April 17, 2008
Chinese Student in U.S. Is Caught in Confrontation
By SHAILA DEWAN
DURHAM, N.C. — On the day the Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco last week, Grace Wang, a Chinese freshman at Duke University, came out of her dining hall to find a handful of students gathered for a pro-Tibet vigil facing off with a much larger pro-China counterdemonstration.
Ms. Wang, who had friends on both sides, tried to get the two groups to talk, participants said. She began traversing what she called “the middle ground,” asking the groups’ leaders to meet and making bargains. She said she agreed to write “Free Tibet, Save Tibet” on one student’s back only if he would speak with pro-Chinese demonstrators. She pleaded and lectured. In one photo, she is walking toward a phalanx of Chinese flags and banners, her arms overhead in a “timeout” T.
But the would-be referee went unheeded. With Chinese anger stoked by disruption of the Olympic torch relays and criticism of government policy toward Tibet, what was once a favorite campus cause — the Dalai Lama’s people — had become a dangerous flash point, as Ms. Wang was soon to find out.
The next day, a photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with a photo of Ms. Wang and the words “traitor to your country” emblazoned in Chinese across her forehead. Ms. Wang’s Chinese name, identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents’ apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city.
Salted with ugly rumors and manipulated photographs, the story of the young woman who was said to have taken sides with Tibet spread through China’s most popular Web sites, at each stop generating hundreds or thousands of raging, derogatory posts, some even suggesting that Ms. Wang — a slight, rosy 20-year-old — be burned in oil. Someone posted a photo of what was purported to be a bucket of feces emptied on the doorstep of her parents, who had gone into hiding.
“If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces,” one person wrote in an e-mail message to Ms. Wang. “Call the human flesh search engines!” another threatened, using an Internet phrase that implies physical, as opposed to virtual, action.
In an interview Wednesday, Ms. Wang said she had been needlessly vilified.
“If traitors are people who want to harm China, then I’m not part of it,” she said. “Those people who attack me so severely were the ones who hurt China’s image even more.”
She added: “They don’t know what do they mean by ‘loving China.’ It’s not depriving others of their right to speak; it’s not asking me or other people to shut up.”
In a flattering profile in 2006, Ms. Wang was described in a Qingdao newspaper as believing she was “born for politics.” She writes poetry in classical Chinese, plays a traditional string instrument called the guzheng, and participated in democracy discussion boards back home, she said.
Ms. Wang said she was not in favor of Tibetan independence, but she said problems could be reduced if the two sides understood each other better.
Since riots in Tibet broke out last month, campuses including Cornell, the University of Washington and the University of California, Irvine, have seen a wave of counterdemonstrations.
When Ms. Wang encountered the two demonstrations last week, the Chinese students seemed to expect her to join them, she said. But she hesitated.
“They were really shocked to see that I was deciding, because the Chinese side thought I shouldn’t even decide at all,” she said. “In the end I decided not to be on either side, because they were too extreme.”
Daniel R. Cordero, a member of the Duke Human Rights Coalition and an organizer of the pro-Tibet vigil, said he was handing out literature when Ms. Wang came up and pointed to the counterprotesters.
“She was like, ‘Why are you focusing on the Duke students? Let’s have a dialogue with these people,’ ” he said. “And I’m thinking, oh come on, seriously, that’s not going to help anything.”
Some of Ms. Wang’s efforts to mediate were met by insults and obscenities from the Chinese students.
“She stood her ground; she’s a really brave girl,” said Adam Weiss, the student on whose back Ms. Wang wrote “Free Tibet.” “You have 200 of your own fellow nationalists yelling at you and calling you a traitor and even threatening to kill you.”
At Ms. Wang’s behest, he ultimately spoke to some of the Chinese contingent, finding, he said, that “we could compromise and say we all wanted increased human rights for all Chinese, and especially for Tibetans.”
Sherry, a Chinese graduate student who declined to give her last name for fear of being harassed, had a less heroic view.
“She claimed she wanted to make communications between both sides, but actually she did nothing before that night. She didn’t communicate with any organizers and actually was just performing,” Sherry said. But she called the backlash against Ms. Wang “horrible.”
“There are a few students that are very angry at her,” she said, “but there are many others who try to protect her, try to speak for her. Actually, the majority didn’t think she did so wrong to be treated like that.”
