Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Is this the same Ishihara that wrote The Japan That Can Say "No!" years ago?

The Japan That Can Say "No!"

Yes.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

He has also generated controversy over support for nationalism and several displays of racism, historical revisionism and sexism.

No :arrow: 's for Shintaro.

Chinese toxic spill ‘may threaten food chain’

By Geoff Dyer in Harbin, Richard McGregor in Beijing and Neil Buckley in Moscow
Published: November 24 2005 23:32 | Last updated: November 25 2005 10:11



As temperatures plummet in China’s north-eastern province of Heilongjiang on Friday, millions of residents in the city of Harbin remain without water as authorities evacuate hundreds of villagers living along the contaminated Songhua River.

Two Chinese environmental experts warned on Thursday there was a risk of dangerous chemicals getting into the food chain in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang because of the toxic slick in the River.

The warning came as authorities in Russia considered imposing a state of emergency today in the border city of Khabarovsk amid fears that it could be hit by the chemicals spill, caused 12 days ago by an explosion at a petrochemical plant.

On Thursday, the poisonous slick of benzene and other toxins reached the outskirts of Harbin, a large industrial city in the north-east, which draws drinking water from the river. Its 4m residents have had their water cut off for four days because of the pollution scare.

Gao Zhong, a water expert who runs the non-governmental organisation Clean Water, said the chemicals could be dangerous because the slick was moving very slowly along the river.

“If it stays there for a certain length of time, the land beside the river will absorb the chemicals and they could get into the food chain,” said Mr Gao. “If the contamination was bad, it could take several years to eradicate the chemicals.”

Cui Guangbo at Hehai University in Nanjing said the slow pace of the river – always low during the winter – was increasing the risks of considerable environmental damage.

According to the Xinhua news agency, the Chinese environmental administration said the riverbanks near the chemical plant, 200km from Harbin, contained 100 times more than the normal levels of chemicals such as benzene.

In Russia, Yuri Trutnev, Russia’s environmental protection minister, said all steps would be taken to ensure there was no health risk to the residents of Khabarovsk. He called for more information from the Chinese. Khabarovsk, home to more than half a million, draws its drinking water from the Amur River, which flows from China to Russia. The Songhua is a tributary.

In Beijing, Zhang Lijun, the vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Agency, said the slick would not reach Russia for 14 days and promised to keep the authorities there informed.

He blamed the accident on PetroChina, China’s largest energy company, which owns and operates the plant where the blast occurred. He declined to say whether it would be fined or its managers prosecuted.

PetroChina, in a statement on its website, apologised for the “inconvenience” caused by the spill.

The crisis in Harbin was discussed at a meeting of the State Council, China’s cabinet, which had been called to discuss environmental policies. “The environmental situation is grim,” Wen Jiabao, the premier, told the meeting, state media said.








Find this article at:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/517d0e64-5d...cl=,s01=1.html

Cover-up raises fears over bird flu
By Geoff Dyer in Harbin
Published: November 24 2005 23:24 | Last updated: November 24 2005 23:24

Two of the most pressing problems facing the Chinese government crossed paths on Thursday at a modest collection of buildings in the north-eastern city of Harbin, just round the corner from an old Russian Orthodox church.

The Harbin Veterinary Research Institute has been at the forefront of China’s efforts to contain the bird flu epidemic. Since the government announced a massive bird vaccination campaign earlier this month, the institute has been working overtime to produce as many as 20m doses a day of the vaccine its researchers invented.

However, vaccine manufacturing was put at risk this week when the local authorities announced they were suspending the city’s water supplies because of a chemical spill from a plant 200km away that was fast approaching the city. Not only is water used in producing the vaccine, but a plentiful supply of high-quality water is needed to keep the machinery clean.

The Harbin authorities have come under attack over the last two days for concealing the threat from the chemical spill and then providing misleading information – a response to health risks that has been seen elsewhere in China, most notably during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak.

Yet the response in Harbin this week has also underlined another prominent Chinese trait, the capacity to deliver swift logistical relief in times of crisis, especially if it involves solving a delicate engineering problem.

The veterinary institute only discovered the water cuts on Tuesday, when they were formally announced. Within hours, it had applied to the city government for permission to dig a well and had secured the services of a local construction company.

Digging began at 3pm on Tuesday, in the compound of the institute’s downtown plant, and by Wednesday morning the well was completed. The well can supply 50 tonnes of water an hour, enough to meet the 400 tonnes needed daily to support vaccine production. By yesterday, normal production had resumed.

“It is not as difficult as it sounds,” said Zhang Xiaopeng, an official at the institute. “At this time of year, only the first couple of metres were frozen and the geological structure of Harbin makes it relatively easy to find water.”

The digging at the institute is part of a flurry of engineering activity around the town to locate alternative sources of water to keep important facilities, such as hospitals and power plants, going.

Although vaccine production is no longer under threat, analysts believe the initial response to the problem does not inspire confidence over the bird flu threat.

Andy Rothman, an economist at CLSA in Shanghai, says the danger is that officials treat a wider outbreak of bird flu in the same way they first responded to the chemical accident. “The accident and initial cover-up illustrate the problems Beijing faces in managing the bird flu problem,” he said.


Find this article at:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/611f69ca-5d...cl=,s01=1.html

China looks to be moving away from the USD, says Financial Times.

Originally Posted by eekelsey

China looks to be moving away from the USD, says Financial Times.

That's huge. A lot is riding on that.

From the New York Times via theInternational Herald Tribune. For non-profit educational and discussion purposes only.

