A few good posts over on Paul Midler’s The China Game blog over the last couple days. In the first, he reproduces a letter from a reader drawing an important distinction between China’s financial and “real” economies, and how exposed each is to external forces:

One point that I think needs to be borne in mind is the difference between the financial economy and the real economy. In China’s case, the financial economy is not integrated into the global economy (you can’t move large sums in to invest or repatriate or invest-out large sums without bureaucratic approval and good reasons), which is one reason people say Western financial conditions have limited impact on China. This is why many large financial firms are clamoring to get into China, not only because it’s a promising new market but because it represents diversification in the way few overseas markets do these days. As far as the real economy of imports and exports etc. goes, I think there’s little doubt that China is significantly integrated into the global trading system, for good and for ill.

In another post, Midler highlights a welcome introduction to the (English-language) China blogosphere, Pomfret’s China written by John Pomfret of the Washington Post, formerly that paper’s China bureau chief and the author of Chinese Lessons, which is a great read. He’s only starting, and like most blogs that have mentioned T!b3t in the past several weeks, it’s already attracted swarms of comments that are as valuable for their insight into the massive support the crackdown has received in China (and by native Chinese abroad) as they are disposable for the quality of their reasoning.

Finally, there is an interesting post from today on a Chinese drug firm that may have accidentally disqualified the Greek weightlifting team from performing in the Olympics by supplying it with “tainted” health supplements:

A surprise inspection of the Greek team by the World Anti-Doping Agency revealed that 11 of the team’s athletes had unapproved substances in their systems. The Chinese firm has already apologized for providing the bad product, saying: “We send [sic] you L-tyrosine mixed with something else that it [sic] only for research purposes.”

A nice meta-piece on the media machinations behind the NPC sessions in the Straits Times (of Singapore; subscription required) today.

Correspondent Tracy Quek reports that Premier Wen Jiabao’s usually staid post-NPC press conference was given a shot in the arm this year.

The event usually starts at 10am, after the NPC session has officially ended, and lasts for more than two hours. It’s held in a room on the third floor of the Great Hall of the People. Quek notes that the premier handles all questions (which are usually pre-selected) with the same genial smile he flashes so often on television and in photographs.

Questions to the Premier - no matter how leading or provocative - are met with polite replies spoken in measured tones, occasionally capped with a slight poetic flourish.

But this year’s press conference was different. The premier brought along some special guests, setting off a “lightning storm” of camera flashes.

A gasp ran through the crowd when instead of just Mr Wen alone, the three newly appointed vice-premiers walked into the room. With them was incumbent Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu.

But the vice premiers weren’t there to talk. Instead, it appeared that they had been invited simply to observe Wen in action. A cheeky German reporter, however, seized the chance to ask potential future premier Li Keqiang a question.

There was some uneasy shifting about on stage before Mr Jiang Enzhu, the official chairing the conference, cut in.

He said: ‘I said earlier that this is Premier Wen’s press conference. There will be other occasions to hear from Mr Li and the other vice-premiers. Now, Premier Wen will continue to answer your questions.’

Without missing a beat, a smiling Mr Wen reclaimed his place in the spotlight.

Another amusing episode involves a reporter with a question that involved “a word starting with the letter T,” after a series of questions concerning Tibet.

To a reporter who said his question involved a word starting with the letter ‘T’, Mr Wen quipped: ‘Thank you for raising yet another question with a word starting with ‘T’.’

Before launching into his reply to a Taiwanese reporter who asked about furthering cross-strait economic cooperation, he said: ‘Please…convey my regards to our compatriots in Taiwan.’

So, while the many reports on Wen’s statements on Tibet and inflation will dominate headlines today, it’s nice to get a look at the workings of the NPC media machine once in awhile.

The newly revitalized Shanghai Foreign Correspondents’ Club (facebook link) has been organizing some interesting and useful events lately, thanks to a new board.

It invited Kerry Brown, a scholar (now a fellow at the think tank Chatham House in the UK, though he has even lectured at Inner Mongolia University), former diplomat and now author of a new book on our favorite subject, for a talk at Arch on Changshu Lu. It’s called Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century, and it’s published by Anthem Press.

The venue was rather cramped, but the talk went well - Brown made a few very good points about China from an outside observer’s point of view. We’ll be running an interview with him soon about his ideas on China. Here are some key points from his Shanghai FCC talk:

-China’s strategy of inviting foreign investment was primarily to facilitate technology and knowledge transfer; this has failed, so FDI is now no longer the yardstick the central government uses for provinces

-Foreigners tend to look at China in an ahistorical way, despite the country’s long history and attendant baggage

-NGOs are increasingly tolerated by the government as a way to help plug holes in a tattered social safety net

-Beijing’s control over the provinces is brittle – it can snap quickly and “the whole thing could fall apart tomorrow,” he said

-There’s no clear candidate for the top job when the Party Congress convenes this autumn, unlike previous leadership transitions

-What keeps Hu Jintao up at night? Not economic stability; not human rights and foreign government criticism. He’s worried about income disparities, including the great underclass of 200 million migrant workers, who are disenfranchised in almost every way. And since there’s no democracy, no one really knows what in the world they are thinking.

