On the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen, Premier Wen Jiabao’s much publicised speech on the significance of political reform in China sparked a wave of debate across China. ‘We must not only encourage institutional reform in economic life but also institutional reform in political life. Without the safeguard of political reform,’ he said, ‘the fruits of economic reform would be lost and the goal of modernisation would not materialise.’

Wen’s audacious championing of the imperative of political reform didn’t feature prominently on the official Xinhua news or main party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily. Yet it has ignited a raging controversy over the issue of political reform and reformist and hardline publications are engaged in an open dog-fight about the future of democratisation in China.

On the day of Wen’s speech, the progressive paper affiliated with the Guangdong government, Southern Daily, came out in open support of Wen and urged Shenzhen to set an example for the country to follow in the arena of political reform. China Youth Daily also editorialised in favour of political change. The very essence of China’s reform policy, it said, is to free people from shackles of the state and unleash their creativity and productivity. Holders of power under the current political system are enriching themselves under the banner of reform. But ultimately these vested interests won’t hold back the tide of reform..

Other, more conservative media like Guangming Ribao and People’s Liberation Army Daily waged a thinly veiled attack on Wen’s speech. They extolled the virtue of ‘socialist democracy’ and pleaded China’s ‘special circumstances’ as defence against the introduction of liberal democracy.

In the middle of this powerful political undercurrent, President Hu Jintao opted for a cautious response to Wen’s daring call to arms on political reform. He alluded to the need for political reform and talked vaguely about the need for greater participation by the people in the democratic process.

Whatever the opposition, China has reached a cross-road in its development.

Hu Shuli, China’s most outspoken and influential media entrepreneur, wrote in New Century that China has reached a critical moment when political reform must be not be delayed. Major taxation and price reforms in China have been stalled due to lack of political reform. Breakthroughs in cultural and social development are impossible without political change. The fact that the Chinese leadership urged the necessity of political reform at China’s moment of economic triumph in surpassing Japan as the pretender to the throne of world’s largest economy, she said, is sad reflection of ‘diminishing marginal utility’ of China’s current reform program.

In the early years of Chinese opening up, with economic reform there was attendant political progress. The Maoist personality cult was dismantled; there was partial separation of the party and the government; political struggle was eschewed in favour of technocratic competence and, for a brief moment, the Democracy Wall even sprang to life in Beijing. But the pace of political reform has slowed over the past decade.. Some leaders in Beijing, drunk with the success of China’s economic miracle, started to believe the myth of the system’s invincibility. They started to believe, Hu Shuli wrote, in the perverse logic that China’s economic success was proof of the political vitality of the CCP’s authoritarian grip on power. Some were lulled into a false sense of security as the idea of the ‘Beijing Consensus’ and the relative decline of Washington in the aftermath of the global financial crisis blossomed.

Three decades of economic reform have delivered huge dividends not only for those who toiled hard but also those who are well-connected, argued an editorial in China Youth Daily. A large number of red capitalists have flourished within the Party system. The opposition to political reform no longer comes from Maoist ideologues but red capitalists with vested interests in status quo, though the debates about reform are still tailored impeccably in the cloth of political correctness.

The current debate on political reform is, of course, replete with déjà vu.

After the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, there was strong opposition to engage in further reform from within CCP. Deng’s credibility suffered a significant blow and his authority as a reformist champion was dented. The conservatives came back to power with vengeance; the principal party mouthpiece The People’s Daily came out strongly against idea of capitalist liberal democracy.

Unable to find a ready audience in Beijing, Deng ventured on his historic Southern Tour and fought the battle of reform at the front line of Chinese economic change in Shanghai and Guangdong. Southern based reformist papers rallied to Deng’s call and openly espoused not only the virtues but the necessity of further reform.

Is Wen, on political reform, actually imitating Deng’s tactic on economic reform? Where better to champion the reformist cause far from the centre of political power in Beijing than Shenzhen, a booming metropolis that was created as China’s window to the world?

So, what is the prospect for Shenzhen becoming a Special Political Zone?

Shenzhen is one of China’s very first Special Economic Zones and a testimony of the success of China’s reform and opening door policy. The city boasts country’s highest GDP per capita, at US$ 13,600 last year. It seems that a lot of people also place great faith in this dynamic city as China’s first Special Political Zone.

In 2008, the Party Committee in Shenzhen publicly touted an audacious plan to empower the local legislative body with people directly elected to District People’s Congress. The plan sparked a nationwide excitement. But the plan has been quietly shelved.

Li Luoli, a former high-ranking party official in Shenzhen, in an interview with a Caixin journalist, observed that political reform is a hot potato. Many officials simply see Shenzhen as a stepping-stone to climb up the bureaucratic ladder and are unwilling to commit to a risky program of political reform. The current Party-Secretary of Shenzhen has side-stepped the issue of political reform. The only chance, Li reckons, for Shenzhen to become a Special Political Zone is for risk-taking leaders like those who were there from the early days of Shenzhen’s creation to grab the initiative.

There is certainly no shortage of outspoken champions of political reform in China, sometimes from the most unexpected quarters. Lieutenant General Liu Yazhou, a well-connected senior political officer with an impeccable party pedigree warned his comrades ‘that China must either embrace US-style democracy or accept Soviet-style collapse.’ Qin Xiao, former Chairman of China’s Merchants Bank and a member of the National People’s Congress, also declared in a speech at Tsinghua University that it s unacceptable to use pretexts ‘such as nationalism and stability to smother universal values such as liberty, individual rights and democracy.’

A sign of the strength of support for political reform in China is that political, military and business elites openly champion its cause. Popular opinion is on their side. Only political liberalisation can ease China’s fermenting social tensions around the issues of income disparity and rampant corruption.