Microsoft's shutdown of Chinese blog is condemned
By David Barboza and Tom Zeller Jr. The New York Times

SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2006


BEIJING: Microsoft's decision to shut down the site of a well-known Chinese blogger was the latest in a series of measures in which some of the biggest technology companies have cooperated with Beijing to curb dissent or free speech online.

Microsoft drew criticism last summer when it was discovered that its blog tool in China was designed to filter words like ''democracy'' and ''human rights'' from blog titles. The company said this week that it must ''comply with global and local laws.''

''This is a complex and difficult issue,'' said Brooke Richardson, a group product manager for MSN in Seattle. ''We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.''

The site pulled down this past week was a popular one created by Zhao Jing, a well-known blogger with an online pen name, An Ti. Zhao, 30, also works as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

The blog was removed last week from a Microsoft service called MSN Spaces after the blog discussed the firing of the independent-minded editor of The Beijing News, which prompted about 100 journalists at the paper to go on strike on Dec. 29. It was an unusual show of solidarity for a Chinese news organization in an industry that has long complied with tight restrictions on what can be published.

The move by Microsoft came at a time when the Chinese government is stepping up its own efforts to crack down on press freedom. Several prominent editors and journalists have been jailed in China over the past few years and charged with everything from espionage to revealing state secrets.

Another research assistant for The Times, Zhao Yan (no relation to Zhao Jing), was indicted last month on charges that he had passed state secrets to the newspaper, which published a report in 2004 about the timing of Jiang Zemin's decision to give up the country's top military post.

China closely monitors what people here post on the Internet, and the government regularly shuts down Web sites and deletes postings that are considered antigovernment. A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company had blocked ''many sites'' in China. The MSN Spaces sites are maintained on computer servers in the United States.

Richardson of Microsoft said Zhao's site was taken down after the Chinese authorities made a request through a Shanghai-based affiliate of the company.

The shutdown drew attention and condemnation elsewhere online. Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, wrote on her blog, referring to Microsoft and other technology companies: ''Can we be sure they won't do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an overzealous government agency in our own country?''

Robert Scoble, a blogger and Microsoft's official ''technology evangelist,'' took a public stand against the action.

''This one is depressing to me,'' he wrote. ''It's one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It's another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger's work.''

Another American online service operating in China, Yahoo, was widely criticized in the autumn after it was revealed that the company had provided Chinese authorities with information that led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist who kept a personal e-mail account with Yahoo. Yahoo also defended its action by saying it was forced to comply with local law.

Zhao is so well known as a blogger that he served as China's lone jury member last year in Germany for a world blog competition.

Zhao, in an interview, said he had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was regularly censored in China, even though he had tried to be careful not to write about significant issues related to his work at The Times.

He was apparently one of the first on the Internet to mention that several editors could be fired from The Beijing News. He said he posted something about possible firings on Dec. 28. Two days later, after the top editor there was dismissed, Reuters reported that about a hundred journalists had gone on strike over the dispute and added that several Chinese blogs and Internet chat rooms were discussing the issue. The report said Zhao had used his blog to urge readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Zhao said in the interview that Microsoft had deleted his blog with no warning.

''I didn't even say I supported the strike,'' he said. ''This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech. They even deleted my blog and gave me no chance to back up my files without any warning.''

BEIJING: Microsoft's decision to shut down the site of a well-known Chinese blogger was the latest in a series of measures in which some of the biggest technology companies have cooperated with Beijing to curb dissent or free speech online.

Microsoft drew criticism last summer when it was discovered that its blog tool in China was designed to filter words like ''democracy'' and ''human rights'' from blog titles. The company said this week that it must ''comply with global and local laws.''

''This is a complex and difficult issue,'' said Brooke Richardson, a group product manager for MSN in Seattle. ''We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.''

The site pulled down this past week was a popular one created by Zhao Jing, a well-known blogger with an online pen name, An Ti. Zhao, 30, also works as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

The blog was removed last week from a Microsoft service called MSN Spaces after the blog discussed the firing of the independent-minded editor of The Beijing News, which prompted about 100 journalists at the paper to go on strike on Dec. 29. It was an unusual show of solidarity for a Chinese news organization in an industry that has long complied with tight restrictions on what can be published.

The move by Microsoft came at a time when the Chinese government is stepping up its own efforts to crack down on press freedom. Several prominent editors and journalists have been jailed in China over the past few years and charged with everything from espionage to revealing state secrets.

Another research assistant for The Times, Zhao Yan (no relation to Zhao Jing), was indicted last month on charges that he had passed state secrets to the newspaper, which published a report in 2004 about the timing of Jiang Zemin's decision to give up the country's top military post.

China closely monitors what people here post on the Internet, and the government regularly shuts down Web sites and deletes postings that are considered antigovernment. A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company had blocked ''many sites'' in China. The MSN Spaces sites are maintained on computer servers in the United States.

Richardson of Microsoft said Zhao's site was taken down after the Chinese authorities made a request through a Shanghai-based affiliate of the company.

The shutdown drew attention and condemnation elsewhere online. Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, wrote on her blog, referring to Microsoft and other technology companies: ''Can we be sure they won't do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an overzealous government agency in our own country?''

Robert Scoble, a blogger and Microsoft's official ''technology evangelist,'' took a public stand against the action.

''This one is depressing to me,'' he wrote. ''It's one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It's another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger's work.''

Another American online service operating in China, Yahoo, was widely criticized in the autumn after it was revealed that the company had provided Chinese authorities with information that led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist who kept a personal e-mail account with Yahoo. Yahoo also defended its action by saying it was forced to comply with local law.

Zhao is so well known as a blogger that he served as China's lone jury member last year in Germany for a world blog competition.

