The NYTimes has an timely article on China’s construction of a new museum dedicated to the official history of Tibet™. As per the article:
History is often interpreted to meet the political objectives of whichever government is doing the interpreting. The historical relationship between Tibet and China is replete with claims, disputes and caveats. But the ruling Communist Party does not hesitate to eliminate any uncertainty and use history as a political tool to validate its hold on Tibet. Yet if the party’s unflinching line on Tibet’s historical status has effectively quashed any domestic dissenting views, it also has fueled Tibetan resentment. . . . Across China, schoolchildren are taught that Tibet is an inalienable part of the country. Tour guides in Lhasa must follow approved versions of history. Dissenting scholars have been marginalized, censored and, in a handful of cases, imprisoned. Questioning official history can expose scholars to accusations of separatism. A Tibetan scholar, Dolma Kyab, has been jailed since 2005 after writing an unapproved history of Tibet.“History is linked to legitimacy,” said Tashi Rabgey, director of the Contemporary Tibetan Studies Initiative at the University of Virginia. “The problem for Beijing is that their presence on the Tibetan Plateau has never been legitimized. And their attempt to control history is an effort to do that.”
So far, the Chinese Communist Party has been successful in insinuating themselves into younger Chinese society by means of subtle indoctrination:
Educated young people are usually the best positioned in society to bridge cultures, so it’s important to examine the thinking of those in China. The most striking thing is that, almost without exception, they feel rightfully proud of their country’s accomplishments in the three decades since economic reforms began. And their pride and patriotism often find expression in an unquestioning support of their government, especially regarding Tibet.The most obvious explanation for this is the education system, which can accurately be described as indoctrination. Textbooks dwell on China’s humiliations at the hands of foreign powers in the 19th century as if they took place yesterday, yet skim over the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s as if it were ancient history. Students learn the neat calculation that Chairman Mao’s tyranny was “30 percent wrong,” then the subject is declared closed . . . Then there’s life experience — or the lack of it — that might otherwise help young Chinese to gain a perspective outside the government’s viewpoint. Young urban Chinese study hard and that’s pretty much it. Volunteer work, sports, church groups, debate teams, musical skills and other extracurricular activities don’t factor into college admission, so few participate. And the government’s control of society means there aren’t many non-state-run groups to join anyway. Even the most basic American introduction to real life — the summer job — rarely exists for urban students in China. . .
Forney goes on to discuss how China’s tremendous economic growth has resulted in an exuberant younger generation of Chinese that see no evil and feel happy so long as the cash keeps rolling in, thus the younger Chinese generation could remind one of Americans during the 1950’s, complete with a strong sense of nationalistic pride.
One can only imagine what the Chinese could do if they really dedicated more resources to doing the same with the history of Gogureyo (per another thread on “Cultural Identity”)? Considering such, the punch line for the article leaves one with some thoughts about such:
Mr. Lian, the scholar at the Tibetology Institute, said plans were still evolving for the new Tibet museum complex. Officials are aiming for a pre-Olympic grand opening, but he noted that the project had hit delays. “We’re not going to rush it,” he said.Sphere: Related ContentAsked about the importance of history, Mr. Lian paused.
“Why is history important?” he repeated. “By looking into history, we can see the future.”
40 Comments
Paging Dr. Orwell …
The passage on textbooks reminds me of something. In a chatroom today, one of my former students posted a long, copied-and-pasted rant attacking Carrefour (because the “in thing” in China ATM is to bash France), and it included the line,
…which, in English means “We won’t allow foreigners to treat us as the Sick Man of Asia again.” Yep, sounds like those textbooks are working their magic.
“Young urban Chinese study hard and that’s pretty much it. Volunteer work, sports, church groups, debate teams, musical skills and other extracurricular activities don’t factor into college admission, so few participate.”
Mmm…Sounds like Korea. Given Korea was ruled by a dictatorship for many years, I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all.
If “By looking into history, we can see the future” is true China should be expecting another foreign power to take her over real soon.
One is reminded that “Alsace is ours” fueled the spirit of revenge that permeated French education prior to the First World War, and that Germany’s perceived sense of injustices were tweaked by National Socialist education programs prior to the Second. Will China’s someday lead to a third? Hopefully not, but there appears to be at least one other valuable lesson that the Middle Kingdom can learn from the West.