No one better appreciated the inter-dependence between political and economic reforms than the chief architect of China’s reform’, former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. ‘The final success of our reform will be decided by political reform’ he concluded. This is advice that Beijing could do well to heed — if it is to avoid undoing the achievements of the past three decades of economic reform.

Justin Li is principal in the Institute of Chinese Economics and an associate of EAF.

1. China’s top leaders tango on political reform
2. Thinking about Chinese democracy
3. Western-style political reform in China is still a long time coming

July 7 marked 90 days since Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency in Thailand. Even though Thai security forces quelled the Red Shirt protests in late May, the Abhisit administration recently extended the emergency decree over nearly a third of the kingdom for an additional three months. While much has been said about the political, economic and social impacts of the kingdom’s recent unrest, little attention has been given to the dangerous erosion of freedom of expression in Thailand.

The recent cycle of deadly violence began on March 12, when tens of thousands of Red Shirt protesters rallied against the Abhisit government. What initially began as peaceful protest eventually escalated into the worst political violence in nearly four decades, leaving 90 people dead and over 1,900 injured.

As Bangkok’s streets turned into battle zones, an energetic buzz spread across the internet. With televised and print media unable to keep up with the fast pace of events, many people in Thailand turned to the web for updates and news. Thailand’s estimated 16 million internet users held lively debates on message boards and chat rooms, some supporting the Red Shirts and others denouncing them. Thai authorities recognised these new forums shaping public opinion, and quickly launched a campaign to control the content and character of the public debate online.

Immediately after a state of emergency was declared on April 7, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban signed an emergency order blocking access to 36 websites throughout Thailand. The blocked URLs consisted mostly of pro-Red Shirt websites, but also included independent media sites such as Prachatai.com.

In the aftermath of violent clashes on April 28, Thai authorities blocked access to websites showing video clips of the violent confrontations between Thai security forces and Red Shirt protesters. These included Prachathai’s Facebook page, websites www.springnewstv.com and www.vimeo.com, and several URLs on YouTube. Web activists monitoring the government’s actions noted that it took less than 10 minutes for officials to block public access to a URL deemed to undermine the official narrative.

On May 19, after government-controlled programming took over local TV stations, many in Thailand turned online for news, only to find new restrictions on cyberspace. Certain pages of English-language websites, such as New Mandala and Political Prisoners in Thailand, were actively blocked by Thai authorities. Access to Facebook and Twitter was irregular at this crucial time. These sites were a source of graphic images from the military offensive against the Red Shirt protesters, postings from banned sites, and independent reporting from the scene of events.

During the crises, Sue Loruthai, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, cautioned Thais to use the internet in the ‘right way’ and avoid disseminating information that could create misunderstanding among the public, warning that popular websites and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, hi5 and MySpace would be under watch. Such comments only intensified the pre-existing culture of fear and self-censorship in Thailand.

The exact number of websites and URLs blocked by Thai authorities remains unknown, yet even the conservative estimates are disturbing. Under the Internal Security Act, from March 11 until April 6, Thai authorities blocked at least 9,000 unique web addresses. During the State of Emergency, from April 7 until July 7, at least 612 websites were blocked in a process lacking transparency or public accountability. In addition, at least two individuals were arrested for posting or creating content in breach of the vaguely defined clause of national security.

The recent spate of political turmoil seems to have added new vigour to efforts to limit freedom of expression in Thailand. On June 15, the Thai government established the new Bureau of Prevention and Eradication of Computer Crime to prevent and suppress online offences. On June 17, newly appointed ICT Minister Juti Krairiksh warned that internet service providers would face legal action and have their licenses revoked if they failed to cooperate with government efforts to block websites.

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn repeatedly explained that authorities were not using the emergency decree to close down the general media, but only those media outlets that incite violence or distort information. Yet while state and military owned or operated media continue to operate freely, opposition and independent media are blocked, banned or otherwise restricted.

Under the guise of promoting harmony and unity in Thailand, prominent voices continue to push for stricter regulation of the internet. Current efforts focus on silencing opposing voices rather then facilitating dialogue. The important role that free expression, especially online, plays in defusing tensions is all but ignored in Thailand today.

A state of emergency is characterised by its temporary nature. The Abhisit administration’s current policies give the impression that the government wishes to make permanent changes to where and how individuals can express their opinions. This would be a step backwards for one of Southeast Asia’s most open nations. More importantly, stifling the public debate on the divisions and challenges facing Thai society will not make the conflicts go away. Instead, restricting freedom of expression will only impede efforts to achieve true reconciliation and lasting calm throughout the kingdom.

Jonathan Fox is an independent researcher working on freedom of information in Southeast Asia.

1. Ongoing struggles in Thailand
2. Election Day in Thailand
3. Uncertainties in Thailand

In 25 October 2009 I went to northeast Thailand, this time to the village of Nong Wua So, about 40 kilometres outside the city of Udon Thani, to observe a red shirt rally: village-style. When I arrived in the early afternoon the action had not yet begun. Soon after, many people began arriving from surrounding villages. Around the rim of the rally area were food stalls, and several large trampolines where children jumped around for a few baht each. Kwanchai Paipanna, the charismatic leader of the Udon Lovers, a local red shirt group, and organiser of the rally, was already there, sitting in a tent close to the stage. He talked with red shirts and police officers.

A high-ranking officer asked Kwanchai to accompany him to visit the abbot at a famous local temple. I was invited too. Several police officers and red shirt guards came along. Inside, the abbot blessed the rally, and presented us with rare amulets. One of the guards said to me, with a huge smile, that he had wanted this particular amulet for a long time.

By sunset the rally site quickly filled with 2000 to 3000 red shirts. Entire families arrived. Local politicians spoke on the stage, Kwanchai made his points, and even exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra made a phone-in. There were Look Thung and Mor Lam singers belting out their peculiar mix of folk pop, accompanied by Hang Kueang—the scantily dressed dancers so typical of provincial concerts.

