Change and experiments: part of the China Communist Party genes – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

China’s communist party celebrated earlier this month its 100th anniversary. China watcher Ian Johnson explains how change and experimenting became part of the principles of the country’s leading political force. “They were always experimenting, and in the economic reforms of the ’70s they showed an ability to improvise,” he tells in Hamodia.

Hamodia:

Ian Johnson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations with an expertise in China, posited that the CCP’s nearly 30 years as a rebel entity in China before it rose to power made its leaders more pragmatic than their Soviet counterparts. From the time of its founding until its ultimate victory in 1949, the party survived through a series of alliances during its period of quasi-exile in various parts of China.

“Dating back to the ’20s and ’30s they had to cut deals with Muslims and with warlords and farmers in order to survive,” said Mr. Johnson. “They were always experimenting; and in the economic reforms of the ’70s they showed an ability to improvise.” Deng initiated a series of economic reforms that promoted private ownership and largely introduced a capitalist system while keeping political power consolidated in the hands of the CCP. In describing his nuanced approach to what was still labeled socialism Deng famously commented, “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.”

“[Deng] created a system where whatever works was called socialism and whatever didn’t was capitalism. In reality, he began to glorify becoming rich and the country steadily became more capitalist,” said Mr. Cheng.

Mr. Johnson pointed to key differences between reforms in China and those that ultimately broke the USSR.

“The Chinese did Perestroika without Glasnost,” he said, referencing the late Soviet periods — the former connoting economic and political reform and the latter government transparency and tolerance of free thinking.

“The Soviets allowed for more freedom of expression which led to an explosion of unhappiness and upheaval,” said Mr. Johnson. “The Chinese started with economic reforms like giving farmers long-term usage of their land and free markets. They were able to deliver the goods in a way the Soviets could not do. It’s important not to underestimate that most people are not disgruntled about freedom but about wanting a decent life and not wanting to wait in line for bread. A rising standard of living can usually quell 80% of political discontent.”

More in Hamodia.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

Are you looking for more strategic experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Stopping CCP members from entering the US is not a smart move – Victor Shih

 

Victor Shih

In a last-ditch effort to mess up the relations between China and the US, the Trump administration issued rules to prevent members of the communist party to enter the US. Political analyst Victor Shih explains in Politico why that is not a smart move.

Politico:

Beware unintended side effects of the new U.S. rules on CCP members entering the country. A White House rule announced earlier this month limiting Chinese Communist Party members to short, single-entry visas to the U.S. won’t have much practical impact with travel all but shut down, but as both countries’ populations get vaccinated and travel resumes, its practical implications could be problematic. Making it harder for CCP members to enter “would force U.S. businesspeople, academics and officials to go to China more often to meet with their counterparts, potentially exposing them to even more Chinese intelligence and influence efforts,” Victor Shih, political economy professor at U.C. San Diego, tells China Watcher. “Besides, I am sure the Chinese government would provide the real spies with covers that preclude Party membership, so a membership litmus test really doesn’t tell you much.”

— Better idea: Allow CCP members to renounce their Party. “Given that a good number of the smartest and most educated people from China had been inducted into the party early on, the U.S. should provide a path for citizenship even for party members,” Shih says. “Beyond signing a legally binding document prohibiting them from participating in party activities, they also can fill out a detailed questionnaire on how they joined the party. This would allow the U.S. to continue to naturalize the best and brightest from China without the cat and mouse game of people lying about their party membership.”

More in Politico.

Victor Shih is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

Are you looking for more political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Private companies: not free of government control - Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis

The Hangzhou government raised eyebrows as it announced last week it would send 100 officials to private companies to check on them. Professor Paul Gillis at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management did not see that much news, he tells Bloomberg.

Bloomberg:

Government agencies may also be heightening their monitoring of the vast private sector at a time the Chinese economy is decelerating — raising the prospect of destabilizing job cuts as enterprises try to protect bottom lines. 

Alibaba is hosting its annual investors’ conference this week in Hangzhou against the backdrop of a worsening outlook for the country. 

“They might be checking whether the [Chinese] Communist Party [CCP] units are working effectively within the companies,” said Paul Gillis, a professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. 

“While China legitimized capitalism, the level of government influence was never intended to disappear. Occasionally private entrepreneurs forget about this and are reminded of it,” Gillis added. 