I recently had a conversation about the Tibet issue and the Beijing Olympics with some of my friends in China. They told me that in China any support for Tibetan independence is completely taboo. Even the mention of it will make people angry and your closest friends feeling uneasy about it. While I personally think it’s normal for someone to feel deeply offended by some sensitive issues. However, the important distinction of the Tibet issue that it’s sheer imperialism. It’s very sad that imperialism has become so deeply ingrained into the Chinese nationalist sentiment, and what’s even worse is that this very Chinese nationalist sentiment shows the utter hypocrisy of retaining anger against the memories of victimization from Japanese and western imperialism.
Eh… I’m too used to the edit funciton..
cydevil,
You must have this place confused with a China bash site. The ‘hole is exclusively a Korea bash site. Didn’t you get the memo?
Okay okay. J/K y’all…
lirelou, you seem at times to be a master of non-sequitur. The two so-called “world wars” were not the first or only wars that had battles or participants from multiple hemispheres. They were just European wars that spilled over to their colonies — written up by people who considered Asians to be “funny little brown men”… The Wars of Germanic Aggression were fuelled by 12 centuries of Europeans using wars to settle disputes. The Chinese have a much longer history of diplomacy and cunning. Even while the mainland was “cut up” under the various occupying powers, China was still China.
The unfortunate events of French military incompetence in 1871 did not lead inexorably to those of 1914 or 1939. Many, many poor choices were made by leaders in many countries. It is worth noting that 1871 did lead to the death of a Bonaparte at the hands of Zulus in 1879.
Similarly, the book A Ride To Khiva by Burnaby tells of poor Serbian women on a train between St. Petersburg and Moscow seeking alms to help them resist the muslim predators from Bosnia… in 1875… Some things never change.
Humans are at all times and in all ways human. We love, hate, ignore, and stalk each other. The history of war shows that it does not take two warlike peoples to have a war. All it takes is a greedy oligarchy and a willing press to fan the flames.
The Chinese are not yet ready to kill off the _people_ who are funding their economic growth; but it will happen that they attempt to kill off the _system_ that competes with theirs for superpower status…
I tend to think they will not use the nuclear weapons their spies have stolen the secrets of making. I think we will, like the “useful idiots” that Lenin predicted, “sell the rope to [our] executioner.”
We may have already done so by eliminating most manufacturing within the USA.
In response to the lengthy article posted by #2. Those of you who subscribe to stratfor’s email service will have got this yesterday, but it hit on something that I had been pondering for the last few days; the organizational involvement of those Chinese students running counter-protests at the Olympic flame relays. From the email…
“There was at least one exception to the restraint shown by the pro-China demonstrators, however, suggesting they were not entirely the innocuous gathering they sought to portray. On numerous occasions, individuals or small groups carrying cameras would seek to incite the anti-China demonstrators to acts of confrontation or violence, frequently by parading through the middle of a group of Free Tibet or Save Darfur demonstrators with a large Chinese flag, walking back and forth through the group. In some cases, small scuffles broke out — and pictures were snapped — though the anti-China demonstrators soon deployed individuals to try to keep the two opposing sides separated. The same day, Chinese media ran photos of pro-Tibet demonstrators shoving pro-China demonstrators, “proving” their point that the Tibet supporters are violent.”
What strikes me is the delicious irony that these pro-Beijing thugs are only able to engage in their political activities because they are residing in countries who, unlike their glorious Vaterland, permit free association. Similar behaviour in China could earn one a lengthy spell in the gulag.
P.S, the whole article is here
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly.....y_april_16
As a side note, I killed a post by our “agit-prop” who was posting under yet another assumed name, just to let people know, I hate sneaks.
Also, regarding just how successful this “indoctrination” has been and just how contentious the current state of affairs are, consider this article on Grace Wang, a Duke student, who has borne the brunt of some really nasty threats from nationalist-style Chinese.
Thanks for the article, Mr Elgin, as it got me thinking about who at Duke (and other institutions full of such fifth-columnists) would be best placed to start a name-and-shame list of CCP agents engaging in acts of intimidation against human rights activists and those Chinese brave enough to suggest anything other than the party line.
I’d prefer if you let me do the nuking of comments. Thanks.
It would be nicer if you used some smart bombs instead of nukes.
That Michael Hurt meltdown thread was pure comedy gold.