The following day we went to Ubon Ratchatani, a few hours south of Udon Thani. Kwanchai Paipanna was driven by a huge police officer who served as his driver and bodyguard. While driving he kept his gun next to his seat. In a slightly derelict resort, about one hour away outside town, a conference of local red shirt leaders from all over the northeast took place. The hosts were singer-turned-politician Arisman Pongruangrong and Suporn ‘Rambo Isaarn’ Attawong, a former Khorat Member of Parliament under the deposed Thai Rak Thai government.

Kurt Pelda, correspondent of the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and I were the only journalists in attendance. Nobody else was paying much attention.

More recently, on 30 January 2010, a red shirt rally in Khonkaen had more than 100,000 protesters, and the following day an event in Ubon Ratchathani drew between 50,000 and 60,000 red shirts. These events were not reported by the Thai mainstream media; not on television or in the newspapers. Only Nirmal Ghosh from Singapore’s Straits Times and Marvaan Makan Makar from IPS wrote about the events when they found out about them; their reports led to many discussions in the Thai political blogosphere.

Today I don’t even remember how many ‘small’ red shirt events, such as fundraisers for community radio stations, and concerts I have photographed where I was the only independent journalist present.

Late in 2005 and throughout 2006, until the military coup, the situation was quite different. Every People’s Alliance for Democracy (that is ‘yellow shirt’) event was covered by dozens of journalists, both local and international, both employed and freelance. But it was already apparent way back then that discrepancies between reporting and reality existed. Most international journalists hung on the lips of yellow shirt leader Sondhi Limthongkul’s masterfully prepared media sound bites about corruption and democracy yet ignored the extreme nationalism expressed on stage.

Not too many journalists made their way to the pro-Thaksin camp at Chatuchak Park in Bangkok. These government supporters were mostly portrayed as hired stooges, absent of political conviction. There is no doubt that many such opportunists were around — at the time I had friends from my neighborhood who used the camp as a welcome source of easy income. Nevertheless, many others, especially those who travelled to Bangkok from distant villages on their small tractors, argued quite convincingly why they supported Thaksin. The reasons cited were more or less the same as today: they appreciated the many programs aimed at connecting their villages to Thailand’s economy. These are the same policies that were widely denounced as ‘populist’ in the lead-up to the 2006 coup.

After that coup, and especially when it became clear that no blood was shed, the international media soon lost interest. I remember the largely unreported early anti-coup protests at Sanam Luang, the expanse in front of Bangkok’s Grand Palace. The crowds they drew were sometimes a few hundred protesters. But their protests grew and then culminated in the post-coup period with the clashes at the residential compound of the Privy Council Chairman, General Prem Tinsulanonda. At that time there were only five foreign journalists, including me, who were present and witnessed parts of the clashes.

Generally speaking, the media as a whole, with few exceptions, completely missed the beginning of what may turn out to be the most important recent change in the Thai socio-political landscape. The quality of reporting on the red shirts still suffers from this oversight. There are, of course, reasons for this. The local media is under subtle but strong pressure. Several local journalists have told me that they would love to be able to work the way I do, and write what I write. They have said that if they did, they would be attacked as red shirt supporters, which would have serious consequences for their professional future. Not many local journalists are in the position of Pravit Rojanaphruk from The Nation, who, as an Oxford graduate from a good family, can afford to write according to his conscience and the facts he gathers.

For Western journalists the situation differs in some important ways. Simply, there is no money in Thai political reporting. If you cover the conflict in depth, I’d advise you to forget about earning a proper income. Western media, already in crisis with tremendous budget cuts, will not spend any money on Thailand’s problems while there are much larger stories such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Britney Spears’ mental state. Larger networks have tried to report as well as they can, especially Al-Jazeera and the BBC, but when there is little space available for such coverage, there will be only a small budget to go around. The academic world has similarly ignored the red shirt movement, and to a large degree still does. There has been no long term field study done on the red shirts, and only now are there a few students, mostly foreign, who are researching the movement. Thai students—the few who care—are

Often cowed by the mostly yellow shirt academic establishment. In contrast, the blogosphere is very much alive. most valuable reporting is done on blogs. The natural problem is that blogs have little peer review, are often anonymous, and at times openly side with this or the other political faction. Even the few respected blogs such as New Mandala and Bangkok Pundit, and the critical news website Prachatai, are often discredited along those lines.

The few people who do report on the ground, and publish without a shield of anonymity, have to acquire a very thick skin. I was accused of being bribed by former Prime Minister Thaksin with a very large amount of money, for example, because of what I reported about the 7 October 2008 clash at Government house between police and yellow shirts, first published by New Mandala. My report contradicted the official version of events but it was soon translated and taken up by the Thai media. Jonathan Head, the former BBC correspondent in Thailand, ended up earning several lèse majesté charges for his reporting.

Some Thai journalists have even been physically attacked by members of both the red and yellow shirt movements, angered by the blinkered reporting by the Thai media. taken together this has led to a vacuum in knowledge about Thailand’s ongoing political battles, and wider socio-political conflicts in Thailand.

Almost every aspect of red shirt grassroots support in the provinces and Bangkok remains unstudied. Even the fact that there is ideological grassroots support is still highly disputed. How is it possible to analyse future developments and potentially fundamental changes in Thai society when elementary aspects go unstudied and unreported?

Nick Nostitz is a Bangkok-based photo-journalist whose work is regularly featured on the New Mandala website. His most recent book is Red vs Yellow: Thailand’s Crisis of Identity (2009).