Zhejiang is considered the cradle of modern Chinese private enterprise, home to a generation of self-made billionaires from Alibaba’s Jack Ma (馬雲) and Geely founder Li Shufu (李書福) to Wahaha’s Zong Qinghou (宗慶后).

More in Bloomberg.

Paul Gillis is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Divided Catholics face Beijing-Vatican deal - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China's central government and the Vatican closed a deal on appointments of Catholic bishops in China, causing debate among the already divided Catholics in the country, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao at the New York Times. The way the Communist-ruled state church might integrate with the Roman Catholic church might not please all Catholics, he writes.

Ian Johnson:

Several underground bishops in China, including two popular bishops in staunchly Catholic parts of the country, are expected to step down to make way for the bishops appointed by Beijing over the past decade whom the pope has agreed to recognize. In exchange, the pope is gaining some role in the appointment of new bishops. There are about 100 bishops and prelates in China, including underground and approved, and a dozen vacant positions. 

Exactly how this will work is unclear. Both sides have described the agreement signed on Saturday as preliminary, and neither has released details. But some informal veto system seems likely. The Vatican could reject candidates suggested by the Chinese authorities, although mainly through quiet consultation rather than formal voting. 

In the long run, diplomatic ties could be restored between Beijing and the Vatican.

Some Chinese Catholics see this as helping a church that has been unable to respond to changing times. China is rapidly urbanizing, for example, but many rural Catholics find little outreach when they migrate to take jobs in the cities. A unified church could address that. 

“I think if it helps unite the church, then it’s a good thing,” said You Yongxin, a Catholic writer based in the eastern Chinese city of Fuzhou. “If the pope is convinced he can get good bishops appointed through this deal, then we have to trust that he will.” 

Indeed, if carried out as advertised, the deal would give the church a formal role in appointing clergy members in party-controlled churches in China for the first time in nearly 70 years. That would be a significant concession by the government. By contrast, Beijing doesn’t give the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, any say over the appointment of monks or abbots.

Still, the deal came as a shock for many Chinese Catholics. 

Paul Dong Guanhua, a self-ordained bishop in the underground church in the northern Chinese city of Zhengding, said it made no sense that Beijing would sign on to any deal that could strengthen the church. 

“Well, if there’s an agreement, there’s an agreement,” he said in a telephone interview. “But I find it absurd, and I wonder how many other Catholics can agree with this decision.” 

Other prominent underground clergy members, like Guo Xijin, one of the bishops who reportedly would have to step down under the deal, could not be reached for comment. In an interview earlier this year, Bishop Guo told The New York Times that he would step down if asked by the pope. 

Rome will also have to win over skeptical Catholics in Taiwan and Hong Kong, said Lawrence C. Reardon, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire who studies Beijing-Vatican relations.

More in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.

Foreign involvement: the red line in China's spiritual revival - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Staying away from foreign involvement is key in the massive religious revival China is going through, author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao tells NPR. Religion is condoned as long as the new movements stick to a few unwritten rules in its sensitive relations with the Communist Party.

NPR:

President Xi Jinping has called on China's citizens to continue to be "unyielding Marxist atheists." He insists that the country's 85 million Communist Party members remain atheists. But increasingly, he's loosening the restrictions on religious organizations. These days, Chinese authorities even subsidize some religious practice under the guise of backing what the government calls "traditional culture." 

Johnson writes about the myriad ways religions of all sorts are practiced today in China. He describes walking in an elaborate Buddhist-inspired funeral procession in the Beijing neighborhood called the Temple of the Tolling Bell. He delves into the small sect, Eastern Lightning, a cultlike group that will remind some readers of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual practice. Eastern Lightning dared to attack China's Communist Party. 

"They feel it's them against what they call the 'Great Red Dragon,' which is the Communist Party," Johnson says. "They operate illegally, and they almost try to hijack church congregations. They sometimes resort to violence; and their very secretive nature, their proclivity for violence, in some ways, this also reflects how the Communist Party runs China," Johnson says. 

The "red line" for the faithful is foreign involvement. 

"If people are part of a religion that has a strong foreign component, if they're getting money from abroad, if they're getting training, this is a problem for the government," Johnson notes. 

But ultimately, all religions are global. And that may increasingly pose a problem for Chinese authorities. 