Zhao, in an interview, said he had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was regularly censored in China, even though he had tried to be careful not to write about significant issues related to his work at The Times.

He was apparently one of the first on the Internet to mention that several editors could be fired from The Beijing News. He said he posted something about possible firings on Dec. 28. Two days later, after the top editor there was dismissed, Reuters reported that about a hundred journalists had gone on strike over the dispute and added that several Chinese blogs and Internet chat rooms were discussing the issue. The report said Zhao had used his blog to urge readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Zhao said in the interview that Microsoft had deleted his blog with no warning.

''I didn't even say I supported the strike,'' he said. ''This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech. They even deleted my blog and gave me no chance to back up my files without any warning.''

BEIJING: Microsoft's decision to shut down the site of a well-known Chinese blogger was the latest in a series of measures in which some of the biggest technology companies have cooperated with Beijing to curb dissent or free speech online.

Microsoft drew criticism last summer when it was discovered that its blog tool in China was designed to filter words like ''democracy'' and ''human rights'' from blog titles. The company said this week that it must ''comply with global and local laws.''

''This is a complex and difficult issue,'' said Brooke Richardson, a group product manager for MSN in Seattle. ''We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.''

The site pulled down this past week was a popular one created by Zhao Jing, a well-known blogger with an online pen name, An Ti. Zhao, 30, also works as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

The blog was removed last week from a Microsoft service called MSN Spaces after the blog discussed the firing of the independent-minded editor of The Beijing News, which prompted about 100 journalists at the paper to go on strike on Dec. 29. It was an unusual show of solidarity for a Chinese news organization in an industry that has long complied with tight restrictions on what can be published.

The move by Microsoft came at a time when the Chinese government is stepping up its own efforts to crack down on press freedom. Several prominent editors and journalists have been jailed in China over the past few years and charged with everything from espionage to revealing state secrets.

Another research assistant for The Times, Zhao Yan (no relation to Zhao Jing), was indicted last month on charges that he had passed state secrets to the newspaper, which published a report in 2004 about the timing of Jiang Zemin's decision to give up the country's top military post.

China closely monitors what people here post on the Internet, and the government regularly shuts down Web sites and deletes postings that are considered antigovernment. A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company had blocked ''many sites'' in China. The MSN Spaces sites are maintained on computer servers in the United States.

Richardson of Microsoft said Zhao's site was taken down after the Chinese authorities made a request through a Shanghai-based affiliate of the company.

The shutdown drew attention and condemnation elsewhere online. Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, wrote on her blog, referring to Microsoft and other technology companies: ''Can we be sure they won't do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an overzealous government agency in our own country?''

Robert Scoble, a blogger and Microsoft's official ''technology evangelist,'' took a public stand against the action.

''This one is depressing to me,'' he wrote. ''It's one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It's another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger's work.''

Another American online service operating in China, Yahoo, was widely criticized in the autumn after it was revealed that the company had provided Chinese authorities with information that led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist who kept a personal e-mail account with Yahoo. Yahoo also defended its action by saying it was forced to comply with local law.

Zhao is so well known as a blogger that he served as China's lone jury member last year in Germany for a world blog competition.

Zhao, in an interview, said he had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was regularly censored in China, even though he had tried to be careful not to write about significant issues related to his work at The Times.

He was apparently one of the first on the Internet to mention that several editors could be fired from The Beijing News. He said he posted something about possible firings on Dec. 28. Two days later, after the top editor there was dismissed, Reuters reported that about a hundred journalists had gone on strike over the dispute and added that several Chinese blogs and Internet chat rooms were discussing the issue. The report said Zhao had used his blog to urge readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Zhao said in the interview that Microsoft had deleted his blog with no warning.

''I didn't even say I supported the strike,'' he said. ''This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech. They even deleted my blog and gave me no chance to back up my files without any warning.''

BEIJING: Microsoft's decision to shut down the site of a well-known Chinese blogger was the latest in a series of measures in which some of the biggest technology companies have cooperated with Beijing to curb dissent or free speech online.

Microsoft drew criticism last summer when it was discovered that its blog tool in China was designed to filter words like ''democracy'' and ''human rights'' from blog titles. The company said this week that it must ''comply with global and local laws.''

''This is a complex and difficult issue,'' said Brooke Richardson, a group product manager for MSN in Seattle. ''We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.''

The site pulled down this past week was a popular one created by Zhao Jing, a well-known blogger with an online pen name, An Ti. Zhao, 30, also works as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

The blog was removed last week from a Microsoft service called MSN Spaces after the blog discussed the firing of the independent-minded editor of The Beijing News, which prompted about 100 journalists at the paper to go on strike on Dec. 29. It was an unusual show of solidarity for a Chinese news organization in an industry that has long complied with tight restrictions on what can be published.

The move by Microsoft came at a time when the Chinese government is stepping up its own efforts to crack down on press freedom. Several prominent editors and journalists have been jailed in China over the past few years and charged with everything from espionage to revealing state secrets.

Another research assistant for The Times, Zhao Yan (no relation to Zhao Jing), was indicted last month on charges that he had passed state secrets to the newspaper, which published a report in 2004 about the timing of Jiang Zemin's decision to give up the country's top military post.

China closely monitors what people here post on the Internet, and the government regularly shuts down Web sites and deletes postings that are considered antigovernment. A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company had blocked ''many sites'' in China. The MSN Spaces sites are maintained on computer servers in the United States.

Richardson of Microsoft said Zhao's site was taken down after the Chinese authorities made a request through a Shanghai-based affiliate of the company.