1. Ongoing struggles in Thailand
2. Thailand: the end of a year of political troubles
3. Silenced smiles: Freedom of expression in Thailand

Southeast Asian governments continuously seek to restrict basic human rights and political freedoms, and have utilised increasingly sophisticated technology to do so. Thai authorities have even called upon academics to lend their support to State censorship.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva recently met with a governmental advisory committee, headed by the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Kittipong Kittayarak, regarding the enforcement of the Kingdom’s lèse majesté laws. According to a government spokesman, the committee’s main task will be to provide ‘academic advice’ to relevant law enforcement agencies. It remains unclear what ‘academic advice’ constitutes and who intends to heed it. This move is not about implementing actual legal reforms or calling for the release of prisoners of conscience, but rather aims to pacify the vocal critics of Thailand’s crackdown on free speech.

Following Abhisit’s comments, the Bangkok Post reported on efforts by the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) to increase cyber-policing, celebrating the cooperation of ‘government agencies, research agencies and educational institutions’ in building digital forensic resources. According to the Post, DSI has partnered with two Thai universities to train students in assisting government cyber investigations. As legitimate as Thailand’s lèse majesté laws may be, even the Deputy Executive Director at the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec), Asanee Kawtrakul, acknowledged that the most big computer crime cases in the past year involved violations of lèse majesté laws. It is hard to ignore the role academia is being asked to play in cyber-censorship. If DSI focuses its policing efforts on political censorship, rather than eliminating child pornography or on-line bomb-making instructions, Thai academics must question whether they should be part of that.

The military has also become involved in cyber policing. Thai Defence Minister Pravit Wongsuwan, a former Army Commander and member of the 2006 Coup, recently instructed all military units to ‘monitor and subdue any subversive actions against the monarchy in cyber space and at political rallies.’ Colonel Thanathip Sawangsang, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson, added that military personnel should ‘monitor public rallies’ for any illegal activity. An odd task for the military, since law enforcement is the purview of the civilian police force.

Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have criticised Thailand’s censorship policies and their impact on free speech. HRW Asia Director Brad Adams commented that restrictions by Thai authorities have meant that ‘a climate of fear looms over civil discourse and in cyberspace.’ He added that the Thai government has exploited both the lèse majesté laws and the new Computer Crimes Act to suppress critics and persecute perceived political opponents. HRW noted that Thai authorities have increased Internet surveillance, arresting bloggers and web-board participants and the shutting down over 18,000 websites. HRW director Kenneth Roth has warned against the cynical use of the ‘rule of law’ to suppress and undermine human rights and free speech. It seems that, despite PM Abhisit Vejjajiva’s eloquent arguments to the contrary, Thailand is no exception to this worrying global trend.

The US has made it clear that they will not support the suppression of cyber freedom. In January, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the State Department’s new campaign to preserve and expand Internet freedom around the world. She criticised governments who ‘expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results’ noting that ‘they have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech.’ The US sees such web-censorship as contrary to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (to which Thailand is a signatory), which states that all people have the right ‘to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Clinton has warned of a new information curtain descending upon much of the world, the 21st century’s ‘Iron Firewall’.

Clinton revealed that the US State Department funds the development of anti-censorship technology. ‘We are also supporting the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship’ Clinton said, adding ‘our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.’ Should academics refuse to support Thailand’s censorship policies, they will not be able to turn to the US.

Jonathan Fox is an independent researcher monitoring freedom of information in Southeast Asia.

This article is a finalist in the EAF Emerging Scholars competition.

1. Harry free but others languish under draconian law
2. The challenge of becoming a ‘multiethnic Korea’ in the 21st century
3. Australian-American partnership in 21st century Asia Pacific

China is obviously a nation grappling with the contradictions embodied by its desire for development and its recent (and more ancient) past. The recent school stabbings highlight some acute social issues in China, but reactions among my acquaintances demonstrate how China increasingly seems to be looking in on itself for answers rather than to the rest of the world.

Two historically important aspects of Chinese thought are finding new footing in contemporary Chinese society. The first concept is Sino-centralism and the second is known as the Sino-‘barbarian’ dichotomy. Both ideas have been prominent in recent events covered by the Chinese media. These ideas threaten to push China away from the West, back to a relatively introspective model of international relations, which is based on the system in place during the dynastic period of its history.

China’s recent agreement to resume ‘candid’ talks on human rights with the US is certainly a refreshing prospect, but what does it really mean? The agreement echoes the old concept of Sino-centralism. Best conceptualised as part of dynastic Chinese nationalism, historically the concept involved a worldview with China and Chinese interests at heart, and helped buttress the tribute system that operated during dynastic China. Nowadays, instead of receiving strings of silver from its vassal neighbours, outsiders are paying tribute with intangible, yet economically and politically valuable commodities. In this case, the tribute consisted of US concessions on the yuan revaluation issue. In exchange, the US acquired human rights talks, which was a win for China, who loves to ‘talk’ about human rights. China has indicated that it would revalue the yuan at its own pace and not at the behest of the US.

Another example is China’s proposed indigenous innovation rules. The rules reflect Sino-centralism by exposing China’s confidence in its attractiveness as a market for international investment. The rules introduce ‘accreditation’ requirements for intellectual property, effectively handicapping non-Chinese businesses. An example closer to home is Australian Prime Minister Rudd’s refusal to meet the Dalai Lama last year—a back flip on the zhengyou concept raised in his speech at Beijing University in 2008. Concessions like this may boost China’s confidence in its global position, and are slowly reinvigorating the idea of Sino-centralism.

The Sino-‘barbarian’ dichotomy is also tied to Chinese nationalism during the dynastic period. It is at work in the report of China Central Television’s (CCTV) removal of all English acronyms from its broadcasts. One Comment on the website proclaims: ‘the whole world is speaking Chinese, China’s great rejuvenation is finally complete’ and another jokes: ‘then why doesn’t the government ban all schools from teaching English?’ Will ‘CCTV’ be the next acronym on the chopping block?