"It's a double-edged sword for the government," Johnson concludes. "They think religion can maybe provide some stability in a society that is racing forward and doesn't have a center of gravity. ... But religion creates values that are above any government values, ideas of justice, of righteousness, of truth and these are things can come back to haunt the party."

More (including a radio interview) at NPR.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you interested in more recent stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.

Recreating China´s history - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China has a longstanding tradition of rewriting and even recreating its own past. The current regime is not different, writes journalist Ian Johnson in the Guardian and he meticulously analyses the complicated relationship between the Communist Party and its history.

Ian Johnson:

It is hard to overstate history’s role in a Chinese society run by a communist party. Communism itself is based on historical determinism: one of Marx’s points was that the world was moving inexorably towards communism, an argument that regime-builders such as Lenin and Mao used to justify their violent rises to power. In China, Marxism is layered on top of much older ideas about the role of history. Each succeeding dynasty wrote its predecessor’s history, and the dominant political ideology – what is now generically called Confucianism – was based on the concept that ideals for ruling were to be found in the past, with the virtuous ruler emulating them. Performance mattered, but mainly as proof of history’s judgment. 

That means history is best kept on a tight leash. Shortly after taking power in 2012 as chairman of the Communist party, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping re-emphasised this point in a major speech on history published in People’s Daily, the official party newspaper. Xi is the son of a top party official who helped found the regime, but who fell out with Mao, and suffered during the Cultural Revolution. Some thought that Xi might take a more critical view towards the Mao era, but in his speech, he said that the 30 years of reform that began under Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, should not be used to “negate” the first 30 years of communist rule under Mao.

Much more in the Guardian.  

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Do you want to read more stories by Ian Johnson? Check out this list.  

Related articles

• China: Muted 50th Anniversary Of The Cultural Revolution - Analysis
• China marks a milestone in silence
• Fifty Years after the Cultural Revolution
• Who Is Xi?
• When China ignores its tragic history, it becomes more likely to repeat it
• Bringing Christianity under control - Ian Johnson

Xi Jinping´s draw for Willy Wo-lap Lam - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Willy Wo-Lap Lam has been analyzing five of China´s recent leaders, and now published his book on Xi Jinping. Journalist Ian Johnson interviews him and ask him why China´s new president is different from his predecessors for the New York Times.

Ian Johnson:

You have analyzed all major Chinese leaders over the past 30 years. What drew you to Xi?

Lam: Xi is very different from previous leaders. Basically Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao followed Deng Xiaoping’s instructions not only to reform the economy, but to carry out some degree of institutional changes. Deng didn’t believe in Western-style reforms, but he did try major institutional reforms to prevent a second Cultural Revolution and a Mao Zedong-style tyranny. So he promoted collective leadership — that the [ruling Communist Party’s] Politburo and especially its Standing Committee rule as a collective entity and the general secretary is just first among equals. Also, he didn’t want a cult of personality. Deng had a famous saying that leadership should come from the “five lakes and four seas” — from different backgrounds and all walks of life. 

But Xi Jinping so far has stood many of Deng’s principles on their heads. We have seen an excessive concentration of personal power by Xi Jinping. He’s not first among equals. He’s the big boss. He runs roughshod over the other six members of the Standing Committee, especially Premier Li Keqiang. 

Perhaps there is a plausible argument that he needs to concentrate power to push through reforms? 

Lam: This is the so-called theory of neo-authoritarianism — that in a complex country like China, the ruler must have near-absolutist powers. Xi says that all the easy reforms have been tried out. He’s been left with difficult reforms that would impinge on the prerogatives of power blocs in the party — and so he needs extra powers to push through changes. 

But the big question that I raise in the book is why thorough structural reforms are nowhere to be seen. I believe he is concentrating power for two purposes. One, to ensure that the Communist Party remains China’s perennial ruling party. He wants to be sure that no one else can challenge the supremacy of the party. Also that it only has one dominant faction, the inchoate Xi Jinping faction. It’s about amassing powers in his own hands — and it has very little to do with economic or political reform.

More in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Ian Johnson will be spending more of the summer in Berlin, Germany. If you are interested in having him as a speaker in Europe against reduced costs, check out our announcement here.

Are you interested in more experts on political change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out our recent list.  