I am struck by the parallels. When I look at China, I see the U.S. When I look at the U.S., I see China.
None of you would have wanted to be me when I called into the radio station on the evening of September 11th, 2001. There were many people ready to kill me for suggesting that we should not attack any country, that the perpetrators had already sentenced themselves to death. I’m thankful for the lone old hippie (one of the guys who built the radio tower on top of a mountain) who bravely called in to defend my right of free speech. That’s one guy versus a lynch mob of hundreds.
If you think the herd in America is not well-indoctrinated, then I wonder where you live. I have no doubt that if I were to stand up in the break room at work one day and proclaim my true political beliefs, I would soon be out of a job.
Chinese hyper-nationalism, indeed! Put it in front of a mirror, and it’s American hyper-nationalism. I’m well afraid of both.
First time to post here. So you buy the S Korean argument of their claims on Goguryeo? Not that I agree with the Chinese view, but there’s probably a consensus outside of Korea that the ethnicity of Goguryeo was distinct from modern Koreans.
I’d put Koguryo firmly in Korea’s historiography for the following reasons:
1) In King Gwanggaeto’s stele, the ONLY existing piece of Koguryo history that’s from the pen of Koguryo people, China and Japan are clearly described as foreign powers and Baekje and Silla are described as wayward tributaries that should be ruled and/or administered by Koguryo.
2) There is evidence that the original Koguryo language was different than what people in Silla spoke. However, the main proponent of this theory, Dr. Christopher Beckwith (Eastern Linguistics, Indiana University), admits that later on, the original Koguryo language began to die off and most Koguryo people spoke the same language of Silla (the “Han” language). This is likely as Koguryo spent more time in northern and central Korea.
3) Even the traditional Chinese method of historiography would say that the official court histories would include a conquered state in their canonical documents. However, China never wrote a court history devoted to Koguryo, but Koryo did through the Samguk Sagi.
4) A majority Koguryo’s population was probably located in the Korean peninsula. Manchuria is less arable then northern and central Korea. Colder too. Northern Koguryo (southern Manchuria) is broad, but its land is less productive.
Lastly, claiming historical heritage and claiming land are two very different things. It’s okay for Koreans to say that Koguryo is an important (even integral) part of their historical heritage and identity. It is not okay for them to claim southern Manchuria’s territory.
It’s just like the anti-American, pro-Nork education has worked wonders here!
China has been, for years, indoctrinating its populace on how bad foreign countries were for their imperialistic ways in subjugating China during the 19th & 20th centuries, while at the same time educating them about how it is the nation’s right to subdue Tibet and other regions that should have self-determination.
It’s like we did in America in the 19th century- say we are better than European nations because we don’t have colonies or seek out empires while also pursuing “Manifest Destiny” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny)
Luckily, we are now teaching our young students about the effects Manifest Destiny had on the native peoples who were already living in the areas that we felt it was our right to occupy.
Now, here’s the dilemma:
-Whenever we westerners criticize Asians(Koreans/Chinese, et. al) there is always someone piping up with “You Americans/British have a lot of instances in your own histories of doing these things” and other shifting the focus things.
Well, do we just say “we did it in the past,too, so we should just allow them their own national evolution and one day they will wake up and try to atone for past misdeeds” or should we stand up and tell them they are doing wrong. “We did wrong in the past and we have learning that it was bad. You have us as your model. YOu are choosing to do just like we did and using our histories as your great excuse to do so. You are wrong, just like we were wrong in the past, so stop it!!!”
I choose the latter.
16: I disagree. The met’s meltdown nearly caused me to take marmot off the links widget on my blog. It’s been a week of meanness over here, and I stopped having fun about on tuesday. The fact even twenty-comments-a-day-Baeksu is about ready to write off the hole after the Imperial Teachers thread reflects very poorly on the behaviour of some commenters here (and I’m saying that fully aware he gave as good as he got). Not sure what should/can be done about it (though nuking agit-prop is a start), but the reason I avoid Dave’s comment boards is weighing heavily on my mind as I read the “Isaac-usations” over here. (see the Djamilya, Sexy-mong thread)
17: bang on. Yeah, Chinese hyper-nationalism has the state/police support, while in America you’ll just be shouted down as a traitor, and possibly made into a pariah (Dixie Chicks, anyone?), but I agree that nationalism-induced myopia and distortion of histories is dangerous wherever it’s found, especially in superpowers. (I’d even suggest, especially in America, because, with oceans to the east and west, and much-smaller/weaker neighbours to the north and south, there are fewer checks and balances to out of control nationalism/revisionist history/national myth-making than there are in, say, Belgium, which borders France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
I recently brought the suggestion into my conversation classes that historians from other, detatched, third-party-type countries should write each country’s official history books — no distortions would get in if a bunch of South African scholars wrote China’s school history textbooks, and Swedes wrote Korea’s official history, and Chinese scholars wrote Italy’s history books — there’d be no reason to distort for the writers.