The Sino-‘barbarian’ dichotomy involves contrasting the Chinese civilisation with all non-Chinese ( ‘barbarian’) people. Not only are the recent media regulations ludicrous and inefficient—NBA becomes Meiguo zhiye lanqiu liansai and WTO becomes Shijie maoyi zuzhi—but it may also obstruct the Chinese population’s understanding and acceptance of international ideas.

Looking back again to dynastic China, the greatness of the Tang Dynasty hinged on its cosmopolitanism. In a famous quote Emperor Taizong (reign period 627-49) said the Chinese and non-Chinese should be ‘loved as one’. The richness of the Tang dynasty’s literary culture was a result of this acceptance of the ‘other’.. In terms of the problem at hand, acronyms are trifling, but their removal represents a subtle change in the way the Chinese are being told by their leaders to view the culture and ideas of non-Chinese people. China is a nation among nations and must remain receptive to international ideas. We should all embrace the advice of Emperor Taizong and embrace the ‘other’ rather than block it out.

The World Expo in Shanghai ties both themes together. The Expo intends to bring the international community together to share, learn and understand, but beneath this ideal is some interesting imagery. While I disagree with recent commentary arguing that Sino-centralism is at work within the expo’s advertisements, I would argue that the Sino-centralism and barbarian concepts inform China’s perception of its role within the international community, and have been incorporated into the geography of the Expo precinct.

Obviously the way China views itself informs the way it interacts with others. The Expo’s layout clearly reflects this. Not only is China (and Asia generally) in the central/east of the precinct, but America and Europe are in the westernmost quarter. The layout isn’t designed with real-world geography in mind (the food stalls separate China from the Southeast Asian pavilions), but China was sure to place its capitalist doppelganger as far from itself as possible. So what? I would argue this kind of imagery fuels the ‘barbarian’ dichotomy and is harmful to the Sino-US relationship.

The World Expo obviously speaks for inclusionary imagery. It would have been a prouder statement to place the two countries who have so much in common, and who equally share the power to lead the planet, at the centre of the expo. Instead China has isolated itself, dividing through difference rather than celebrating commonalities. This is the essence of Sino-centralism and the Sino-‘barbarian’ dichotomy.

To combat this phenomenon, education and understanding must necessarily be a core component of the East-West dialogue. For the West, understanding old China’s history and philosophy, is one productive place to begin. But likewise China must come to the table with an open mind and avoid becoming a cul-de-sac of political ideology cut off from the international system.

What China does with the Cheonan issue in the coming weeks may indicate afresh its willingness to cooperate with international institutions such as the UN Security Council, and therefore to direct its citizens’ attention beyond its own borders.

Edward Kus is an undergraduate student at Australia National University on exchange at Tsunghua University.

1. The G20, power, and ideas
2. Japan: Returning to Asia
3. Competing Asian Communities: What the Australian and Japanese ideas mean for Asia’s regional architecture

It is a cliché, but one of the great rituals of growing up in a multicultural society is to sit alongside other children in school to compare lunches.

For much of my schooling I never got too much of a chance to make interesting comparisons. I never thought twice about tucking into the stir fried pork or chicken on rice that my mother or father would prepare for my lunch. After all, most of my classmates had something similar. Even at the school canteen, it was possible to order some fried rice—a choice that quickly became more popular than sausage rolls and meat pies.

I went to primary school in Canley Vale, one of Sydney’s outer southwest suburbs. The vast majority of families who sent their children to my school came from the old French Indochina. Many of my schoolmates were from Vietnam, though a good proportion of these Vietnamese were ethnic Chinese. There were also lots of Cambodians and Laotians. Of course, there were also Yugoslavs (as they were known then), Italians, Turks, Chileans and Argentineans. And even a handful of blue-eyed Anglos. But for the most part, my fellow students belonged to families from Southeast Asia. Their names were far more likely to be Phuong, Vong or Sothea—or for that matter, Dragan, Fatima or Enrique—than David or Corey or Sarah. And they didn’t have ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches for lunch.

This was the Sydney I grew up in during the 1980s. The critics of multiculturalism at the time would probably have called it something of a ghetto. Indeed, when neighbouring Cabramatta — Sydney’s ‘little Saigon’ – became the hub of heroin trade in the early 1990s, it triggered a brief crime panic across Sydney. There were echoes of old fears of the yellow peril. People feared ‘triads’ and ‘Asian gangs’ taking over the city’s streets. Fuzzy closed circuit camera footage of rampaging, long-fringed gangsters would be replayed on tabloid evening news programs. Working-class Anglo-Australians took flight from the suburbs around Cabramatta, though this would be accompanied by a steady and pronounced rise in local house prices.

Of course, southwest Sydney was never an Asian ghetto; at least, not in any meaningful sense of the word. Violent crime, though it was a problem during some of the 1990s, didn’t persist for long. Whether it has been because of entrepreneurial drive, a prioritisation of education within families, strong community support networks, or a combination of all these things, social mobility rather than social disadvantage has been the norm for Indochinese migrants. Today, Cabramatta is a thriving commercial precinct. Visitors come from within and outside Sydney on weekends. There’s no better place to slurp on a pho, to sample Southeast Asian authenticity; one form of authenticity, anyway. One day a supposed ghetto, a tourist drawcard the next.

And to catch a train from Cabramatta these days into the city on a given weekday morning is to be surrounded by young professionals working in finance, accounting and IT. That, and university students buried in their textbooks, no doubt destined to join the same professional ranks in a few years’ time.

There is even a distinctive southwest Sydney accent that has developed during the last two decades. The English you overhear on the pavement on Cabramatta’s John Street, or on the carriages of city-bound trains on the south line, is more often than not tinged with tonal Vietnamese or Chinese. The mark, you might say, that a minority has been successfully integrated into the nation.