Related articles

• Book Review: Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping
• China officials taken on prison visits in warning against corruption
• China detains artist who posted humorous photo of president
• Xi Jinping's High-Risk Policy Needs A National Security Commission - Analysis
• Ian Johnson to visit Berlin
• China Aims to Break Foreign Influence on Religion

No deficit in confidence in China - Arthur Kroeber

+Arthur Kroeber 

China might be facing many problems, a crisis of confidence is certainly not one of them. Economist Arthur Kroeber, acknowledged bull on China, tells The Age the Party is much more powerful than any domestic enemies.

The Age:

The Soviet collapse was, at core, a crisis of confidence. The Communist party was not challenged by another party, by a coup or by an uprising. The party yielded much of its power because its leadership had lost the self-belief and the will to go on. China's Xi Jinping may have many deficits, but a deficit of confidence is not one of them. "Confidence is rising, not falling," says Barme. The well-regarded China economist, Arthur Kroeber, concurs: "Xi Jinping's government is not weak and desperate, but forceful and adaptable." 

Kroeber adds a fundamental consideration: "The forces that might push for systemic political change are far weaker than the Party." 

There is a major economic crunch beginning, certainly. But the Communist regime has prevailed through much worse. There is no sign that the instruments of coercion are wilting.

More in the Age.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you looking for more political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this recent list.  

Related articles

• China's powerful Xi defies expectations two years on
• The Coming Chinese Crackup - WSJ
• China's Risky Mao-Style Focus on the Personal Life of President Xi Jinping - China Real Time Report - WSJ
• How Xi Jinping's presidency was shaped by traumas of Mao and Gorbachev
• PetroChina vice chairman under investigation amid spreading anti-graft probe
• President Xi Jinping Calls For Straightening On China's Armed Forces

The problem: China has no clear direction - Howard French

+Howard French 

China´s lack of direction or ideology, makes it very hard to make sense out of its future, writes author Howard French in ChinaFile, in a contribution to the David Shambaugh debate on the demise of the communist part. "Such is the degree of uncertainty we must all live with."

Howard French:

Perhaps the next most important point to be made, and it has not been heard enough in this discussion, is that no one knows where China (or the world) is heading, say twenty, or even ten years down the road. Mao oversaw rapprochement with the U.S. in order to counter the Soviet Union, and this can be said to have brought capitalism to his country, which was clearly not his aim. Deng embraced capitalism, and that can be said to have led to a near existential crisis for the Party around the issue of democratization. The U.S. embraced China also in order to balance the Soviet Union, as well as, a bit later, to seek markets. This ended up in the creation of what now appears ever more like a peer rival, after a brief period of monopolarity in the world. Unintended, even undesirable consequences are the name of the game in matters of state and in international affairs, and however assertive and determined Xi Jinping may appear to us now, in the early phases of his rule, it is a safe bet that his drive to realize a Chinese dream will produce many things he could never have dreamed of—or desired. It is also for the least plausible that Xi’s remarkable apparent confidence is a kind of compensation for deep anxiety at the top in China: a recognition that the country is walking a tightrope. 

I defer to others on the specifics of China’s known challenges, but a few points seem fairly obvious. The early, and one might say easy, phase of China’s takeoff is over. That period consisted in large measure of stopping doing stupid things and inflicting damage on oneself. Moving forward now from here becomes exponentially more difficult. This means finding a way to sustain relatively high growth rates, when almost everything points to a natural, secular slowdown. It means coping with environmental challenges on a scale never seen before. It means dealing with the emergence of a middle class, and everything that political science suggests about the difficulties that this poses for authoritarian regimes. It means finding a way through the middle income trap. It means restraining corruption that in this view is, if anything, even worse, meaning more systemic, than commonly recognized. It means coping with the accelerating balancing of nervous neighbors. It means somehow coping with issues of ethnic and regional tensions and stark inequality. It means drastic and mostly unfavorable changes in demography. And it means doing all of these things, and facing any number of other serious challenges that space doesn’t allow one to detail here, without the benefit of a coherent or appealing ideology other than nationalism and, one says tentatively, budding personality cult-style leadership. 

We don’t know how this is going to turn out. For every success one can point to involving China, it is easy to point to at least one stark and serious problem, or potential failing. I don’t share Shambaugh’s confidence in predicting the demise of the Chinese Communist Party, but it does not strike this reader as a reckless prediction. It should not surprise us, and neither should its opposite, China’s continued relative success. Such is the degree of uncertainty we must all live with.