The discussions were lively and very interesting, as Korea’s been at the giving and receiving end of historical distortions in textbooks, both for better and for worse.
Benicio 19: well said. I get tired of all the ad-hominem “you used to do it too” stuff as well, and it’s no way into the future.
China sucks. But unfortunately now they have the economic clout to get away with it.
And now for something COMPLETELY different…
Stupid “Free Tibet” protesters who can’t locate Tibet on a map
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUMz3Z2ChYM
roboseyo — It also helps to ignore the trolls/race baiters. Or, at the very least, don’t take what they say so seriously.
Look, comment sections are a big place — just because A and B are flaming each other while C has a complete and utter meltdown doesn’t preclude others from having polite conversations. I could, of course, just slam on comment moderation, OK every comment before it goes up, allow only trusted users to participate and go back to posting only dry news and political screeds, but things would get very boring, very quickly.
One thing I might try is threaded comment section that could provide separate spaces for those trying to have a conversation and those having a good old-fashioned flame war.
I know, Head Marmot, I know. It’s a tough bind, and it’s easy for me to talk when it’s not me making the (unenviable) decisions you have to make about your own board. I agree that slamming down the hammer would stifle the liveliness of this place.
Threading is one option, to be sure. Then there are those problematic Marmites who make really good points in the midst of the overcharged rhetoric and petty invective.
I mean, as usual, part of the problem is most jerks don’t realize they’re jerks, (heck, some Marmites probably think I’M a jerk)
And don’t get me wrong: I do enjoy the site, and I appreciate the work you put in here, and I guess the onus, really, is on me to exercise my democratic right to stop reading comment boards where the number of comments tops about 50.
Anyway. . . thanks for hearing me out.
Have a good one.
Thursday 14 February 2008
And the gold medal for China-bashing goes to…
The Beijing Olympics have been turned into an all-purpose platform for panicmongering about the Yellow Peril. We name the culprits.
In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, a new sport has emerged: Yellow Peril-mongering. Western politicians, commentators and even athletes (not previously known for their skills in political oration, or in any other kind of oration) have been competing to see who can express the shrillest and most spine-tingling fears about the Chinese beast looming on the Eastern horizon. The Beijing Olympics have been turned into an all-purpose platform for moral posturing about China’s pollution levels, industrial arrogance, meddling in Africa, lack of free speech, and human rights record.
spiked has no illusions about the Chinese regime. We are passionate defenders of democracy and liberty, which remain anathematic words to the Communist Party of China. Yet nor are we remotely interested in signing up to the current Orientalist Olympics, where writers, actors and activists are using the premise of Beijing 2008 to spread some snooty and frequently irrational fears about the Chinese.
This China-bashing competition is not about offering solidarity to the Chinese masses who want to live more freely. It is about making observers in the West feel like medal-winning moralists, possessed of an Olympian Outrage, warm and moist in the notion that they are taking a stand against Evil Far Easterners. Here, we list the main events in the Orientalist Olympics so far, and unveil the winners in each category.
Throwing the hammer at China for meddling in Africa
This week, film director Steven Spielberg pulled out of his role as artistic adviser to Beijing 2008 over China’s support for ‘unspeakable crimes’ in Darfur. Other Hollywood actors-cum-bearers of the White Man’s Burden, including George Clooney and Mia Farrow, have slated China for allegedly funding ‘Khartoum’s genocide’. Grotesquely, some are referring to Beijing 2008 as the ‘Genocide Olympics’, comparing China’s hosting of the Games with Hitler’s hosting in 1936.
Such hysterical language shows how purely and perniciously moralistic is the China-bashing over Darfur. It is true that China has trade and arms relations with Khartoum, but to leap from this fact to the accusation that China is ‘funding genocide’ is to ignore two inconvenient truths (a phrase that Hollywood types surely understand).
