people who live in the backwaters. That would be a real downer.

As to your observation that the treatment of women isn’t fair, all I can say is, When has anyone ever accused the CCP of promoting anything bearing even the faintest resemblance to fairness in the PRC?

July 29, 2003 @ 2:53 pm | Comment

About women having it better under Mao (spoken like a true Maoist) — We are in the 21st century.

That’s exactly my point. Women’s rights under Mao: relatively good. Women’s rights under the Communist-only-in-name Party: not so good. And I’m hardly a Maoist. Jeez, Richard, if anything, my politics are to the right of yours.

Look at where the Chinese warlords fled, namely Taiwan, and look at how they treat women today. They have grown with the times. In China, they are still back in another era…. Kidnappings, enforced slavery, brutalization, being scorned by society

I still maintain that other Asian societies aren’t more enlightened about women’s rights than mainland China, that the only reason why wife-kidnappings aren’t happening in Korea is that Korea isn’t nearly as poor or corrupt.

if you want to defend the Party’s track record when it comes to the lives of peasant women it’s your privilige.

Like I said, I’m not defending the current Party’s record.

—

I believe that if girls are allowed to go to school (free or for much less), that is only half the solution. It does no good to have lots of educated women that are then shut up at home and told to mind the stove, while the men go out and do the actual work. As the article stated, women are being laid off from work in dramatic numbers, when compared to the men. It’s unfair.

I can’t deny that China has some degree of chauvinism and that in certain arenas (certainly in politics), women face a glass ceiling. But I think you really underestimate the liberating power of education. The reason why a 40-something year-old women laid off from an SOE factory can only find a job as an elevator button pusher is that she has at most a middle school education. There are far more opportunities for someone with a college or even a high school education.

Unlike in other Asian societies like Korea or perhaps Japan, Chinese women are mostly definitely not locked up in the house. To the contrary, in some respects, Chinese women often wear the pants of the family. Chinese women certainly can be the most conniving, enterprenurial people in the world. I should know from personal experience, since I’ve dated several of them. One woman I knew from Beijing is working her way through night classes at Beida while she’s working as a secretary at a multinational. Another woman I knew tried proposing to me so she could get a green card so that she could go abroad and get more business for her ski glove factory. Are these people the exception? Absolutely. Their families were willing to put them through high school, and they’re absolutely driven and determined to succeed. But I think with continued economic growth, there will be not only be more opportunities for educated women, but people will have more of an incentive to educate their children.

I’m not sure that free trade will benefit those in the countryside. The financial benefits will be reinvested in the cities, in those who already have money, in enterprises that will make even more money.

I think many, many, many generations will come and go before the impoverished Chinese peasant will see any of that money.

Many, many generations? Hardly. I don’t think you realize how much change has happened in just one generation. I’ll probably comment more extensively on this article in today’s NY Times about China’s migrant workers on my blog, but within this article there’s a story about a migrant worker who through toiling at some shitty sweatshop jobs has managed to save up $2000 and mentions how his dream is to return home, build a house, and start up a shop. (He goes on about how this much money isn’t enough for him to marry his fiance, but the ridiculous amounts of money people spend for getting face is a whole other digression.) Yes, the plight of migrant workers suck right now. They have few legal rights, access to almost none of the public benefits that legal residents of the city have, but they continue to come in the millions in the hope of saving up a couple thousand dollars so that they can move back to their hometowns and start their own shop or send their kids to school. Just like this generation has so many more opportunities than the previous generation (you might scoff and say working in a sweatshop seven days a week is no opportunity. Trust me, it’s one hell of a better opportunity than what people had fifty years ago, when nine people would live in a house and they’d literally would only have one pair of pants to share between the nine), I think that the next generation will have even more opportunities than the current one.

I do agree that there are trends which warrant concern. The male/female imbalance is certainly one of them, though I have to mention that Korea has it worse (sorry to harp on Korea). And while I think there has been incremental progress for people on the bottom and the middle, when the very top .01% are able to do so ridiculously well that they can drive around Audi’s and play golf all day, the potential for societal chaos is there.