Yet to declare a happy and triumphant ending here for the Indochinese-Australian story would be premature. For one thing, the spectre of racism remains. The resurgence of white Australian nationalism and jingoistic patriotism is cause for concern, though it is being resisted by Australians who detect in all the narcissistic flag-waving and sporting of Southern Cross tattoos a corruption of national symbols.

For another thing, Asian-Australians remain something of an exoticised species in the national imagination. The commodification of multicultural success – the fact that day trips to Cabramatta, for instance, are marketed as a ‘taste of Asia’ – should be regarded with some ambivalence. The underlying logic of the exercise, that diversity is a benefit only because it can be consumed, might do more to get in the way of regarding migrant Australians as fellow citizens. The exotic can only ever be marginal strangers.

This has been one of the problems with much of the support for multiculturalism to date: it has valued cultural diversity only superficially without understanding its expression as ultimately tied to citizenship. Yet multiculturalism, as it has been expressed in public policy, has always represented a means towards the end of full and equal citizenship for Australians regardless of background. It has never been about some ideal of cultural cornucopia.

The integration of Indochinese migrants into Australian life, while for the large part complete in the realms of market and consumption, remains rather incomplete in the public sphere. Very few from Indochinese backgrounds have successfully entered politics at anything higher than the local council level. There is the Cambodian-born Hong Lim, a Labor member of the Victorian lower house, but he is currently the only one. Indochinese participation in political party politics to date has been besmirched by allegations of ‘ethnic bosses’ engaging in sleazy ‘branch stacking’.

In the media and popular culture more broadly, those from Indochinese backgrounds remain largely invisible. While the streetscapes of Australian cities have been transformed by Asian immigration, there are few Southeast Asian faces to be seen on the beaches of Summer Bay or the cul-de-sac of Ramsey Street. For now, Asian faces remain largely quarantined on SBS. Those who are the ethnic trailblazers, such as the Vietnamese-born comedian Anh Do, wield a double-edged sword: they can make light of their ethnicity and difference, and justify it as a necessary pressure valve for race relations, but they can also risk being, well, ghettoised on TV.

Those first-generation and second-generation Australians from Indochinese backgrounds are for the most part unconcerned. The social politics of ethnicity and nation aren’t first-order priorities, certainly not for many who have left their homelands in large part to escape politics. In any case, integration takes time and sometimes we just don’t notice it. I suspect that in many school grounds today there are many Australian children of Indochinese background with names such as John or Sarah or, yes, Tim, opening their lunchboxes to find not a stir fry with fried rice, but a white-bread ham sandwich.

Tim Soutphommasane is a political theorist and research fellow at the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. He is also a senior project leader at the Per Capita think tank and columnist with The Weekend Australian.

1. Australian cattle exports to Indonesia: ban or more assistance?
2. Australian housing: Baubles, bubbles and busts
3. Beijing and the reality of international competition

Since the doi moi (‘renovation’) reforms, the Vietnamese Government surprisingly is able to confront the fact that corruption can have detrimental effect on many aspects of economic development, such as reducing GDP growth rates and greater income inequality.

In fact, the government recently had to respond to foreign aid donors’ concern over calculation return on investment, when Japan in December 2008 briefly suspended low-interests loans of about $1.1 billion annually to Vietnam, amid a corruption investigation.

Each year, the Vietnamese government seems more than willing to take on a new campaign against corruption. This year is no exception. According to Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong (who is also the deputy director of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption), ‘corruption remains grave and it’s becoming more sophisticated’ in land and property management, construction investment, and equitization of SOEs. Therefore, a new resolution promulgates that corruption would be a long and difficult work, requiring the participation at all central and local levels.

To be sure, as observed by academic Dang Ngoc Dinh who studies corruption, a missing component in the above resolution is a system that protects people who witnessed and reported on corruption. Professor Dinh also suggests that it is ‘essential to find the causes before coming up with the solution.’ Despite the ‘political will’ to reduce corruption, Vietnamese leaders are not interested in looking at the ‘roots’ or why corruption continues to flourish. Often overlooked is that the call for more intensive fight against corruption by both Vietnamese and foreign donors has not fostered potentially power corruption-reducing mechanisms, such as an ‘independent’ press or judiciary.

Democracy via political opposition, freedom of the press, and independent judiciary are considered to be powerful corruption-reducing mechanisms. For example, in countries that have opposition parties and freedom of the press, there are institutionalized incentives for the parties in power to fight corruption.

By many accounts, Vietnam has high achievement motivation. This is even more so as the market system is taking hold in the country. But, at the same time, the availability of means to succeed is in short supply. For example, only 3 percent of the total population has 13 or more years of education. Because access to higher education is limited and competitive, scandals in examinations, grade buying, and fake certifications are reportedly widespread.

It is also thought that Vietnamese communist rule is bound to create structural incentives for engaging in corrupt behaviors. Because of horizontal and vertical power of the country’s one-party-system and that allocation of economic resources depends on administrative decisions, the opportunities for corrupt practices are everywhere. An empirical study by Wayne Sandholtz and Rein Taagepera suggests that communism in Vietnam significantly diminishes ‘elite integrity,’ even controlling for cultural variables.

By implication, the longer corruption exists at the official level, the greater likelihood that Vietnamese citizens will become indifferent to corruption or take part in the lawbreaking because is the only way to get ahead in a corrupted system. And, once corruption becomes culturally embedded, it may give rise to ‘corrupt masses’ that may spur new corrupt elites, which will either be persistent during or will challenge the country’s journey as a middle-income society.

