lisasong.com

With input from ZX, I am trying to compile a list of liberal online magzines, blogs in China.

1. ???????Currently suspended. Very liberal/provocateur?

2. ??, http://wangyi.fyfz.cn/blog/wangyi/, lawyer? legal scholar? Rule of law issue

3. ??/????, High quality collection of liberal voices, variety of topics, mix of scholars and commentators

4. ????http://caogen.com/, supposed to be grass-rootsy, a bit nationalistic and second-rate scholarship

5. ?????http://www.yhcqw.com/?intra-Party history review by party liberal faction

6. ????http://www.tecn.cn/, bona-fade scholarship, elite columnists, rich contents 

7. ????http://www.douban.com/group/zhuxunqin/, fans of a history professor who I share a lot POV with

??????????????

1. ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????“??”??“??”???????????

2. ???????????????????????????????“??-??”??????????????????????

3. ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????“???”????????????????“?????????”?????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????? ????????????????

4. ??????????? ????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????“??”????“??”???????

1. Demographics, social stratification, mobility study
TItle: Was There a REvolution? Kinship and Ineqaulity of the Very Long Term in Laio Ning
By Cameron Campbell (UCLA), James Lee (Michigan)
Based on Liaoning dataset, studied social stratification patterns in late Qing and post Reform contemporary. On going study (from a flyer in 2008, a coloquium missed), tentative conclusion.

Highlights:
Father-son attainment correlation
Kinship/descendent group vs. village
Education as a factor
Unique dataset!
China appeared to be a less aristocratic society then contemporary Europe/America (same authors 2003)

Also mentioned studies: Deng/Treiman (1997), Zhou, Moen and Tuma (1998), Cheng and Dai (1995)

2. Hiking: Bare Mountain
a. Long, arduous drive to trail head: poor road signs, unpaved gravel road full of potholes: need a high clearance vehicle!
b. Eye opening views:
The road largely circle around the back of Mt. Si, which has a stunning silver back don’t see from the highway
Clear-cut forests along the way: the road is largely a mix of logging/utility road
See the clear-cut area after coming out of dark forests felt like stambling upon an African Elephant grave–an eery sight indeed! A unmistakeable sense of death, an immense scene of ruin, an empty feeling of powerlessness and, seeing the new trees planted, a sense of renewal.
A beatiful day with a setting sun in a setting summer.
c. Quiet and cozy trail:
Met very few people, two of them met before on the street or on a different trail! Saw David and Lisa–met just last week in between Tuck and Robin Lakes. Their dogs (Buster and Sunny) gave them away. Both parties were flabbergasted. OMGs echoed all over the valley.
Dense foliage, should be fun during autumn.
d. Conclusion: feels like an newly made friend or an unexpected culinary discovery!

3. NYT article on low ROBC capital
Main Bank of China Is in Need of Capital
A poorly organized article that is undeserving NYT credential. Took me a while to figure out what it says:
PBOC forces commercial banks to turn in their forex reserves and used them to buy treasury and mortgage backed bonds.
As the MBB tanked, the return on those bonds probably wasn’t enough to meet PBOC’s interest obligation to the commercial banks lending those reserves to begin with.
This inbalance drained PBOC’s capital reserve to very low level.
Instead of printing money, PBOC chose to ask for government transfer/handout to sustain liquidity

Things noteworthy:
Different monetary/exchange philosophies b/w PBOC and MoF. PBOC against weak RMB but MoF favors.
PBOC prefer bonds vs. MoF stocks

Standard & Poor’s estimates China’s (mortgage) holdings at $340 billion

By buying United States bonds, the Chinese government has been investing a large chunk of the country’s savings in assets earning just 3 percent annually in dollars. And those low returns turn into real declines of about 10 percent a year after factoring in inflation and the yuan’s appreciation against the dollar.

The gap between what banks are paying on deposits and the rates they are charging ordinary customers to borrow is several percentage points. This amounts to a transfer of wealth from ordinary Chinese savers to the central bank and on to Americans who are selling their debt to the Chinese.

4. Also remembered an earlier NYT article about how China used its foreign reserve to shore up domestic banks:
$200 Billion to Invest, but in China

 Beijing Olympics is over today. I think many people I know are letting out a sigh of relief. Given so many misfortunes and unrests happened earlier this year, the summer Olympics once felt like a giant bubble ready to pop. Now it is over, all of a sudden, it dawned on me that 2008 was the best Olympics in my life time. 

Not that I wish it happens again any time soon. Like the Pyramids, and many other human spectacles in history, the success of Olympics is built on the sacrifices and sufferings of counterless unnamed. If Acropolis is a reminder of Athenian democracy, and the Great Wall determined national defense, what is being immortalized by the statdiums? Prosperity? At $2000 per capita, that is a stretch.

Here are some of the good and the bad as I saw them:

The Good:

The competitions! Really a treat for a sports fan. In the States, I missed watching volleyball, handball and track/field. Bu now I have them all together. Badminton is always fun (watching the top players play gives me a sensation of watching human pin-balls). The marathon run around the city and the road bike race to the Great Wall were very photogenic. Although I don’t care for diving or gymnastics, they are surprisingly competitive even to my layman’s eye.