—

So many of us are so dazzled by the apparent brilliance of the Chinese economy and the obvious improvement of quality of life in the coastal cities that we’d rather not think about the wretched lives of most Chinese people who live in the backwaters. That would be a real downer.

Richard, have you ever been to the countryside? I don’t mean just in the area outlying Beijing around the Great Wall, or anything like that. I mean, have you ever been to, say, Guizhou? Well I have, and let me tell you that it sucks. All the young people have left to go work factory jobs in Guangdong or Fujian. The village centers are filled with old men sitting on their asses, smoking pipes, playing with their grandchildren, while the women were out trying to grow rice on the terraces of a side of a mountain. But do you know what? Some of the people that I stayed with, they had plenty of food to treat me. They also had color TVs. More than likely, their sons brought those back when they returned home from their sweatshop jobs during Spring Festival. Did I mention that not so long ago, families used to share a pair of pants? Or that families would often sell off their daughters to brothels when the harvest would go bad?

Yes, life can be shitty in mainland China. But poverty is pretty shitty. K, if you’d like to go against nearly every developmental economist, and say that some form of free trade is not the key to economic growth, go right ahead. What other suggestions do you have?

July 29, 2003 @ 5:16 pm | Comment

Wayne,

By speaking about Korea, I imagine you mean South Korea. Yes, the opportunities will be better because a.) Korea is better off finacially (having US sationed there certainly adds to the coffers, just ask the Germans who might possibly be losing their US bases) and b.) Korea (last time I checked) was democratic. In a democratic country, women and men will have better opportunities to succeed. Why? Because if they don’t like the way things are being run, they can speak up, protest, write letters that will get published, make a lot of noise and, finally, vote the offending person out of the office they hold.

I actually will scoff at the idea that working seven days a week in a sweatshop is an opportunity. Why? a.) my mother worked in a sweatshop. It was a horrible job, but she had no choice, and once she was too ill to work, she was fired with no prospects. Don’t sell me the wonders of sweatshop work, please.
b.) why should the people from the country HAVE to travel into the cities to be able to survive? How many Korean/American/German/French/Japanese farmers do that? Just to be able to live and survive “from hand-to-mouth”?
The migrants face numbingly low wages as they scramble to save for marriage and a home and, in their wildest dreams, a little shop back home. A clever and lucky few gain skills that help start them up the modern economy, on a long ladder. Yes and a clever and lucky few also survived the concentration camps. That’s not good enough, I’m afraid. Lucky few do not make the country prosperous.

What do I want? I want China to stop pretending they’re one thing when they’re not. They cannot be Capitalist and Communist at the same time. Sorry, that will not work.

I want China to stop oppressing those who disagree with their ridiculous governing.

I want China (and any other country in the world) to treat all its citizens equally, regardless of their sex (did you miss the part in the article, where all the female doctors were fired? They would have substantial education, but they still got laid off).

I would really like to see an actual change in the way Chinese officials think. Their method of thinking is very similar to that of the imperial past, where human lives were cheap and disposible. Which makes me think that the Communist Party in China is nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I actually think that everyone in the West is fooling themselves by thinking that free trade will solve China’s human rights, poverty and political problems. It will not. It will allow few (relatively-speaking) to get rich.

Btw, Wayne, families are still selling their daughters to brothels when the harvest is bad.

Yes, there is progress. But that progress is too slow for many, who are suffering needlessly.

July 29, 2003 @ 6:53 pm | Comment

I’ve been through this sort of debate with Wayne and a few others before, and don’t have the time/energy to do it all over again, at least not today. Suffice it to say that I have been to the countryside, I know how people are living, I’ve done lots of research on AIDS and social conditions in China, I lived there for a year; if anyone wants to praise the CCP for all they’ve done, read the Time article cited in this post, then go back through this blog to April and read about the CCP’s stellar performance during the SARS crisis, then go read other articles posted here about the wanton brutalization and murder of Chinese citizens by the police, and be sure to grasp how this is possible only because the corrupt system allows it — encourages it — with little recourse for the poor victims.