More arguments in ChinaFile. Earlier, 

Arthur Kroeber explained why Shambaugh is wrong.

Howard French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out recent list.  

Related articles

• Communist angst in Beijing: Economic reality threatens party's 'mandate of heaven'
• China's Waste and the Largest Wealth Transfer in History
• Tiger-Beating Clip Makes Xi China's First Cartoon President
• President Xi Jinping unveils new slogan to govern China
• PLA invited to participate in Victory Day Parade in Russia
• The Coming Chinese Crack-Up - WSJ

Why China is not cracking up - Arthur Kroeber

+Arthur Kroeber 

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by David Shambaugh on March 7 claims the Communist Party is falling apart. Economist Arthur Kroeber explains in ChinaFile why he is wrong. The next episode in a longstanding "China-is-collapsing" tradition.

Arthur Kroeber´s closing remarks:

Finally, there is no evidence that the biggest and most important political constituency in China—the rising urban bourgeoisie—has much interest in changing the system. In my conversations with members of this class, I hear many complaints, but more generally a satisfaction with the material progress China has made in the last two decades. Except for a tiny group of brave dissidents, this group in general displays little interest in political reform and none in democracy. One reason may be that they find uninspiring the record of democratic governance in other big Asian countries, such as India. More important is probably the fear that in a representative system, the interests of the urban bourgeoisie (at most 25% of the population) would lose out to those of the rural masses. The Party may well be somewhat insecure, but the only force that might plausibly unseat it is more insecure still. 

Predictions of Chinese political collapse have a long and futile history. Their persistent failure stems from a basic conceptual fault. Instead of facing the Chinese system on its own terms and understanding why it works—which could create insights into why it might stop working—critics judge the system against what they would like it to be, and find it wanting. This embeds an assumption of fragility that makes every societal problem look like an existential crisis. As a long-term resident of China, I would love the government to become more open, pluralistic and tolerant of creativity. The fact that it refuses to do so is disappointing to me and many others, but offers no grounds for a judgment of its weakness. 

Seven years ago, in his excellent book China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, Shambaugh described the Party as "a reasonably strong and resilient institution....To be sure, it has its problems and challenges, but none present the real possibility of systemic collapse." That was a good judgment then, and it remains a good judgment now.

More arguents in ChinaFile.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference. Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Sizing up China´s political risks is an art in itself. Are you looking for more experts on China political risks at the China Speakers Bureau? Do look at this list.  

Related articles

• The Endgame Of Communist Rule In China Has Begun
• Sorry, America: China Is NOT Going to Collapse
• Xiaomi forecasts sales up over 30% in 2015
• The endgame of Communist rule in China?
• Harrods boss banks on Prince William's China visit to boost department store

Can academia function with Chinese characteristics? - Zhang Lijia

+Lijia Zhang 

[

President Xi Jinping´s call for a "new type of thinktank with Chinese characteristics" has triggered off a old debate on the position of intellectuals towards their government. Author Zhang Lijia argues at her weblog the government should no longer silence the voice of its scholars.

Zhang Lijia:

Back in 1967, Noam Chomsky published his famous essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", in the middle of a national crisis in America after the debacle of the Vietnam war. The essay was very critical of the intellectual culture in the US, especially public policy, which Chomsky believes is subservient to power. He argued that intelligentsia have an obligation to speak truth to power. For Chinese intellectuals, that's not a luxury they had in 1967, and probably won't have in the near future. 

In centuries past, Confucian scholars were frequently torn between their loyalty to the emperor and their duty to point out wrongs. Those who were true to their conscience often faced persecution. Historian Sima Qian was given the choice of suicide or castration. He endured the latter and completed his famed Shiji ( Historical Records). 

Intellectuals in contemporary China haven't fared much better, being tightly controlled by the Communist Party from 1949. In 1956, having consolidated power, Mao Zedong launched the Hundred Flowers Movement, inviting intellectuals to speak out. Taken aback by the overwhelming criticism, Mao struck back a year later with an "anti-rightist movement" which sent many who had voiced their honest views to jail or hard labour in the countryside. The Cultural Revolution witnessed more suffering of the intelligentsia. 