The first inconvenient truth is that few serious international organisations, including the United Nations, describe Darfur as a ‘genocide’; indeed, the evidence suggests that Save Darfur activists have grossly exaggerated, for political purposes, the death rates in Darfur (1). There was a bloody civil war in Darfur, but it reached its nadir five years ago. As Jonathan Steele argues: ‘Today’s Darfur is still appalling, but not so bloody a place [as it was in 2003 and 2004].’ (2) Yet a five-year-old, tragically all-too-familiar civil war in Africa is being used to label the 2008 Beijing Games as the ‘Genocide Olympics’ and to compare Chinese rulers to the Nazis.
The second inconvenient truth is that China’s role in the events in Darfur is far from clear-cut. As Steele writes, it is naive to pin the blame for this extremely messy conflict solely on Khartoum, much less on the Chinese officials with whom Khartoum does business: ‘There are around a dozen different rebel groups currently fighting the government. To put the blame on only one party makes no moral or political sense.’ Indeed, even as China trades arms with Khartoum in return for Sudanese oil, it has joined with the West in putting pressure on Khartoum to end the conflict: ‘It helped to pass the UN resolution to set up UNAMID [the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur], and it has contributed several hundred military engineers to UNAMID.’ (3)
To accuse China effectively of being genocidaires is to distort both the reality on the ground in Darfur and to overestimate China’s influence on Khartoum. The celebrity posturing over China allegedly giving the nod to a new Holocaust is not about calling for a powerful state to stop interfering in Africa’s affairs (something that the celebrities’ own countries of origin do all the time). In fact, it’s about doing precisely the opposite: it is motivated by a sense that the Chinese, by doing business with Khartoum, are undermining Western activists’ ability to boss Khartoum around. China is seen as standing in the way of Western interference in Africa, which is apparently the right kind of interference, motivated by morals rather than money and greed and avarice and other Chinese traits. As one American commentator complained: ‘Sudan’s government feels it can ignore Western revulsion at genocide because [thanks to China] it has no need of Western money…. China, along with Sudan’s other Arab and Asian partners, feels free to trample on basic standards of decency.’ (4)
Those bloody, indecent, no-standards Chinese, getting in the way of Western efforts to financially blackmail an African country and determine its affairs. Don’t these uppity Easterners know that only Westernised, well-educated NGO activists and super-rich LA luvvies have the right to interfere in Africa? This event in the Orientalist Olympics is not about calling for ‘Hands off Africa!’ - it’s about calling for ‘Yellow Hands off Africa!’
Gold medal winner: Steven Spielberg, for magnificent displays of both moral spinelessness (by giving in to months of pressure from Mia Farrow who said he would be the Leni Riefenstahl of Beijing’s ‘Genocide Olympics’) and moral superiority (see his references to the power of his conscience in his resignation statement). It is hard to disagree with the Chinese official who accused Spielberg of spouting ‘empty rhetoric’.
Sprinting to denounce China’s pollution levels
This is a toughly contested event in the Orientalist Olympics: numerous green activists and green-leaning Western officials are looking at China’s stadium-erecting, road-building and subway-digging with barely concealed disgust and claiming that these will be the Grimiest Games in history.
Environmentalists are latching on to Beijing 2008 as a way of ratcheting up fears about China’s alleged poisoning of its own people, and its potential poisoning of we Westerners, too. One commentator says the Games will ‘showcase pollution as well as world-class athletes’. Reporters write that ‘the effects of pollution can be seen everywhere… smokestack factories spew toxins into the air… rivers teem with sewage’ (5). And it’s not just the Chinese who will suffer at the hands of their polluting rulers. Some say that athletes who have to run or ride bikes in Beijing this summer will be weakened and choked by smog (which will at least give British competitors a good excuse when they lose), while others remind us that China is cooking the entire planet: ‘China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important global warming gas, are expected to surpass those of the United States in 2009.’ (6)
Here, even the most positive thing about contemporary China – its speedy, inspiring economic development – is discussed as something disgusting. What ought to be celebrated as a wonderful leap forward for mankind is seen as a threat both to the Chinese people and to the West itself. No doubt China is a smelly, smoggy, sooty place right now, but that is because it is experiencing the birth pangs of industrialisation. There is a powerful whiff of double standards when well-off greens in comfortable Western societies that were built on Industrial Revolutions moan about Chinese smog.