Wayne, I truly believe you go way out of your way to defend China for reasons I can’t quite fathom. I used to do the same, and then I spent a year there and did my homework, and now I find precious little to praise when it comes to the CCP. Lots of praise for the people and their ability to move forward despite their leaders; no praise at all for the leaders themselves. We’re not going to see eye-to-eye on this, so there might not be much point in debating it yet again….

July 30, 2003 @ 8:08 am | Comment

As the old Soviet-era joke goes, capitalism is the oppression of one man by another but Communism is the exact opposite.

July 30, 2003 @ 11:03 pm | Comment

I like that, Vaara.

July 31, 2003 @ 7:29 am | Comment

I am studing “international panoramic” at collegue, and I really think that all of you try to see “America” (because america is not only U.S.A.) as the savior of all the world, so I think that the WTO is only going to bring China much more problems than they really have. I’m not saying that it is a fair country or anything like that, I´m just trying to tell everyones to put in China’s shoes, and view everything from their culture and their way of life that it is much more different than yours, and anybody who doesn’t have really met a lot of people living out there in China could not know if they agree or don´t with its own culture, so I say to everyone of you to analize evrything from every poin of view.

November 11, 2003 @ 5:51 am | Comment

Put yourself in the shoes of the woman being sold into slavery and treated loike an animal. How happy would you be, whether you looked at it from a Chinese or an American perspective….?

November 11, 2003 @ 7:01 am | Comment

what is the diferrent character about japanese women with chinese women?
tradition it can be?

November 15, 2003 @ 11:15 am | Comment

get all the women and children out of china first, second nuke all the fucking rest thank you.problem solved.

March 17, 2004 @ 9:45 pm | Comment

I agree with the times, women deserve to be treated like shit, and if they don’t like it-they should take their own lives, before us men do. Women are only useful for one thing, after that they’re disposible – hey i’m gonna kill my bitch tonight and get another one.

January 1, 2005 @ 4:36 am | Comment

China is a garbage country.
The US and Europe should flush China

February 18, 2005 @ 11:38 pm | Comment

Chinese men are the most uneducated and the most barbaric people in the world.
Chineses are plain unfaithful and dishonest people. Never trust Chineses.
Chineses are international thieves.

February 18, 2005 @ 11:39 pm | Comment

Japanese people too cheap while Chinese people are too useless.
Chineses and taiwaneses are the most rubbish people in the world.
Never trust those races. They always betray you at the end. Plus, Chineses always steal money at any case.
Never trust Chineses

February 18, 2005 @ 11:41 pm | Comment

Chinese people are the most useless citizens in the world.
Chinese people love white people but hate all Black people and Arabs

February 18, 2005 @ 11:42 pm | Comment

i think this is a good topic

May 15, 2005 @ 1:43 pm | Comment

ya bring the olympics back to TORONTO, screw China, And u americans fix ur own problemz b4 getting into other ppl’s issues.

September 21, 2005 @ 9:16 pm | Comment

According to the current events, Chineses commit absolutely dirty crimes to Tibetans, and China steal confidential high-techs from the US and Britain by sending spies….
Plus, China develop illegal nuclear weapons for future threat to all over the world.
In this regards, I don’t know why ppl innocently view Chineses as human.
Chineses, in fact, are very dishonest, but simply thieves.

December 19, 2005 @ 6:36 am | Comment

I don’t miss China.
I hate China because China is a filthy unpleasant Communist country with full of garbage.

China is not the right place for human to reside in.

December 19, 2005 @ 6:37 am | Comment

oh i guess its much better that there are more suicides among men then women everywhere else, since women are so much more of a precious commodity than men…I mean you all do so much for society. Lets see…u satisfy men’s sexual cravings sometimes…u bitch, nothing’s ever good enough, when something is good enough, its still not good enough and u cry…incessantly. Overly emotional non-productive waste of space r women.

August 9, 2006 @ 7:22 pm | Comment

FUCK ALL THE GOOK ASS FUCKERS

October 2, 2006 @ 3:58 am | Comment