The shutdown drew attention and condemnation elsewhere online. Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, wrote on her blog, referring to Microsoft and other technology companies: ''Can we be sure they won't do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an overzealous government agency in our own country?''

Robert Scoble, a blogger and Microsoft's official ''technology evangelist,'' took a public stand against the action.

''This one is depressing to me,'' he wrote. ''It's one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It's another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger's work.''

Another American online service operating in China, Yahoo, was widely criticized in the autumn after it was revealed that the company had provided Chinese authorities with information that led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist who kept a personal e-mail account with Yahoo. Yahoo also defended its action by saying it was forced to comply with local law.

Zhao is so well known as a blogger that he served as China's lone jury member last year in Germany for a world blog competition.

Zhao, in an interview, said he had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was regularly censored in China, even though he had tried to be careful not to write about significant issues related to his work at The Times.

He was apparently one of the first on the Internet to mention that several editors could be fired from The Beijing News. He said he posted something about possible firings on Dec. 28. Two days later, after the top editor there was dismissed, Reuters reported that about a hundred journalists had gone on strike over the dispute and added that several Chinese blogs and Internet chat rooms were discussing the issue. The report said Zhao had used his blog to urge readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Zhao said in the interview that Microsoft had deleted his blog with no warning.

''I didn't even say I supported the strike,'' he said. ''This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech. They even deleted my blog and gave me no chance to back up my files without any warning.''

China faces water crisis:
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1230-tina_butler.html

Water crisis worsening:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...zwQ&refer=asia

Warning on Taiwan:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4781656.stm

http://www.christiansciencemonitor.c...1s02-woap.html

The PRC government is trying to weather the Unraveling by any means necessary. Christianity, Maoism, Buddhism, Confucism... they're all there. At this rate I expect a PRC-led Falun Gong group soon.

What's going on? Here's the key graf:

Originally Posted by Christian Science Monitor

"Mao and Deng [Xiaoping] were really good at speeches, writing articles, and getting people excited," says Yang Zhaohui, a professor of humanities at Beijing University. "They had won the war against Chiang Kai-shek. But today is a different climate. Hu and [Premier] Wen [Jiabao] are engineers. They don't have experience creating ideology."

In other words, they're Silents, not GI's. This explains the "China's peaceful rise" phenomenon: as long as China is led by Silent, there is no danger; they're stable people working for stability.

Now when the Boomers finally reach power in China (maybe another ten years?), it'll be time to watch out. The Chinese Awakening was the Cultural Revolution, and it was really, really nasty. I don't want to think about what those people are like now. *shiver*

Damn good point.

An interesting book review:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD22Ad01.html

Chinese Turnings and Generations

The following is my take on listing the Chinese turnings and
generations for the last two saeculae.

1852-73: Taiping era (Crisis)

This is the crisis period that triggered the unification of China
into a single country, rather than a group of independent provinces.
The major war was the Taiping Rebellion, but there were other revolts
in other parts of China. (This is an example of what's called
"merging timelines," when different regions with separate timelines
merge together into a single timeline.) The principal revolts were
the following:

> 1850-64 Taiping Rebellion (Eastern China)
> 1851-68 Nian Rebellion (Central China)
> 1855-73 Muslim (Panthay) rebellion in Yunnan (Southern China)
> 1862-73 Muslim revolt in Shaanxi and Gansu (Northwest China)

Humiliated Generation (Artists) - Growing up during this
enormous and bloody civil war, they missed their chance for the
fight. As adults, they and all of China were humiliated in 1895 in
the Sino-Japanese war.

1874-94: Self-strengthening era (Austerity/High)

The Austerity era began with the “Self-Strengthening Movement," the
study of Western skills, government, technology and industry. China
had been humiliated in the Opium Wars of the 1840s, and it was argued
that China could become stronger by learning Western ways and
adapting them to Chinese culture. It was successful, and the next few
decades saw China advance far towards catching up with the rest of
the world in technology, finance and trade.

Revolutionary Generation (Prophets) - Remarkably, Taiping era
crisis did not dislodge the government of the Qing dynasty of the
Manchus, although the Manchus (from Manchuria), had governed China for
centuries. This generation first brought down the Manchus, in 1912,
and then led the Communist Revolution.

1894-1918: Revolutionary Awakening (Awakening era)

The Awakening era began with the first of many attempts to overthrow
the Qing dynasty by means of secret revolutionary societies. The
first was formed by Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), who failed and was
forced to flee to Hawaii and the United States, but later returned
after the success of the 1911 revolution to become President.

As soon as the 1894 revolution failed, China was defeated and
humiliated by the 1895 Sino-Japanese War. China was forced to sign a
treaty which ceded Korea, Taiwan and other territories to Japan, a
small neighbor on whom China had formerly looked on condescendingly.

The 1911 Chinese Revolution replaced the Qing Dynasty with a Republic
which lasted only two years, and was replaced in turn by a military
dictatorship.

The Awakening era ended with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and
the formation of the Communist International (Comintern) and its plan
to conquer the world.

??? Generation (Nomads) -

1918-1934 Warlord Period (Unraveling era)

There were massive student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and
elsewhere in 1919, resulting in a student union of the Republic of
China.

The central government disintegrated, leaving power in the the hands
of small groups of militarists and their armies in constant battles
for power. This led to the formation of two power groups:

-- In 1921, the Communist Party was formed in Shanghai. Mao Zedong
(1893-1976) rose to prominence in the Party after a clash in 1925 with
the KMT.

-- In 1922, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) formed what
was to become the Nationalist party or KMT (Kuomintang Party).