A short but interesting debate unfolds in the letters page of the current Foreign Policy magazine. One of its overarching messages is the critical role family plays in the stability of China.

Families, even extended families, provide a safety net that enables people to weather problems - periods of unemployment are easier to handle, forced relocations can become less of a burden. Family members can also band together to fight legal or regulatory injustice, pitch in for unexpected health care bills or buy land as a group or provide loans to start a business.

In short, families can provide the social safety network that the government does not provide.

In many ways, families balance out the damage that local government causes through corruption and a disproportionate emphasis on economic growth over welfare.

One way to help this is to allow for the faster development of civil society. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), both domestic and foreign, are not yet allowed in China but there are signs of change.

On May 25, China Daily reported that the government is to create registration policies for NGOs (foreign NGOs have to operate as businesses in China) and streamline registrations for their domestic equivalents.

All this is part of an effort to deal with a very basic problem that Beijing: how to maintain its authority and legitimacy if economic growth begins to waver. As long as more people make more money than they did last year, all is good. If that changes, there are fears of social unrest. Nobody wants that.

Families can provide some stability in bad times but their ability to act as the country’s surrogate social safety provider only goes so far. A strong civil society can give people more recourse in times of trouble but Beijing needs to let go of some of the reins.

My 92-year-old grandmother’s house rests in one of the most convenient areas of Shanghai, as well as one of the most expensive. Each month, she pays a mere RMB77 to the government for her cozy French concession home near Xiangyang Park. Two years ago, a Western couple who wanted buy the house from the city for a temptingly high price nearly forced her and my grandfather to move from their home of almost 70 years. Thankfully, the deal was not completed.

My grandmother’s experience magnified my sympathy for the recent events of the “nail house” in Chongqing, which was a far worse situation. The condemned house, occupied by a man named Yang Wu, was destroyed Monday night after Yang had held out against plans for demolition as. Though the government called Yang’s protest a display of stubbornness and inflexibility, I view it as an act of bravery to protect personal rights. The actions of Yang and his wife, Wu Ping have attracted national and international attention, since local media have been forbidden to cover the story. Today, land seizures and people being dumped from their homes in the name of commercial development are commonplace in China. In this case, the Chongqing nail house represents a larger group of historical buildings to be destroyed in China within the next 50 years. This includes those who have been relocated during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in the past and also the destruction of more than half of Beijing’s hutongs to pave way for a green Olympics. The couple’s defiance gives hope for the many in David-and-Goliath battles for not only private property rights but also personal rights.

If 2006 was a year when Hollywood warmed up to China as a locale for romantic period pieces and action extravaganzas, 2007 could be the year of the Japanese invasion epic, and it’s already looking ugly. The Rape of Nanking, a co-production between the Jiangsu provincial government and a US studio, is starting production. Supposedly based on the late Iris Chang’s historical account of the atrocity, the film will seek to give victims the “Schindler’s List” treatment, according to one official. For that lofty goal they might have done well to hire someone other than Simon West, director of noisy, no-brow slam-bangers like “Con Air” and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (think of him as Michael Bay lite), to helm the project. I’m sure it will be tastefully done.

There will be several other movies about the massacre coming out this year (I was approached last night by someone looking for Western extras for a ballroom scene in one of them), the 70th anniversary of the invasion. Some may prove useful, others less so. But perhaps none will be quite as tasteless or inflammatory as Japanese director Satoru Mizushima’s planned “The Truth About Nanjing”, which he says he hopes will prove accounts of the event to be grossly exaggerated by the Chinese government:

“This will be our first effort to correct the errors of history through a film,” director Satoru Mizushima said at a Tokyo hotel, joined by a group of conservative lawmakers and academics who support the project.

China’s Foreign Ministry responded, basically, that it knows quite well what happened, thank you very much, and it is up to Japan to admit it when it feels it is ready to grow up. The most telling bit, however, was the following:

Ms Jiang added, however, that the controversy would not derail the latest bilateral talks aimed at improving ties due to end at the weekend.

“China and Japan have both attached great importance to the dialogue, and the two sides will exchange views on mutual relations and issues both sides are concerned about,” she said.

So have relations moved beyond easily wounded pride and overreaction to the same old slights? Maybe. We’ll know more when we see which films make into general distribution on the mainland.

Rounding up people’s dogs and putting them down? No problem! Complaining about it? A national disgrace! The protests in Beijing over the recently imposed “one dog” rule following a rabies scare have apparently shamed Beijing in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of its own law and order officials, that is. As one animal rights activist put it in the South China Morning Post,

“Friends with the Beijing Public Security Bureau told me they wanted to punish the event’s leaders, who made the city lose face in international society while the 2008 Olympics host city is under the spotlight.”