By most accounts, any hope that a Vietnamese energetic media would force and expose government corruption into the open has for the moment disappeared. From late 2005 to early 2007, western analysts had thought that a ‘dramatic moment’ in the country’s emerging civil society had occurred. That is, two prominent reporters at two of the more respected newspapers in the country, Nguyen Viet Chien of Thanh Nien and Nguyen Van Hai of Tuoi Tre, had broke the so-called PMU-18 scandal in late 2005.

In June 2006, Brian Quinn, an expert on law reform in Vietnam, noted that if top officials were unsuccessful in bribing their ‘way out of culpability,’ this is ‘only because of the Vietnam’s aggressive press corps.’ He foresaw the prospect of Vietnam’s news playing a constructive role in ‘mitigating corruption by forcing the issue into the open.’

However, in mid-October 2008, a parody of justice emerged in which journalists had become the victims. According to the presiding judge at the trial, Chien and Hai were at fault for erroneously damaging ‘the prestige of some high-ranking officials and caused negative public opinion.’ Chien was sentenced two years, Hai was found guilty of the same charge but received a ‘non-custodial, two years re-education sentence’ because he did not contest the charge.

The above curtailing of the country’s emerging civil society will mean that ‘party particularism’ will be in full force. That is, according academic Scott Fritzen, ‘the very actors which must adopt and implement policies to curb corruption are those which may face weak, or even negative, incentives to do so.’ Here, recent findings by the Government Inspectorate are very telling: ‘the higher levels only detected corruption in lower levels. Provinces detected corruption in districts, districts did the same with communes. No one said they had found corruption in their own organization.’

In sum, there is evidence to suggest that Vietnam’s greater integration with the global economy and the new opportunities created by its imminent middle-income country status (as defined by the UN) might actually increase corruption, not less. Only when Vietnamese leaders began to seriously consider the effects of communist rule on corruption can solutions come about in facilitating the country to outgrow its corruption.

Long S. Le is Professor and Director of International Initiatives for Global Studies at the University of Houston.

1. Vietnam: back from the brink?
2. Vietnam confronts the Chinese ‘charm offensive’
3. Trial at China’s Soprano city and campaign-style justice

Ozawa Ichiro has escaped indictment by the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office again. Once again, his former secretaries were not quite so lucky, with three, including sitting Diet member Ishikawa Tomohiro, being indicted for political funds violations.

Michael Cucek rightly points to the gross misconduct of the PPO in its Ahab-like pursuit of Ozawa — and perhaps the more egregious campaign by the media to paint Ozawa as the conniving, monstrous puppet master of the Hatoyama government.

But I cannot treat Ozawa’s escape from prosecution as a victory for the prime minister and the DPJ, and cannot but wonder whether the DPJ wouldn’t be better off without its secretary-general.

If anything, the indictment of three of his former aides, even as Ozawa survives with a vote of confidence from the prime minister, will continue to be a drag on the government. As in the days when Ozawa was in charge and Hatoyama his secretary-general, Hatoyama sounds like Ozawa’s chief apologist, explaining Ozawa’s behavior to a sceptical public. Except, of course, Hatoyama is now the prime minister of Japan.

Ozawa’s presence at the head of the DPJ would be less of a problem for the Hatoyama cabinet if it had been able to dominate the media and dictate the narrative being told about the government. But the Hatoyama government has been so ineffectual in its public relations — not entirely its fault seeing as how certain publications are serving as the LDP’s partners in opposition— that everything said or done by the government in relation to Ozawa contributes to the media’s narrative of a government under Ozawa’s thumb. Instead of reporting on the remarkable changes the Hatoyama government has made to the policymaking process, the media has been able to fixate on the superficial resemblance between the current government and the LDP in its heyday (which Ozawa of course participated in). As I’ve said before, I’m not convinced that a DPJ government with Ozawa wielding outsized influence is worse than the LDP government in which an army of backbenchers wielded influence, in combination with the bureaucracy that was able to undermine all but the most determined prime ministers — and even determined prime ministers like Koizumi Junichiro did not win every battle with the backbenchers.

What should the Hatoyama government, Ozawa, and the DPJ do going forward? As Hokkaido University’s Yamaguchi Jiro — a DPJ sympathiser — notes, the fate of political change and with it the Japanese people’s hope for their democracy hang in the balance. He recommends that Ozawa let the trial proceed and let the PPO’s evidence (or lack thereof) speak for itself. At the same time, he suggests that Ozawa forthrightly answer every question surrounding doubts about his political funds in the court of public opinion. I wonder whether Ozawa is capable of this. I know that Hatoyama and other DPJ leaders are not capable of making Ozawa do it. At the very least, Ozawa has to restrain himself and at least appear as if he is the prime minister’s subordinate, not his equal (or superior).

Meanwhile, the Hatoyama government must fundamentally reconsider how it presents itself to the public via the media. The time of letting the facts speak for themselves has passed, because the facts about the government do not speak for themselves. The government needs begin aggressively making its case. Whether that will entail a new chief cabinet secretary, a media strategy team attached to the prime minister’s office, or some other scheme will depend on the government, but the current arrangement is simply not working. And the prime minister needs to start showing some ability to lead, or step down.

No matter how skilled a campaigner he is, no matter how zealous a reformer he is, Ozawa’s baggage imperils the government — and more than that, it jeopardises Japan’s political future and provides further impetus to cynicism among the Japanese people. There is no easy answer to the Hatoyama government’s dilemma. Fire Ozawa, and it loses a skilled campaigner trusted among party supporters in the provinces. Retain Ozawa, and the prime minister continues to look weak and the media continues to feast upon the Ozawa scandal.

Ultimately, I fear that Hatoyama is simply incapable of solving this dilemma and saving his government.

