Chinese intellectuals

Still too burned out to post, but I wanted to share a most interesting article from The Economist on how China seeks to stifle its intellectual voices. I usually don’t snip entire articles, but you need to register for this, so here it is.

[Sidenote: I really, really, really don’t want this blog simply to be a chronology of malfeasances perpetrated by the CCP against its subjects. I had shifted away from that mode ever since I came home, focusing more on American politics and a broader view of things. I’ll try to limit my criticisms, which I am fully aware can be redundant and polemical. Now that my big work project is over, I’m going to try to get re-energized blogging about the sins of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, when I see interesting articles like this, I’ll keep sharing them.]

IN AN Orwellian obfuscation of its role, the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department prefers to translate its name these days as the Publicity Department. But one of its main tasks remains that of issuing secret directives to the state-controlled media telling them what not to report. And among its latest prohibitions is any encouragement for “public intellectuals” in China.

In recent years, the party had become more relaxed about intellectuals. Outspoken academics helped fuel the campus fervour that eventually erupted into mass protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But the crackdown, followed a couple of years later by an economic boom, dampened demands for political change. The party began to worry more about unemployed workers and disgruntled peasants, and less about intellectuals—many of whom, anyway, were turning their attention to making money.

More recently, however, the rapid spread of the internet and the increasing commercialisation of the Chinese media have given intellectuals new avenues of expression. A few, including economists, social scientists and lawyers, have become well-known among the chattering classes for their critiques of social ills (though prudently, in most cases, not of the party itself). The term “public intellectuals” has crept into the media, encouraged not least by a Chinese translation last year of “Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline”, a book by an American judge, Richard Posner, examining the role of such commentators in America.

The Propaganda Department lost its patience after a magazine in Guangdong Province, Southern People Weekly, published a list of 50 Chinese public intellectuals in September. The market economy, said an accompanying commentary, had caused the rapid marginalisation of intellectuals. “But this is the time when China is facing the most problems in its unprecedented transformation, and when it most needs public intellectuals to be on the scene and to speak out.”

If the 50 had been loyal party stooges, all might have been forgiven. But among them were several who are decidedly not, including Zhang Sizhi, a defence lawyer who has argued in the trials of some of China’s best known dissidents; Cui Jian, a rock singer whose irreverence has irritated the authorities since his heyday in the Tiananmen era; Bei Dao, a poet who has been forced to live in exile since the 1989 unrest; and Wang Ruoshui (who died in 2002), a senior journalist and member of the party’s inner circle who turned dissident. A scathing commentary on the list, published last month by a Shanghai newspaper and republished by the party’s main mouthpiece, People’s Daily, said that promoting the idea of “public intellectuals” was really aimed at “driving a wedge between intellectuals and the party.” The window for free debate that opened a crack over the past couple of years, as China’s leadership shifted to the “fourth generation” of leaders, is closing again.

Oddly, perhaps, given the supposed indifference of urbanites to politics, two of the bestselling books in China this year have been about the “anti-rightist” campaign of 1957, during which half a million of the party’s intellectual critics were persecuted. One of the books, “Past Events Have Not Vanished Like Smoke”, was banned by the Propaganda Department. The other, “Inside Secrets of 1957: The Sacrificial Altar of Suffering”, is still for sale. Though probably not for long.

The Discussion: 5 Comments

So, what do you want the new focus to be? The election has come and gone, and there are enough “Bush watcher” blogs out there, and you don’t want to blog about work …

How about cooking? Or something else you’re interested in?

December 9, 2004 @ 8:49 pm | Comment

Asia by Blog

Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, usually posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. This edition contains China-Japan tensions, the f…

December 10, 2004 @ 12:35 am | Comment

I know you don’t like the Bush administration, but please reread what you wrote:

“Sidenote: I really, really, really don’t want this blog simply to be a chronology of malfeasances perpetrated by the CCP against its subjects. I had shifted away from that mode ever since I came home, focusing more on American politics and a broader view of things. I’ll try to limit my criticisms, which I am fully aware can be redundant and polemical. Now that my big work project is over, I’m going to try to get re-energized blogging about the sins of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, when I see interesting articles like this, I’ll keep sharing them.”

Now tell me if you can spot the contradiction in this statement. To tell you the truth, I completely stopped reading you for the 6 months before the U.S. election because you almost completely shifted from “a chronology of malfeasances perpetrated by the CCP against its subjects” to a chronology of malfeasances perpetrated by the Bush administration against its subjects. Obviously, since this is your site, it is your call, but I for one come here for interesting news about China and Asia that I don’t get from the presses. The commentary is beside the point, although it adds color. In fact, a great percentage of what you post on here these days has nothing to do with Asia in the slightest or any other parts of the world besides the U.S. and Iraq (usually posts that only reflect half of the political spectrum), so it does not exactly conform to my impression of a “broader view of things” either. You have just shifted focus from one enemy to the other.

Obviously, it is your choice what to do, but if you plan to focus even more on the “sins of the Bush administration” than you already have at the expense of other news, might I suggest dropping the Asian focus altogether and changing the site name to “the American Farce” or something? Already during some months, it almost seems like you have done just that.

December 12, 2004 @ 2:30 am | Comment

In fact, a great percentage of what you post on here
these days has nothing to do with Asia in the slightest or any other
parts of the world besides the U.S. and Iraq

You’re cute. Of my last 22 posts, 14 have been about Asia! Hey, I focus on what I want to focus on, not what you think I should write about. And when I want your advice on what I should call my blog, I promise to contact you.

December 12, 2004 @ 9:11 am | Comment

Hu’s on first

When Hu Jiantao assumed the mantle of top dog in China this year, there was an expectation his would be a more open, gentler style of governing, a marked depature from his predecessor Jiang Zemin. Public intellectuals are getting rounded up. A NYT rese…

December 13, 2004 @ 8:29 pm | Comment

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