The two factions fought through an unraveling war until Mao and his
army was surrounded and faced with defeat in 1934.

Communist Generation (Heroes)

All the separate revolts and rebellions of the Taiping era were now
merged into a single civil war between the Mao and Chian, resulting
in the victory of the Communist Revolution.

1934-49 Communist Revolution (Crisis era)

Mao escaped the encirclement through the Long March, the longest
retreat in history, lasting a year. This began the civil war.

The two sides were forced to unify because of Japan's invasion,
especially after the "Rape of Nanjing" in December 1937.

The civil war resumed after WW II, forcing the nationalists onto
Taiwan.

Preparatory Generation (Artists)

Led by the current president, Hu Jintao, this generation has been
preparing China for its greatest challenge, all-out war with the U.S.,
Japan and India.

1949-1965 The People's Republic (Austerity/High era)

Mao consolidated his power by executing millions of people in the
1950s. Mao said "Let a hundred flowers bloom," meaning that free
expression should be encouraged, but intellectuals who expressed
grievances were executed or sent off the work camps.

The worst was Mao's Great Leap Forward, 1958-60, during which some 20
to 30 million people died of starvation in a man-made famine. This
was a disaster of almost unimaginable proportions and created many
enemies for Mao.

Miserable Generation (Prophets)

I call them the "Miserable Generation," a name that I picked up
several years ago in an article by a Chinese author. They were
starved by Mao's Great Leap Forward, and they got no education,
thanks to Mao's Great Cultural Revolution. They turned into a
political force after he 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and now
their Falun Gong movement is being violently suppressed.

1965-89 Cultural Revolution (Awakening era)

To retaliate against his enemies, Mao launched the Great Cultural
Revolution (1965-68 ) and formed the Red Guards, mostly young
students, to implement the assault on dissidents. They brought the
country to the verge of chaos, carrying out summary execution, forcing
tens of thousands from their homes or into labor camps. Schools and
universities were shut down for several years.

During this period, China developed a rapprochement with the United
States, joined the United Nations, instituted many educational and
government reforms, and launched the "Democracy Wall" movement. In
1980, China launched the "one-child" policy. By the end of the era,
Mao was openly criticized.

Tiananmen Generation (Nomads)

Growing up in the aftermath of the chaos of the cultural revolution,
this generation formed the bulk of the millions of students that
crowded into Tiananmen Square in 1989.

1989-present Falun Gong era (Unraveling era)

The era was launched by the Tiananmen Square massacre, creating
triggering the huge movement, followers of the Falun Gong. Their
leaders believe it to be the modern version of the God-Worshipper's
Society, a spiritual movement which launched the Taiping Rebellion,
and was a form of Christianity combined with Buddhism. By 1999 the
movement was so widespread that Beijing clamped down on it. It's
rumored that millions of adherents have been jailed.

Today, China's social structure is unraveling rapidly, as can be seen
from from the tens of thousands of regional rebellions each year,
over 100 million migrant workers, high food prices, high rust belt
unemployment, addiction to a bubble economy, unraveling of Mao's
social structure and secessionist provinces.

One-child Generation (Heroes) - This generation bore the
brunt of the one-child policy which has created an enormous surplus
of young males, meaning that a large segment of this generation will
never get married. This generation almost has nothing to lose by
going to war -- against Beijing, against Japan, or against the U.S.
And they will be guided by the last Prophets - the Miserables -- and
supported by the last Nomads -- the Tiananmens.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Xenakis,

Are you aware that the Chinese have their own numerical system for counting generations, at least in the Communist era?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generat...ese_leadership

According to this system:

First Generation = Revolutionary (Prophets)
Second Generation = ??? (Nomads)
Third Generation = Communist (Heroes)
Fourth Generation = Prepatory (Artists)
Fifth Generation = Miserable (Prophets)
Sixth Generation = Tiananmen (Nomads)

The One-child Generation is just entering Chinese government service; they have not yet been dubbed the Seventh Generation, but they will be.

Of course this system only counts generations that have been alive since the founding of the PRC, and thus ignores all timelines before. I imagine the seperate timelines for north and south China before this would be very, very interesting.

To clarify my previous statement: the current Fourth/Prepatory Generation is in power, causing "China's peaceful rise" (as they are Artists). The Fifth/Miserable Generation, like most Prophet generations, is split in half between Falun Gong types who want the crisis to be inward-directed (reform of China) and the imperalist types who want the crisis to be outward-directed (aggressive capture of territory by political, economic, and military means).

The Sixth/Tianenmen generation is probably the key. Like their Xer counterparts in the States, some have gotten rich in the economic chaos of restructuring, while others have suffered. In 1989 they demonstrated for democracy: will they do so again when the Crisis hits, i.e., a little after the Fifth Generation takes power?

Originally Posted by catfishncod

Of course this system only counts generations that have been alive since the founding of the PRC, and thus ignores all timelines before. I imagine the separate timelines for north and south China before this would be very, very interesting.

I came to a similar conclusion during a brief attempt to generationalize China a while back. I didn't try to go earlier, as China seemed thoroughly destabilized by outside interference, by attempts to exploit and westernize so quickly there was nothing by different eras of crisis.

To all:

A regular correspondent has sent me the following comments on my
posting on "Chinese Turnings and Generations." This person has,
several times in the past, argued that my views on China and Mao are
more disapproving than they should be, and he argues the same this
time. My comments are in italics.

You point out the "unimaginable proportions" of the 20-30M dead
during GLF [Great Leap Forward], but that was tiny compared to
the 60M-100M dead from the Taiping period 1850-1873.