While I can appreciate on some level that allowing organized protests of any kind makes the PSB lose face in front of city and central government authorities - since it reflects badly on their ability to control the public in the run-up to an event where everything must go according to plan, or else - this is a ultimately a losing PR move and only attracts negative international attention. Like, for instance, from the Washington Post.

Especially so when your city is still having days like yesterday, when “thick fog”, as Shanghai Daily so generously puts it, caused 80 planes to be delayed at Beijing’s Capital International Airport. Let’s not kid ourselves here - there’s a word for that weather, and it isn’t fog. Just take a look at this picture, taken yesterday:

There may be some moisture in the air there, but there are definitely plenty of sooty particulates as well.

Somebody, please explain to Beijing city officials which is the bigger loss of face internationally, not just within their own bureaucracy.

Photos from ENS Newswire and Shanghai Daily websites.

The latest book from controversial Chinese author Yan Lianke has drawn a double hit from the censors according to an article in the Guardian.

The Dream of Ding Village uses the true story of the widespread HIV/Aids infection that has devastated a community in Yan’s native Henan province following unregulated blood-selling in the 1990s as a critique of China’s runaway development.

But where Yan has run into trouble with the censors in the past, this time he is blaming himself for censoring his own work.

“This is not the book I originally wanted to write,” Yan told the Guardian. “I censored myself very rigorously. I didn’t mention senior leaders. I reduced the scale. I thought my self-censorship was perfect.”

But evidently it was not perfect enough for the censors who issued a ban on distribution, sales and promotion of the book anyway.

Despite the ban, Yan tells the Guardian that here has been an improvement in the censorship climate since his first run in with the censors in 1994, when his first novel, Xia Riluo, was banned, and he was forced to write personal recriminations for four months.

Now there are no personal recriminations, and his books can still be published overseas, he said. “My work has caused more disputes than those of any other author in China. But the attacks on me have become fewer. I think this shows that in many respects, society is improving, reforming, developing”.

But Yan’s personal story is a lesson in how censorship should be left to the censors, with the author now the one serving up the recriminations. “My greatest worry is that self-censorship has drained my passion and dulled my sharpness,” he said.

As China attempts to lay claim to a seat at the top table of world affairs and commerce, China’s leadership should view this loss of passion and sharpness among the country’s brightest minds as a much greater threat than anything its “dissident” writers and activists can ever hope to throw up.

It is true the intellectual environment is improving, but Yan’s story shows the damage has already been done.

The death of Dai Haijing, a 30-year-old school teacher, caused a big uproar last week in Tangxia township in Ruian, Zhejiang province - specifically, public disbelief of the official police ruling that she committed suicide. At least 10,000 people (some estimates put it at 30,000) including Dai’s family members and students, gathered outside the city government building (above) to protest the police’s handling of the matter, prompting the dispatching of “at least” 700 riot police to control the scene (below). Police made arrests and beat some protesters, although there were no casualties, according to reports.

Here is an account of how it all got started, translated from Ta Kung Pao on the blog EastSouthWestNorth, which includes more photos of the incident:

According to Hong Kong newspaper reports, information from Ruian city (Wenzhou), 30-year-old female teacher Dai Haijing fell out of her apartment to her death on August 18. The police said that she committed suicide, but the residents believed that it was related to her husband. Furthermore, they believed that someone paid off the authorities. Therefore, they demanded a government investigation.

The death of Dai Haijing drew the attention of the media and netizens. According to earlier reports, her husband named Xie is a rich and powerful person in the area, running one of the top ten enterprises there. Xie is the general manager of a well-known company.

The younger sister of the diseased (sic) found a diary in which Dai Haijing recorded how she was violently abused by her husband. Dai and Sie were high school classmates. They were married in year 2000, with the opposition of the family.

After Dai died, the teachers and students of the school set up an Internet memorial site. Then several thousand students marched in the streets slowly to demonstrate, which caused great unease at the Ruian municipal government.

According to reports, the police insists that it was a suicide. On the day before yesterday, the people started a petition signature drive. They assembled to demand the government re-open the investigation. The authorities sent out a large number of armed police and there was a clash. The police used batons and tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested the demonstration leaders.

As many people were arrested and injured, this led to even greater civilian anger. Yesterday, several thousand people assembled in front of the city government building to march and petition. Some people put up banners about business-government colluion (sic) that ignore the life of a citizen. The authorities sent out several hundred fully-armed militia police. The demonstrators then turned to go to the factory managed by the deceased’s husband and wreck havoc. Many vehicles were vandalized.

ESWN has plenty more pictures of the scene, including images of broken windows and overturned cars. Danwei tells us that video of the clearly peaceful demonstration is availabe here on YouTube and some more panicked footage here (and here and a memorial video here with still pictures interposed with slides saying things like “we don’t believe”) from later on, after the police came out. The footage is indistinct, but there are clearly two policemen visible in the second clip beating a third person lying motionless on the ground.