The view of China as a ‘green peril’ overlooks the fact that Chinese officials are taking serious steps to combat pollution. In the run-up to the Olympics, they have completely relocated 100 Beijing-based chemical, steel and pharmaceutical factories outside of the city, dismantling, transporting and rebuilding them in pastures new. Beijing is replacing 300,000 polluting taxis and busses with lesser-polluting vehicles. In 1998, Beijing recorded 100 so-called Blue Sky Days – that is, days with an acceptable level of pollution; in 2005, it recorded 244 Blue Sky Days (7). In Britain, ‘tackling climate change’ has become a code-phrase for officials making petty interventions into our lives: flush your toilet less; recycle your bottle tops; don’t drive to the supermarket. In Beijing, combating pollution is a targeted, meaningful and ambitious project.
The idea of the Chinese as a pollutant has a long history. Today that mass nation is seen as an environmental pollutant… in the past, as the American author Jess Nevins points out, they were seen as ‘physical, racial and social pollutants’ whose backward ways might undermine Western civilisation (8). Today’s pre-Olympics concern about the ‘green peril’ has ditched the overtly racist lingo of the past – but it has breathed life back into old Western fears about Eastern ‘pollutants’ poisoning us, and especially our super-healthy athletes, with their strange habits and thoughtless ways.
Gold medal winner: Environmentalist correspondents in the British press (you know who you are), who seem incapable of writing about China without using the words ‘poison’, ‘sludge’ or ‘smog’. They have displayed a truly Olympian ability to see only the bad in economic progress and never, ever, ever the good (less absolute poverty, rising living standards, greater mobility, and in the future more choice).
Boxing Chinese officials over freedom of speech
Some British athletes have attacked China’s attempts to curb their freedom of speech. British Olympians have been asked to sign a contract before they arrive in Beijing: it will prohibit them from, amongst other things, attending political demonstrations or making ‘propagandistic’ statements. Outraged athletes – including that well-known political activist, er, the badminton champion Richard Vaughan – have complained about being denied the right to criticise China’s human rights record or its antics in Darfur. The gagging of athletes is held up as evidence of China’s extreme authoritarianism, which threatens even to ruin the greatest show on earth.
In reality, these new contracts build on strict rules that were drawn up by the International Olympics Committee over the past 30 years. Following the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, when two black American sprinters gave the Black Power salute as they received their medals, the IOC introduced Section 51 to its charter – this forbids athletes from taking part in any ‘kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other areas’ (9). In asking for the rules to include barring athletes from making ‘politically sensitive’ statements, the Chinese are building on already-existing IOC directives rather than importing their Stalinist distaste for liberty into an apparently free and open sporting event.
British athletes are not principled fighters for ‘freedom of speech’. If they were, we might have expected to hear them complain about New Labour’s numerous assaults on free speech over the past 10 years – from its criminalisation of criticism of religion to its imprisonment of five students for the ‘crime’ of browsing radical websites (10). The Chinese do not have a monopoly on criminalising ‘sensitive’ comments that are likely to ‘cause offence’ (11).
The British athletes are actually demanding the ‘freedom to be morally outraged’. They want the ‘right’ to use the opportunity of a visit to China to wear a Free Tibet t-shirt or to state their concern about pollution or to join Spielberg and Farrow and others in exaggerating the crisis in Darfur in order to get their moral rocks off. In this sense, they’re actually dragging free speech’s name through the mud, turning it into a political weapon that can be used to take potshots at foreign regimes. Their outraged reaction against their contracts gives the impression that illiberal attitudes to free speech are a peculiarly Eastern thing; in calling on British Olympics officials to reject the contracts and rewrite them – in the name of British fair play and liberty – the athletes are conniving in the mad idea that Britain is a free country and therefore it has the right and the responsibility to lecture the Chinese about their attitudes and affairs. Such a paternalistic and partial use of the banner of ‘free speech’ will do no favours whatsoever for either the campaign for free speech in Britain or the campaign for freedom and autonomy in China.