The dead during GLF were <5% of the population of ~600M, the dead
during Taiping and aftermath were >15% of the ~400M population.

Taiping was the second bloodiest conflict in world history.

You also omit the involvement of Europe in the Taiping Holocaust which
had its roots in the early 1800's, when the West finally found a
product that the Chinese actually wanted, opium, and thus used that as
a lever to grow their trade.

Opium was central to this entire period.

Their Unravelling was the Opium Wars to open China to more trade with
Europe. Ie buy the products that they were getting by robbing India.

BTW: It was the banning of opium by the Taiping government that led
the Euros to support the Qing with cannons and men.

Finally, both Mao and Chiang Kai-shek were heavily inspired by Taiping
in many of their approaches.

WRT: GLF starvation, the blame belongs not just at Mao's feet, but
also the Soviets who cut off aid, and the US, UK, Japanese feet who
embargoed the country, which drove them to need Soviet assistance in
the first place and forced the GLF as a form of import substitution.

Incidentally, import substitution was the chosen economic form
throughout the third world after the end of colonialism.

Minor corrections: it's Sun Yat-sen, he was born in Zhongshan [I
corrected the posting.]

Mao didn't found the CCP, in fact he rose to prominence when he led a
revolt in 1925 against the Stalinist faction that wanted the CCP to
stay allied with the KMT. [I corrected the posting.] This is
an ok link, I just quickly found.... I've read better but it's a
decent start.
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/~dee/MODCHINA/COMM.HTM

The 2-5M killings in the early 50's weren't about Mao's personal
power, but were the finishing up of the civil war and consolidating
land reform and expropriations more generally. [Maybe, but they
were on Mao's watch so he gets blamed for them.]

Miserable Generation vs Commune Kids

I don't buy the Miserable Generation moniker, or at least I don't buy
the reasons given. And it doesn't get at the real source of the
misery. The reason they are miserable is that they were raised for
one type of society and then it changed on them (and paradoxically,
even because of them).

Their life has definitely been Mister Toad's Wild Ride, but the
bottom line was they were the "Commune Kids."

[The name "Commune Kids" sounds way too sweet and nice, and doesn't
convey the horror of the Great Leap Forward.

500,000,000 million peasants were taken out of their individual
homes and put into communes, creating a massive human work force. The
workers were organized along military lines of companies, battalions,
and brigades. Each person's activities were rigidly supervised.

The family unit was dismantled. Communes were completely
segregated, with children, wives and husbands all living in separate
barracks and working in separate battalions. Communal living was
emphasized by eating, sleeping, and working in teams. Husbands and
wives were allowed to be alone only at certain times of the month and
only for brief periods. (This was also a birth control technique.)

All workers took part in ideological training sessions, to
provide for ideological training of the Chinese masses.

Mao's stipulated purpose was to mobilize the entire population to
transform China into a socialist powerhouse -- producing both food and
industrial goods -- much faster than might otherwise be possible.
This would be both a national triumph and an ideological triumph,
proving to the world that socialism could triumph over capitalism.

Crop harvests plummeted thanks to this craziness, but Mao dismantled
the Central Statistical Bureau for ideological reasons, so that no
one knew how bad the situation was. By the time people realized what
was happening, it was too late to do anything, and tens of millions
died of starvation. - JX]

I see them as victims of the ending of the Maoist phase. They were
well prepared to live in a socialist society, but not in the society
that came after Mao. Thus they are somewhat disillusioned now,
especially with the Party, but less so with socialist ideals.

Falon Gong [or Falun Gong] practice is an expression of their
desire to find calm and self-fulfillment against a backdrop of not
having well developed their individuality during their formative
years, yet having to function in their adult years in an increasingly
individualistic and competitive environment.

I think some (not a majority) in that generation in retrospect feel
their individuality was stifled on the communes, their relationships
with their parents were strained and they were whipsawed in the
course of confusing ideological struggles where their struggles for
socialism (or against hierarchy) failed the more they succeeded.

When they were Red Guards, their attacks on traditional Confucian and
Imperial culture, for example, led to a huge flowering of new culture
that synthesized individualistic elements from various countries,
which in turn led to the vibrant new capitalist culture. They
challenged state bureaucrats for being out of touch with real
production, but the result is that the state run enterprises have
been privatized with managers who are ruthlessly in touch. For the
benefit of the society they enforced the 1-child policy and got
population growth under control, but then raised a generation of
only-child spoiled princes and princesses.

They must feel like they were squeezing water balloons, and just
shifting the water somewhere else.

I can see intellectuals (like the type who would write the book you
mention) whose families lost property or businesses or who didn't
want to work on a rural commune during the GPCR were pissed off, but
the average person from that generation was living way better than
their forebears in terms of food and education during their youth.

[It was an an article rather than a book, and I've reproduced it
in the next posting.]

This was a class struggle, so some people, large in absolute terms,
but still a minority, lost big; and others, the majority, won big.

Education:

How could their education be worse than their illiterate parents?
That's a complete joke.

[The correct comparison is to the education they might have had,
or to the education of contemporaries in other countries.]

They were certainly given strong primary education.

During the Cultural Revolution there was a big emphasis on combining
work and education together, what we would consider today to be like
coop programs or internships. The Barefoot Doctor program created
incredibly large numbers of health practitioners. The intellectuals
who were sent to the countryside were supposed to be part of a two-way
education where they would bring their university smarts to the
peasants and they would learn about farming and the cultures of the
people they were living among. We call these Exchange Programs in
America.

That said, emphasis on practical agricultural or medical knowledge is
not necessarily good for career advancement.