The soccer match between the Nigeria and Belgium is one of the most memorable in my life time. Had there not been so much Michael Phelps (over) coverage, I would have enjoyed swimming even more.

Track is perhaps the most exciting. I played so many ball games in my life, but I don’t always feel an adrenaline surge before every match. Track is different. I can always recall how hard my heart pumped every time I stood behind the starting line. The sensation of turning the last curve and seeing the finish line at the end of the track is beyond words. It is fair to say I play balls for fun but run for the adrenaline.

Yesterday, watched the marathon live on NBC. When the Kenyan runner (he was just so graceful) entered the stadium, the first shot was from his back with the bright light at the end of the tunnel in front of him. Immediately, the view switched to another camera that panned in half the stadium. When the dimunitive runner figure emerged from the tunnel, I could see the stadium erupted in cheers. I trembled. Good God.

The Bad:

I will save it for another day.

Read ????? (1 and 2) after Steve C recommended it. He asked me whether I can still “handle” China but I was interested in the central-local relationship.

The book is similar to a pretty stylized mini TV series: bad guys are bad all around and good guys are good inside out, “????”, etc. And there isn’t as much discussion of central-local tensions till the 2nd series, which, when it comes to that, is very revealing:

 ???????????????????????????????1994?????????????????1994???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Also, according to the book, the central transfers are often NOT included in local’s budgets! No wonder ????? become so prominent and prevalent.

Two years ago, I’d thought this is abnormal and is something that can be amended by policy or institutional design. Now, I don’t think so any more: the central-local tension is part of China political economy that is beyond regime or even civilization (????????????????????????????????????????????????????)

There is certainly an institutional design component: one may argue that focus on GDP, including the bias toward growth in cadre evaluation, calls for locals to game the system. Therefore, however hard the center tries, it still can’t make ?????–even when provincial heads are centrally appointed.

But defects in institutional design do not explain prevalent corruption. Not even the misaligned center-local interests can explain that. In other words, you can have very clean local officials who still undermine national economy in pursuit of local interests.

Corruption seems to be best explained by property rights (and its principal-agent implication). A national economy has a certain amount of endowed assets–land, natural resources or labor that can only be mobilized politically. The marketization of those assets is often a monopolized process (because the assets are considered public), particularly when there is a pretty strong government (i.e. an agent of public interests).

The natural conclusion is that it is an ill that cannot be solved by political reform alone (e.g. corrupt but democratic countries like India). It may solve the agency problem but certainly not the rights ill.

But how can one privatize public assets and keep them efficiently deployed without creating injustice? I think this is the real question. Is Norway a possible exception to this? I really need to study the Scandinavian countries more …

There were two explosions on buses in Kun Ming (??). The news hit NYT first but apparently has been on the news allover China.

Two thoughts go in parallel:

What the hell is going on in China? Is the explosion of riots in periphery harbinger of greater turmoil to come? As Ming Pao (??) suggests,

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????10 ???????2????55???????????????????????????????????????????????????

What is striking is that almost all of those riots happened at political/geographical periphery, with similar grievances and comparable destructive energy. But on the other end, at the center, all is too rosy: Taiwan seems never closer to returning than ever, the Olympics seems destined to be one of the most elaborate shows in Chinese history.

Is this a pattern–a bloating and self-delusional center with a deteriorating periphery–that has been repeated before? This is not a rhetorical question, but a genuine one. In the translation I did for Lavely and R. Bin Wong, they talked about how the Tai Ping Tian Guo was the result of collapsing local administrative capacities. But I wondered what the royal court looked like then? Was it also full of pump and circumstances?

The other thought:

What the hell is going on with Chinese media? Is there a quiet “????“ going on? Listen to this:

20???6?20???????????????????????????????????“??????????”?????“??????????????????”??????

???????????“???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????”

????“3·14?????”???????????????“??”???????????????

“6·28”???????????????????????????
?????????????1??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

And this article is from a magazine (????) that is the “trade journal” of the official media and is, I believe, under direct central control. Read closely, the logic is contorted–it is a stretch to suggest “??????????????????????????“. What is “obvious” to me is that this article is trying to construct a narrative and set a tone.

Is this a sign that some insiders are anxiously but cautiously trying to keep alive the opening after ??? I can’t help but wonder at what level this article is sanctioned? The fact that there was poor/old way of reporting of the 3.14 Tibetan riots suggests the old guards are still out there. Do they not smell out the wickedness in this article? Who in the Central Committee are they going to resort to? How are they going to fight back? Will this fight stay inside the party or spill out to the commercial media as well? Are there going to be a widespread rectification campaign after the Olympics–or even earlier?

??????,?”???????”. ?????, ???????????????5?????”??”.

??“??”???? ?????“????”:

“… ??????????????????????????????4??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????“6·28”????“????”… ??“??”?????????????????????????????google?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????”