She said Ms. Wang had squandered some sympathy when, in an article in The Duke Chronicle, she blamed the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association for helping to release her information through its e-mail list.
This week, three officers of the association explained in an open letter that the mailing list was public and called the verbal attacks on Ms. Wang “troubling and heinous.” Her personal information and other offensive posts were removed “once they were brought to our attention,” the letter said. Student groups criticized the association for allowing them to be posted at all.
Zhizong Li, the president of the association, referred most questions to the university but said that only about a third of the pro-China demonstrators were association members. Duke has just over 500 Chinese students.
Ms. Wang, who has retained a lawyer, said pulling her personal information off the Web was not enough. “I will be seen as a traitor forever, and they can still harm my parents,” she said.
But for a woman under threat of dismemberment, she seemed remarkably sanguine — even upbeat.
“My parents are very tolerant to me,” she explained. “They were really disappointed in me for a long time, and I persuaded them to think differently.
“If I can change my parents, I can probably change others.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/17student.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=wang+tibet&st=nyt&oref=slogin
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April 06, 2008
Internet Fans Flames of Chinese Nationalism
Paul Mooney
YaleGlobal, 4 April 2005
At the dawn of the Internet Age, many visionaries predicted that the rising tide of global interconnectedness would gradually eliminate sovereign borders and nationalism. The experience of China, which today is more open than in anytime in the past, however, belies that expectation. Highly connected and internet-savvy Chinese youth today have emerged as virulent nationalists, hampering the government's attempt at better relations with Japan. Meanwhile, rising Japanese nationalism is adding fuel to the fire.
Anti-Japanese sentiment among younger people here is unprecedented – and increasing significantly. Ironically, China's opening up and the internet are playing a key role in this trend.
The best illustration is the ongoing cyber-roots campaign against Japan's bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Organizers of a petition, which started among Chinese in the US, originally hoped for one million signatories. However, due to internet popularity in China, the figure, the organizers claim, has already surpassed 22 million. Petitioners hope their pressure will force Beijing to keep Japan out of the Security Council – a move that would seriously damage already worsening relations.
Chinese nationalists have taken advantage of the limited free space on the internet to express their anger toward Japan. They have advocated boycotts of Japanese goods, denounced Japan in chat rooms, and sought to alter the government's policies toward Japan.
The Western media has been quick to point an accusing finger at the Chinese government for failing to rein in anti-Japanese sentiments, accusing it of fanning the flames of nationalism in an attempt to shore up its own legitimacy. Experts on Sino-Japanese relations insist that the government is, indeed, worried about the current trend, but fears that appearing weak-kneed vis-à-vis Japan will damage Party legitimacy. The web is closely monitored by the government, which has shut down sites for going beyond permissible limits. But curbing anger against Japanese poses a new challenge.
While the government routinely deals harshly with dissident behavior, the Japan question appears to be its major vulnerability. Last year, anti-Japanese outbursts on the country's fiercely nationalist web sites led Beijing to reluctantly take a tough stance when Japan arrested seven Chinese activists for illegally sailing to one of the contested Senakaku Islands. Angry postings flooded the internet, calling for a hard-line approach against Japan. Though the government had hoped that the case would fade quickly, it allowed protesters to demonstrate in front of the Japanese consulate for several days. And when a nationalist web site actively protested a hefty purchase order for high-speed trains from Japan, the web site was shut down – and the deal seems to be in trouble.
Jiang Wenran, professor of political science at the University of Alberta, Canada, says that while Beijing has not made an effort to shut down the online petition drive, the government is not encouraging it. "The order is out to lead it in a moderate way," he says.
Chinese observers say there's no real incentive for the government – or Japan, for that matter – to allow relations to further deteriorate. Furthermore, the Communist Party is well aware that nationalism can be a double-edged sword: Should petitioners force Beijing to veto Japan's Security Council membership, this energy could then be easily turned inward, to sensitive domestic issues.
Several signs suggest that Hu Jintao has actually tried to create a constructive environment for improving Sino-Japanese relations. For one, he put moderates in charge of the country's Japan policy, and appointed one, Wang Yi, as the new ambassador to Tokyo.