Food:

There was a massive increase of food post-49, up >70% by 57, cut in
half during the famine 59-61 (but still above '49 levels), and didn't
reach 57 levels again til '65.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/U8050t/u8050t03.htm

I have read elsewhere in UN literature that their agricultural growth
from 49-57 was one of the fastest in recorded world history.

The GLF famine dead were on par with the famine dead during the civil
war period, so I can't see them being more miserable than their
parents in that respect.

[You're "supposed" to have famine during a genocidal crisis war,
which is what the civil war was. To have a famine due to government
incompetence when there's no war is quite a different thing.]

Miserable Generation

Here's the 2004 article on the "Miserable Generation" that I referred
to:

China's lost generation: Middle-aged missing out on nation's
ascension

By Michael A. Lev

Chicago Tribune

> >>>Picture caption: HUANG WEI / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS . Liu
> Cong Ren, 53, sells socks and underwear from a cart to other
> laid-off workers in Shenyang, China, earning about $120 a month.
> "We're the bottom rung of society," he says.

SHENYANG, China --- They have no official identity like "baby boomer,"
but many Chinese workers born in the cities in the 1950s recognize
themselves demographically.

"We are the Miserable Generation," said Li Shan, a 46-year-old
unemployed textile worker.

As small children they could not get enough to eat. That was their
fate during Chairman Mao Tse-tung's horrifically mismanaged Great Leap
Forward of 1958-60, when collectivized farming led to famine.

By age 12 or so their educational careers were effectively over,
stunted by the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when classroom teaching
was replaced by virulent political indoctrination. Many teenagers were
banished to the fields as slave laborers.

Their working lives ended disastrously early as well, in their 40s,
when they were laid off by their antiquated state-run factories as the
old socialist economy was usurped by the dynamic new
private-enterprise system.

Now in their 40s and 50s, the millions of the Miserable Generation
survive on state handouts or what they can scrounge from the underside
of China's economy.

They have been left behind in the race to modernize. No one will hire
them. They cannot go back to school. They are trapped by the
misfortune of their birth dates.

In the picture that China presents to the world as a nation of factory
boomtowns, the Miserable Generation is invisible. But politically it
is dynamite, emblematic of as many as 100 million of the 400 million
people in the cities who have been discarded by China as it hurtles
forward in its extraordinary transition from communism to capitalism.

If these losers in the new China were to abandon their faith in the
system, they could become a serious challenge to the authoritarian
rule of the Communist Party. Already, street protests have become
common when bankrupt factories fall behind on severance payments.

But talk to those who are struggling in the northern rust-belt city of
Shenyang and other hollowed-out industrial regions across the country
and few of the Miserable Generation sound as angry as might be
expected.

To be sure, many are resigned to their fates, powerless to complain.
But others still buy into the idea that there is something in China
for them to support because they can sense that --- if not for
themselves, for their children --- China is changing for the better.

"It's true, it's been a bitter life," said Kang Guo Hua, 46, who works
long hours as a taxi driver in Shenyang. "But there's no use
complaining. My philosophy is you should work harder."

This may be the most remarkable fact about the Miserable Generation,
and about China as a whole: It is easy to find those who, even after
being beaten down for most of their lives, retain a basic belief in
the status quo of a Communist-led China.

In a derelict neighborhood in the city of Changsha, 46-year-old Dai Zu
An, who missed out on school, has not worked in nearly 10 years and
goes to bed hungry, smiled when he mentioned his 14-year-old son.
"I'll do whatever I can to keep him in school. I'll sell my blood if I
have to," Dai said.

That attitude represents a crucially important political repercussion
of China's economic success. When even those at the very bottom still
can think positively, it means the government faces no imminent threat
to its control. It means China has time to complete the overhaul and
opening up of its economy without democratizing.

But that will be true only as long as progress continues. Economists
say China must grow at least 8 percent annually for most people to
feel there is hope for the future. Last year the economy grew 9.5
percent. If some unforeseen event led to an economic crisis, all bets
would be off.

In Shenyang, Si Rong Fu, 53, who sells sausages at an illegal outdoor
market, survived on one bowl of porridge a day during the Great Leap
Forward. "I recall clearly the feeling of hunger," she said as she
trimmed the fat from pink sausages.

After the famine, Si's education was sabotaged by the Cultural
Revolution.

"I was once a good student," she said. "If I had finished middle
school I might have gone to high school, and then maybe college. Maybe
everything would have turned out differently."

But instead of being bitter, Si can offer an alternative happy ending.
Her daughter runs a successful shoe store and has a much better life.

"She's been to more places than I've ever been," Si said. "She goes to
Shanghai each year, just for fun."

Wang Shu Xian, a 53-year-old peddler, finds an easier comparison to
keep herself content: No matter how disappointing her life, at least
it has improved since the Great Leap Forward.

"We've got enough to eat, and clothes to wear," said Wang. "That's
enough for me. We're peasants. We don't expect more."

Wang didn't finish middle school. She joined the Red Guard, Mao's
vicious teenage tattletale brigade that harassed anyone accused of
being "counterrevolutionary."

"School wasn't closed, but nobody wanted to go," she said. "Our job
was to just go around giving people a hard time --- landlords,
capitalists, anyone. It was strange."

The horrors of China's past are not often contemplated in public
because the government considers it too dangerous. The Communist Party
accepts no responsibility for the Great Leap Forward. The Chinese
refer to it as the "Three-Year Natural Disaster."

The Cultural Revolution has been acknowledged as a mistake, but there
has been no public re-evaluation of the damage done to millions.

For the Miserable Generation, the pain of missing out on China's boom
is obvious.