????????”????????”. Although the title was inaccurate (Weng An is not part of the Gui Yang municipality), the connection may not be far off. But that is just fascinating!

1. China has had few (none notable enough that I read) semi-free elections (i.e. direct vote and open candidacy) beyond village level. That is something Whiting drilled into our heads. So how significant is this event?

2. The change of procedure comes right after a widely reported riot and amidst widespread cynicism, I don’t know whether this is a sign of weakness/desparation or that of confidence? How much this is used as a ploy to defuse tension, or is this an instance where local reformers/a new generation of leaders are trying to find space to maneuver?

3. Isn’t this an unique opportunity to measure/observe how ready (local) civic culture is to reshape politics? The setting is perfect: something dramatic is happening in the political periphery, like ????, ????, Deng’s reform, etc. If a participatory and disciplined civil culture is there but dormant under suppression, then this is an opportunity where a new equilibrium (it may take a long while) may form. However, if there is no such a civic culture, the vacuum will be soon re-filled by petty despotism.

What would Elizabeth Perry say?

I have been following what’s happening in ?? for several days. It is fascinating for the following reasons:
1. What makes a story explosive?
2. How efficient and effective the Net police is
3. The common damage control technique by the Chinese government

The most comprehensive and the closest to the event can be found here: http://xinwenshe.blogspot.com/ (see postings around 6.28.2008 and several days later, including a video posting)

To be explosive, a story has to have an innocent victim, an evil perpetrator, and an open ending. In this case, the victims are innocent or at least powerless: the rape-murder victim, her uncle and mother. The perpetrators are the police and street thugs. And an open ending is clearly an invitation for action.

The Net police is VERY efficient: two days later, there is scant trace left on the Chinese Net. In fact, when I used Baidu.com, it has suggested several keywords, such as: ????, ????, ??????, ????6.28??, ?????, etc. Many of the posting titles are listed there. However, after 14 random clicks on those with negative titles, only three are left. One (http://www.dongkou.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=11486) had the original posting deleted but nasty comments remained. Isn’t this interesting?

The damage control seems to be:
1. Physical isolation: the roads cut off, news media shut out and a surge of police force
2. Synchronizing message on the cause: it is a few bad guys (??????) with a large “confused” mob (???????)
3. Stick to the message: today, only one message left, such as: http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2008-07/01/content_8468856.htm

So far, I believe the government has succeeded in putting a lid on the event.

It was always a pleasure meeting like-minded folks. This is true for hillbilly racists, white working class laborers, liberation theologists, too-poor-to-own-property-but-enough-to-afford-a-latte-a-day liberal activists. So is it true for immigrant intellectuals from the Orient.

ZDS is a professor in law school. We are of the same age but took quite different routes to the same spatial and temporal location as we did this afternoon… that is too much. We met in his office about my coal mine paper.

But the conversation diverged soon after. I am pleasantly surprised that he’s a fan of Foucault and Said too (more so of the latter and P Bourdieu). His has a insightful view concerning the two: Foucault is too concerned with domination and permeation. Said, however, expands Foucault’s thesis and dares to contest the symbols that were created by the powerful.

Our different views of recent events: Tibet, 08 election and the Western liberal democracy, echo our choice of favorite between Said and Foucault. I suspect his training in law and legislation breeds in him a more optimistic outlook for the outcast surviving in democracy. After all, his job is to protect the right to be different.

I am much more pessimistic about where the liberal legacy in the U.S. is heading to. Now think of it, I may have been “shocked and awed” by the collective reactions following 9.11. But the force of conformity is unmistakeable.

Will an Obama presidency change the paranoia, the hysteria of fear and the intolerance of dissent? To me, that is the hypocracy and the weakness of popular democracy, for it creates a paradox that is unsolvable: even if Obama’s election will change the political ethos of our time, he cannot win unless sufficient majority are ready for the change. If, just for the argument’s sake, the majority is wrong, irrational or stupid, what’s in liberal democracy that can bring a change to this sorry reality?

???: ????????????????????????????????????????????????
http://baike.baidu.com/view/278.htm

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http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/8610990.html

??????????
http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/19602865.html

????????????????2002?1?1??????????????????????????????
http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/39533017.html?fr=qrl

????????local tax revenue
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http://www.gz.xinhuanet.com/zfpd/2006-12/07/content_8726866.htm

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2004???????????2521.5????13????????????8??????5???????165????????7.9?????????1572????????????62.3????????????????????650???????????????????88??
http://www.snbinxian.gov.cn/Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=6599

“8.7”???????“8.7”?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
http://www.gdltax.gov.cn/admin/vfs/gd/content/contentTemplate.jsp?ContentId=1006356&siteName=gd&styleName=blue

???????????????????????????2000???????500???????????2031??????????????????????????????????????????????60%??
http://www.ycrx.com/v2005/2008-2/2008217212228.htm

Common reasons of why …
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Additional investment in coal mines
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Tim Wright’s theme
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http://www.dss.gov.cn/rdzt/jxzy.htm