Laughably, some of the gagged athletes are comparing themselves to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the black American runners who raised their black-gloved fists and bowed their heads during the playing of the American national anthem at the 1968 Games. Smith and Carlos made a serious protest at a time of violent conflict over civil rights within their own country, when an armed oppositional movement – the Black Panthers – was fighting under the banner of Black Power. And they paid an extremely heavy price: they were effectively barred from sports for the rest of their lives. To compare this brave and dramatic stand to the hurt feelings of a largely unknown badminton player who wants to express his pity for poor pathetic Africans while in China, and who would do so with the full backing of Hollywood, American and European liberals, most Western governments and a mish-mash of armed rebel groups in Darfur… that only highlights the extent to which this event in the Orientalist Olympics, bashing China over its gagging contracts, is driven by bloated moral pomposity.
Gold medal winner: Richard Vaughan, the British badminton champ who has made a right shuttlecock of himself by trying to pose as a warrior for freedom of speech. Clearly he has swallowed whole the idea that sportsmen and other modern-day celebrities are so supremely important that they must single-handedly try to topple the Chinese regime by wearing a shocking t-shirt or holding a press conference with some Tibetan monks.
Spearing China’s dedication to sports training
Forget the empty rhetoric of the Save Darfur missionaries and the ‘green peril’ screaming of the environmentalist lobby – the Olympics are, of course, all about sport. For all Western observers’ attempts to attach their narcissistic agendas to Beijing 2008, the vast majority of us will enjoy it as a spectacular competition between the fastest runners, longest jumpers and most agile gymnasts on Earth. And yet… even in the area of sport, China is getting an earful from concerned Westerners.
The Chinese are being attacked for ‘torturing’ their young people by forcing them to become the best. The Chinese training of gymnasts, some as young as seven or eight, has been described as a form of ‘child abuse’, where teachers and trainers bend kids’ bodies in ‘unnatural directions’ and push them, at all costs, to become the flexible champions of the future (12).
Apparently the Chinese are far too obsessed with self-sacrifice and winning at any cost. During an earlier Olympics contest, one commentator said: ‘When entertainment requires this kind of self-sacrifice, our values – for willingly watching and participating – and the values of the Chinese are severely out of line with basic human standards.’ (13) Notice how even the discussion of Chinese attitudes to sport, as well as their attitude to Darfur, focuses on their alleged inhuman depravity.
There’s no doubt that young sportsmen and women in China are put under extraordinary pressure. Yet even this desire to win, in a competition in which winning is the only thing that counts, is talked up in the Orientalist Olympics as evidence of China’s warped ways. The Chinese are seen as unemotional, unforgiving, as peculiarly arrogant. Again, this is an old prejudice that is being rehabilitated on the back of the Olympic Games. As Robert L Gee points out in his book Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture, China-bashers in the past talked about ‘Chinese arrogance’ and ‘Chinese aloofness’ (14). Back then, people saw ‘Chinese arrogance’ in their snooty ‘Yellowfaces’ (15); today it is glimpsed in the robotic automatons forcing young children to become winning machines.
Perhaps Western observers and athletes are making excuses for themselves early. If they lose, it won’t be down to their own lack of training or determination - which could be seen as products of the West’s distinctly PC and un-Chinese ‘everyone’s a winner’ attitude to competitive sports - but rather down to the strange powers of the Eastern weirdos.
Gold medal winner: BBC TV’s Newsnight, which recently sent a reporter to stare in horror at young Chinese children training to become gymnasts of the future. Much to Newsnight’s disappointment, however, the kids seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked.
#16, Dogbert (or anyone for that matter),
As I was trapped in Singapore for the better part of late last week and the early part of this week in a downward spiral of business, bureaucratic farce and alcoholic socializing, would you care to post a link to the MH meltdown to which you refer?
‘king baeksu is thinking of leaving…’ roboseyo
yes, and he will be back. you can be rest assured.
‘hmmmm, smart this man is. careful with him…. why does he read posters he dismisses? i never read bevers. hmmmmm….he can’t ignore those who annoy him? would that not be better than marmot imposing censorship and thus killing this board?…’ pawi’s thoughts as he read robo’s post.
‘The Wars of Germanic Aggression were fueled by 12 centuries of Europeans using wars to settle disputes. The Chinese have a much longer history of diplomacy and cunning. Even while the mainland was “cut up” under the various occupying powers, China was still China.’ jtb
read and learn, people.
‘We may have already done so by eliminating most manufacturing within the USA.’ jtb
exactly why koreans need to think long and hard before they withdraw their support for korean farmers.