Sweeping layoffs the past few years have left millions at subsistence
level. Most have shelter and enough to eat, but the gap between rich
and poor has widened beyond its level at the time of the Communist
Revolution.

It would be an exaggeration to say that no one from that generation
has succeeded in the new China, but it certainly is true that Chinese
in their 20s and 30s are better educated and better poised to
participate.

This year, for example, 2.8 million students will graduate from
college. From 1966-70, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, all
universities were closed. After that, only students with party
connections were admitted. It was not until 1977 that college-entrance
exams were instituted. There were about 400,000 graduates the next
year.

In some families, the generational divide separates siblings. Chen
Guang, 39, took the college exam in 1979 and is a successful cellphone
engineer in Beijing and a U.S. citizen who met his American wife in
college. But Chen's brother, five years older, missed out on high
school and college and is driving a taxi in a poor western city.

"A lot of taxi drivers are my brother's age," Chen said. "I'd probably
be driving a taxi somewhere."

Ling Xiao Sheng, 55, a Beijing writer, thinks he can detect the
missing voices of those who never had a chance to go to school. They
are noticeably absent from the sciences and among writers, he said.
Over the years he has tried to help a few Cultural Revolution victims
get jobs, "but after a while you realize that even if you used all
your social connections, it still would be far from enough."

In Shenyang, Liu Cong Ren, 53, survived on corn and sweet potatoes
during the Great Leap Forward.

As a Red Guard, he also was in the crowd in Beijing, waving his little
red book of Mao's slogans as the Great Helmsman addressed a crowd of 1
million in Tiananmen Square. He spent five years in the countryside.
He lost his job in a warehouse in 1996 and now sells socks and
underwear from a cart to other laid-off workers.

"We're the bottom rung of society," he said. "I don't want to talk
about myself too much to a foreigner. It's too painful."

And yet Liu must admit that in the end, he is not so angry. He missed
out on an education, but his son went to college, graduated last year
and works as a computer technician for the city government. He gives
his parents $90 a month, which they are squirreling away to give back
to him when he marries.

Liu and his wife earn about $120 a month from their cart. It's enough
for them to get by.

"Life's better than in the past, but it's harder," he said, warding
off the cold in an army-style coat and a hat. "You can earn enough to
live, but it's not equal. Some people have more. But at least you can
count on yourself. You don't have to rely on others. You can control
your own life."

Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001863813_generation24.html>

Copyright (c) 2004 The Seattle Times Company

Chinese military buildup:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5010632.stm

Heard this one on NPR this morning. It reaffirms my suspicion of sociological statistics. As the story goes, statisticians once determined that China was graduating 600,000 engineers each year, compared to America's measly 70,000. This news was so alarming it made it all the way to the U.S. Congress, believing its should revise our educational policies accordingly. Then, with a more-rigorous analysis, the numbers came out differently: only 100,000 engineers for China and 140,000 for America.

One finding from the advanced study showed that some Chinese deans did not even know how many colleges their universities had, much less how many engineers they were graduating.

Who can we trust to answer these important policy questions? How many engineering students are graduated? How much Tamiflu is needed? How many WMDs are there in Iraq? How many poor children go without breakfast? Statistics is not a precise science (nor is it even a branch of mathematics).

—Croakmore

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Heard this one on NPR this morning. It reaffirms my suspicion of sociological statistics. As the story goes, statisticians once determined that China was graduating 600,000 engineers each year, compared to America's measly 70,000. This news was so alarming it made it all the way to the U.S. Congress, believing its should revise our educational policies accordingly. Then, with a more-rigorous analysis, the numbers came out differently: only 100,000 engineers for China and 140,000 for America.

One finding from the advanced study showed that some Chinese deans did not even know how many colleges their universities had, much less how many engineers they were graduating.

Who can we trust to answer these important policy questions? How many engineering students are graduated? How much Tamiflu is needed? How many WMDs are there in Iraq? How many poor children go without breakfast? Statistics is not a precise science (nor is it even a branch of mathematics).

—Croakmore

How many of the "American" engineers have a Celestial background?

China and Oil:
http://www.energybulletin.net/17254.html

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Miserable Generation

Here's the 2004 article on the "Miserable Generation" that I referred
to:

China's lost generation: Middle-aged missing out on nation's
ascension

Quite interesting that the Red Guard (Prophet) generation is doing worse economically than their next peers who are Nomads. Although the next juniors to current Nomad generation will do a lot better than the current Nomad generation as China becomes a first world country in a generation from now.

Originally Posted by Tristan

...as China becomes a first world country in a generation from now.

Um...



I think not.

Originally Posted by catfishncod

Um...



I think not.

Umm.

Wasn't the US a first-world country a century ago? Back when GDP (even inflation-adjusted) was a less than a quarter of what it is today? That puts China in the right place in about 30 years, even if you insist that the Roaring 20's were the absolute minimum boundary for first-world status....

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Umm.

Wasn't the US a first-world country a century ago? Back when GDP (even inflation-adjusted) was a less than a quarter of what it is today? That puts China in the right place in about 30 years, even if you insist that the Roaring 20's were the absolute minimum boundary for first-world status....

The USA did not reach what are considered today 'first world' living standards until the 1940's. Canada, New Zealand and Australia at roughly the same time, Western Europe somewhat later on and Japan much later. Korea has just achieved first world living standards in the last decade, mind you in the 60's they were a third world country. China will achieve first world living standards around 2020-2030. I concede there are a lot of problems with the Chinese economy, however standards of living are still rising fast inspite of them. Nowadays Russians cross the border to work in China, that gives a idea how high Chinese living standards are now.