Two years ago, the government also quietly looked the other way when Ma Licheng, a well-known commentator for the People's Daily, published an article in Strategy and Management magazine, criticizing ultra-nationalist views of Japan and calling for "new thinking" in China's Japan policy. He urged Chinese to forget about history and to focus on normalizing ties with Japan. (A source close to Ma says he may have indirectly been nudged to write the article by people with close ties to the top leadership, an attempt to break the ice with Japan.) The daring article was followed by a rare and lively public debate among academics, researchers, and journalists about the direction of China's Japan policy.
Unfortunately, the Japanese government failed to respond to China's gestures. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi continued to ignore Chinese sensitivities by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto shrine in Tokyo dedicated to fallen Japanese soldiers – including a handful declared by the allied powers to have been war criminals during World War II. Rather than making some kind of goodwill gesture to China or ceasing visits to the shrine, Japan cut the floor out from under Chinese advocates of new thinking, who were already under fierce pressure from nationalists at home.
Shi Yinhong, professor of political science at Renmin University, says that it is now much more difficult for anyone to advocate a more balanced view of relations between the two countries. Unfortunately, thinking is changing drastically among some sectors of the public in both countries, making it increasingly difficult to put relations back on track.
There was a time when Tokyo, still feeling guilty over World War II, reflexively deferred to Beijing – but no longer. Japan's new leaders say it's time to leave history behind and become a "normal" country. And it seems to have a good degree of public support.
Chinese attribute this partially to China's growing economic and political influence in the region. "Japanese feel that China is developing quickly and getting stronger," says Ma Ling, a well known news commentator who studied in Japan, "and they're worried about this."
In recent months Japan has taken a number of steps that have enraged China's leaders. These include a new security agreement with the United States, wherein the two pronounced Taiwan a "common strategic concern." Also, Tokyo announced its intent to cancel soft loans to China beginning in 2008 and published a white paper naming China as a threat.
On the positive side, a Chinese scholar who closely follows Sino-Japanese relations says that Koizumi has reached an implicit agreement with China's top leaders that this year will be too sensitive for bilateral relations to make a visit to Yasukuni. If true, this could pave the way for the resumption of visits between the leaders of both countries.
Meanwhile, a new generation of Chinese is taking pride in China's growing international status, and they're itching to stand up against Japan. "Younger Chinese have a different sense of power than past generations," says Shi. "They see China getting stronger and Japan relatively weaker."
The government's worst fears came true over the weekend as news reports said 10,000 Chinese demonstrated in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Saturday, with some attacking a Japanese-owned supermarket. On Sunday, an estimated 3,000 protesters damaged two Japanese department stores in Shenzhen, in the south. Meanwhile, local businesses in Northeast China began pulling Japanese products off their shelves.
What began as hyperventilating in cyberspace has now spread to the streets. It's still not clear whether the government condoned the increasing online anti-Japanese sentiment out of fear of domestic criticism or to pressure Japan. But as the recent dilemma with Japan shows, riding the internet can be like riding a tiger: Once you get on, it can be very hard to get off.
Paul Mooney, a freelance journalist, has been reporting on China for 15 years.
Rights:
© 2005 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5516
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April 04, 2008
The Roots of Chinese Nationalism
By EMILY PARKER
April 1, 2008; Page A17
The Chinese media decry violent Tibetan rioters; the West criticizes the Chinese crackdown. The Western press describes Chinese censorship; Chinese netizens slam Western media bias. A Chinese official calls the Dalai Lama a "political exile bent on engaging in activities aimed at splitting the motherland," while in the West he is described as a man of "peace" and "reconciliation." Americans and Europeans debate boycotting the Olympics to protest China's human-rights record; Chinese commentary describes Western arrogance toward a "developing country that is going to host the games."
Are we all living on the same planet?
1
It may be tempting to write off these Chinese nationalist attitudes as the results of state propaganda. And Beijing is certainly fanning the flames, at least for now. But as Chinese outrage explodes on the Web and among Chinese abroad, it's clear that Chinese nationalism is not just coming from the top down. It's not hard to find a Chinese person who expresses a "nationalist" view -- that Tibet is part of China, or that the Western media is biased -- but is also a vehement critic of the Communist Party. In some cases, nationalists have accused Beijing of not defending Chinese interests strongly enough.
So what does it mean to love China? And who decides, the Communist Party or the Chinese people themselves?
Meanwhile, those outside the country are asking their own questions. Perhaps what they want to know most is this: Will China's "love of country" (aiguozhuyi) somehow amount to hostility toward us? There have been several moments over the past decade when the short answer to this question, particularly where Americans and Japanese were concerned, appeared to be "yes."