The reform era has made the cage bigger. In the past two decades, a growing number of intellectuals have ventured to express their views, taking advantage of market-driven media outlets, and more importantly, the internet, which is much harder to police. 

Xi's idea about a new type of think tank is seen by some as the regime's latest attempt to rein in public intellectuals who may try to challenge the party's monopoly on truth. 

If the authorities could rein in their authoritarian impulse to control everything, they would see that free debate can aid governance, as it would allow scholars to critically assess policies. Otherwise, creativity and pluralism will be stifled just as China needs them in its shift to an innovation-led economy. 

There may not be an intellectual spring where "a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thoughts contend" around the corner. But the era when "10,000 horses were all muted" is gone forever, too. 

In this internet age, no government can silence the voice of all intellectuals.

More at Zhang Lijia´s weblog.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more female speakers at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this latest list.  

Related articles

• Beijing's Hong Kong Disinformation
• The improving position of women - Zhang Lijia
• China arrests writer who chronicled victims of Chairman Mao's 'anti-rightist' campaign
• China to Keep Files Closed on Violent Past
• Why Xi Jinping endorses an anti-American blogger - Ian Johnson
• Away from the American dream - Shaun Rein
• Symbolism is everything, Mr. President: Muckraking Extra

Why China starts to celebrate ´martyrs´day´- Ian Johnson

+Ian Johnson 

China celebrates on Tuesday its first ´martyrs´day´ on September 30, a expression of new-found patriotism to remember those who died in fights with foreign powers.  Journalist Ian Johnson at the New York Times digs into the reasons for this new celebration.

Ian Johnson:

A new temporary exhibition highlights the global fight against fascism, including a section on the Doolittle Raiders, United States airmen who bombed Tokyo in 1942 and landed in China, where many were rescued. The museum also has the names of some Nationalist soldiers who died in the war.

Much of the museum, however, is heavily slanted toward the Communist Party’s version of the war’s history. Its 70,000 square feet of exhibition space is dominated by deeds of the relatively small Communist armies, who, most historians agree, rarely engaged with Japanese troops, leaving most of the fighting to the Nationalist armies.

Likewise, a recently released official list of the 300 most famous martyrs who died fighting Japan is heavily skewed toward Communist exploits. Over 40 percent of those on the list were soldiers in the Communists’ Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies. The former participated in one major campaign against Japan and the latter only in limited guerrilla operations. The Nationalist troops, who suffered 90 percent of China’s causalities in the war, account for 29 percent of the 300 martyrs.

The holiday is also seen as part of an effort by the Communist Party to elevate those who died for the nation. Until this year, China commemorated fallen soldiers on the traditional Qingming, or Tomb-Sweeping, holiday, which falls on either April 4 or 5 of each year.

“Qingming is generally for the dead, but the new holiday will be for martyrs,” said Zhang Xianwen, a professor of history at Nanjing University. “This will be a bigger, broader commemoration so people won’t forget those who sacrificed their lives for the Chinese people.”

Hu Ying, a professor of literature at the University of California, Irvine, said use of the word “martyr” had a long tradition in China. The Confucian classics, for example, speak of martyrs who died for virtue and ideals. In the early 20th century, as China was being carved up by foreign powers, the term was revived in reference to those who died for the modern nation state, such as the revolutionary Qiu Jin.

But Kirk Denton, a professor of East Asian literature at Ohio State University, said the choice of the word carried political undertones.

“To use that term ‘martyr’ is a politicized way of looking at death,” he said. “They want to control who is defined as one.”

The term is so emotive in China that it has also come to be used by some to describe those who died during the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen uprising, or even those who have killed corrupt officials.

Government censors routinely scrub the Internet of such terms, but Professor Hu said it showed the difficulty the party had in maintaining its version of history.

“The party wants to keep hold of this term ‘martyr,’ ” she said, “and not allow it to be used by other groups.”

More at the New York Times.

And here is Ian Johnson´s news article about the Day.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out some of his recent articles. 

Related articles

• Nanjing holds ceremony to honor Nationalist martyrs
• Xi criticizes Japanese right wing at war commemoration
• China's top leaders remember victory over Japan
• China Celebrates New Holiday of Martyr's Day
• Ian Johnson joins China Speakers Bureau
• Why China does not want moderate Uighurs - Ian Johnson