))))))
uh, poster koguryo, did you not know we have a resident expert on koguryeo? do you have anything to say to his comments?
lastly, who, besides the chinese, say koguryeo isn’t korean?
’samguk sagi…’
something that seems to be forgotten in so many academic discussions is the fact that korea has been claiming koguryeo for almost a thousand years. this claim didn’t just come about in the last few decades.
koguryeo is korean.
elgin, i hate to say it, but i told you so.
‘the MH meltdown to which you refer?’
what is this ‘meltdown’ we keep hearing about?
#21 After this one, I’ll try to stay away for a while. I’m beginning to feel the Isaac comment was a bit harsh. Keohler spends a lot of time posting articles that I like reading so lots of credit and thanks there and sorry if it was too harsh. However the point remains.
Isaac aside, I don’t get the troll/ race baiting comment. Please explain why I am a racist/race baiter????
Please tell me if what I’m saying is wrong and explain why. I sincerely would love to know.
Korea is a very, very racist country: the gov, media, educational inst, society, etc. I have yet to meet a foreigner from any part of the globe who doesn’t agree with this (black, white, yellow)It is especially a disaster for foreigners with kids.
SO, why is me stating this and showing discontent with it so wrong??? WHy is it racist to insist that racist sterotypes are wrong? Why am I such a monster? Is it because I’m American and complaining about Korea?
You talk about me race baiting. C’mon Koehler and #21, you live in a country where a lot of people, arguably the majority, believe that being a good Korean patriot involves some serious racism and hate. Are the two of you suggesting that we should all just shut up about that and take pictures of the folk village and boseong tea fields because as Westerners we come from countries that have historically been at that top?
# 30,
Calling an entire country racist is not something one should do lightly. In addition to passive stereotyping, the term “racist” also implys beligerence and/or violence. Some time ago I took up the issue in more detail in this blog, but I’m too lazy today to dig it up.
Until Korea hosts lynchings, burns crosses on foreigner’s lawns, goes around in fraternal brotherhoods clad in white bed sheets, tatoos Magen Davids on arms, etc. I’d use the highly charged term of “racism” selectively.
Netizen Kim…
You lost me at “Thursday 14…”
“jay h”, try discussing #30 in the “open thread” unless you have commentary on the NY Times article to offer.
History is glory for the few at the expense of many.
@#31
Please don’t feed the troll.
@26: for god’s sake, just post a link, dammit
@27: Robert erased it completely
Good to see that Netizen Kim’s respect for other people’s copyrights is just as strong as ever.
“They were just European wars that spilled over to their colonies”, rather odd comment to make when discussing China neither european nor a european colony. China, a colony? Japan, a colony? US a colony? Turkey, a colony…others??? Some colonies and some ex-colonial supporters yes, but clearly not just Euopean wars spilled over to the colonies.
Not true. The Chinese government does NOT want violent expressions of Chinese nationalism. It learned its lesson from the anti-Japanese demonstrations and has been very careful in censoring media and online content about the Tibet riots to prevent any revenge attacks. In fact, that is the reason why China has been blaming the Dalai Lama for coordinating the demonstrations - to direct public anger at him, Tibetan exiles, and Western supporters and away from Tibetans living in China.
Both the Chinese government and the US government use nationalism to further their own agendas.
39: Hi Sonagi. I guess I expressed myself poorly there.
Me: “Yeah, Chinese hyper-nationalism has the state/police support”
You: “Not true. The Chinese government does NOT want violent expressions of Chinese nationalism. It learned its lesson from the anti-Japanese demonstrations and has been very careful in censoring media and online content about the Tibet riots to prevent any revenge attacks.”
I didn’t mean to imply that the Chinese state or police endorse/encourage hyper-nationalism to be expressed through violence toward groups living in China; what I was clumsily trying to say was that, for example, in America, if you burn a US flag in public, or get really noisy about US human rights violations, you’ll be branded a traitor and maybe ostracized or even intimidated by other Americans, but you won’t have the police knocking on your door, warning you to step back in line. While in China, speaking too strongly against the government MIGHT land you in jail, or under house arrest, or gagged some other way. Both countries suppress dissent, but one (sometimes) uses the police to do so, and the other doesn’t.
I completely agree that both China and US governments (heck: and pretty much ALL governments) use nationalism to push their agendas, but they use different methods of enforcement.