One of the more dramatic outbursts took place in 1999, when NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese people. Many Chinese refused to believe fervent U.S. pleas that the bombing was a tragic accident, and tens of thousands took to the streets, with some throwing bricks and Molotov cocktails. U.S. Ambassador Jim Sasser was trapped in the American embassy for days as demonstrators pelted the building with stones.
In 2005, thousands of Chinese people took to the streets again, this time in reaction to Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The emotional, occasionally violent demonstrations were also protests against what many Chinese felt was Japan's failure to address the past -- including textbooks that whitewashed Japan's historical atrocities and then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Japan's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined.
These expressions of outrage were rooted in the perception that China was victimized by a foreign country. This idea of a wounded, defeated nation has deep roots in education and propaganda. In "China's New Nationalism," Peter Gries discusses how the narrative of China's "century of humiliation" has framed its interactions with the West. This narrative starts, he says, with China's defeat in the First Opium War and the British acquisition of Hong Kong in 1842, includes unequal treaties with the British and the Japanese in the 19th century, and continues with the "War of Resistance" against Japan in the 1930s and 1940s.
Running through this narrative is a potent streak of pride and indignation, and these emotions bleed into the business sphere. American and Japanese companies have learned the perils of appearing to treat China as an "inferior" nation. In 2004, Nike ran an ad on the mainland that featured American basketball star LeBron James battling, and defeating, Chinese symbols such as dragons and a kung-fu master.
Memo to Nike: If you run this kind of ad in China, the dragons better win. A brouhaha erupted, Chinese "national dignity" was wounded, and the Nike ad was banned. In 2005, a McDonald's television ad that showed a Chinese man begging for a discount was taken off the air, apparently because it was too humiliating.
A year before the Nike incident, Toyota ended up pulling and formally apologizing for advertisements featuring stone lions bowing to a Prado SUV. The issue was that lions, ancient symbols of Chinese power, were bowing to a Japanese product. Several years before that, some Chinese accused Toshiba of treating them as inferior because, following accusations of a laptop defect, the company compensated U.S. consumers but not their Chinese counterparts. Toshiba sales saw a steep drop on the Chinese marketplace.
These nationalist outbursts may have been influenced by years of propaganda, but they are not always dictated from the top. In fact, the widespread popularity of the Internet is allowing the people to influence the state media. A Chinese journalist who worked for CCTV, a major state media outlet, explained to me how this works. The journalist, who requested that he not be named, described his own experience covering Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council. An Internet petition opposing the bid reportedly obtained over 40 million signatures.
Public opinion may have played a decisive role in determining the state media reporting, not the other way around. "After the reactions on the Internet, the government changed, so we had to change. We had to report every day on how these efforts [to gain a seat on the Security Council] were going. Before this era, government could act unilaterally. Now, when something happens on the Internet, the government has to change policy."
As Beijing has tried to forge friendlier relations with Japan, public patriotism has threatened to get in the way. In 2004, the Chinese authorities shut down the popular Patriots' Alliance Web site founded two years earlier. The site had criticized Japan, the U.S., and occasionally the Chinese government for being too weak. It apparently crossed the line after launching an online petition protesting the Railways Ministry's decision to award contracts to Japanese companies. The petition obtained over 67,000 online signatures in under 24 hours.
Chinese outrage over Tibet could again put Beijing in a tough position. Stoking popular nationalism may have once been a convenient way to shore up faith in the party, but a public spewing rhetoric about the West bullying China has no place in a "One World, One Dream"-themed Olympic Games. The Olympics will provide a window into China's self-image and global ambitions, and one imagines that Beijing will not want to show the world a face that is contorted with anger.
Many Chinese might tell you that one particularly proud moment in recent history was in August 1984, a mere six years after Deng Xiaoping opened China's doors to the world. The moment was the Los Angeles Olympic Games, where China took home 15 gold medals. For a country that had once been called "the sick man of Asia," this was a truly historic moment. China has come a long way since.
Let's hope the Beijing Olympics will pave the way for a new aiguozhuyi -- one that reflects a confident nation whose patriotism is dictated neither by resentment nor by the Communist Party. Let the games begin.
Ms. Parker is an assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street Journal. Her chapter on Chinese nationalism will appear in "China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges," (Seven Stories Press, May 2008).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120701186550979029.html
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