1. Japan’s Ozawa Ichiro – the power of one
2. The end of the beginning: Ozawa Ichiro and the DPJ
3. Japan’s Ozawa Ichiro: The lion in the city

Challenge is a word that carries a heavy burden of nuance: it can convey a sense of threat, it can be an inspiration, it poses questions – often difficult ones – and it can also be double-edged, in that the challenge frequently applies as much to the alleged challenger as it does to those on the receiving end. Where China is concerned, the word is appropriate in every sense; but an important part of the challenge is precisely to decide which aspect is of the greatest importance. Only having done this can we attempt to frame policies, or at least provide the best possible advice to the policymakers, which will enable us to meet the challenge that today’s — and tomorrow’s — China poses to us, and to itself.

If there is a single word that should be applied to China, whether speaking of its international impact or its domestic situation, it should be ‘complexity’. There is simply nothing simple about China; and this being the case, we should be distrustful of any simple descriptors or characterisations, be they benign — China’s peaceful rise, harmonious world, harmonious society — or the opposite, such as comparisons of a rising China with Wilhelmine Germany at the beginning of the last century.

And with complexity comes size: expectations that China will take any path, the nature of which can be predicted from the experience of other countries are almost certainly going to be proved wrong. This was so of American hopes for a Westernised, democratic China emerging from World War II; it was so of the expectation post-1949 that China would become a clone as well as a client of the Soviet Union; and expectations have similarly been disappointed in both the pre-and post-1989 phases of the era of reform and opening.

China is just too big, and carries too great a civilisational and historical throw-weight to be anything other than sui generis. As Lu Xun, one of the greatest Chinese writers of the first half of the 20^th century, told his readers, you make your path by walking it. This is as true of China now as it was then, but the implications for the rest of the world are now even greater — far greater — than when he wrote these words.

It is relatively easy to predict that in such and such a year China’s GDP will have reached a certain figure, that it will occupy such and such a global ranking in terms of size or in terms of per capita income, that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will be rated at such and such a level in terms of relative size, procurement, capabilities, and the like. These are all of course vital judgments to be made, and whatever the specifics, it seems clear enough that whatever difficulties China faces, domestically and internationally, in pursuing its growth goals, it is going to play an ever greater role in world affairs. Indeed, for better or for worse, it is doing so already. But the more difficult, and more crucial question is, assuming that China’s comprehensive strength, or global ranking, will place it amongst the most powerful and influential nations in the world by, say, 2020, or 2030, what sort of a China is it going to be?

Here our task is complicated not only by the sheer complexity of the issues to be addressed, and by the often unhelpful cacophony of foreign comment, but by the fact that the Chinese government — not just the present Chinese government, but others before it (although the Chinese Communist Party state has greater ideological inclinations and more effective tools than most of its predecessors) — is committed to presenting a single narrative of China’s rise as interpreted and enunciated by its official organs.

Yet anyone who has the slightest understanding of contemporary China will know that behind the editorials of the People’s Daily, the statements of Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokespeople, the presentation of the news by CCTV, or the work of officially approved film directors, there is a hugely complex world of debate, current and counter-current, introspection, historical and cultural revisionism, as much within the organs of state and party as outside. The degree to which this debate is tolerated waxes and wanes, and things can be said by some people, or within some bodies, that are forbidden to others. Some of this debate we can see, some of it is largely hidden. Some of it is inspiring, encouraging, some of it is more than a little scary or plumb crazy. But it is here, as much as in the more ostensibly transparent narratives approved for public — and foreign — consumption and edification, that the vital question of what sort of a China we are going to be dealing with 10, 20 or 30 years from now is being worked out.

Globalisation is another complicating factor that cuts both ways. As China becomes increasingly involved in the rest of the world, and vice-versa, the simple binary division between domestic and foreign — encapsulated in the once much-used formulation nei wai you bie — is increasingly untenable. Whatever they may wish, China’s rulers, and for that matter ordinary Chinese, are just going to have to get used to the fact that things that happen at home will impact on the way they are viewed from outside, and that this will in turn impact on decision-making relative to China by other countries. By the same token, foreign companies will find it increasingly difficult to regard with insouciance events in China that disturb their shareholders. The same, of course, applies to the treatment of Chinese, whether individuals, companies or representatives of the state, in other countries.

This means that in order to judge what sort of a country China is going to become, there is virtually nothing that happens in China that doesn’t matter, or that we don’t need to know about. The days when we could just look at steel and grain production figures, imports and exports, look at the PLA training and recruitment cycle, work out the pecking order in the standing committee of the Politburo, are over. Of course all these things are of the utmost importance. But as we seek to understand a country that is reassuming its historical place as one of the leading nations of the world, we need to know so much more: arguments about history and culture are important, not only to the Chinese, but to us.

To give only one obvious example: whether the standard for judging previous dynasties should be their achievements in culture and learning, or the degree to which central authority was imposed and borders expanded, matters to us. Similarly, the whole question of the reappraisal of traditional Chinese culture; how the modern Chinese state maintains the multinational character of the Manchu Qing Empire; questions of centralism versus federalism; the reappraisal of the achievements of the Nationalist government and its model of modernisation (not to mention its territorial claims largely inherited by the PRC, including, topically, the South China Sea); the debates about democracy; the rethinking of the post May-4 modernisation project . . . to name but a few issues that may once have seemed arcane, but in fact have major implications for all of us, not just the Chinese themselves, as they continue the process of walking a path that is increasingly going to merge with the global highway.

The first and greatest challenge, especially for those of us who grew up under the comfortable protection of British and US naval supremacy, and in a cultural world made in Palestine, Greece, Rome and Europe, is the challenge of understanding.

This essay is featured in the latest issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly (EAFQ).

Richard Rigby is head of the China Institute at the Australian National University and was formerly an Australian diplomat and analyst specialising on Chinese and Asian affairs.

1. The challenge of China and China’s challenge – Weekly editorial
2. China and the challenge to American power? – Weekly editorial
3. Negotiating the China challenge

The Hollywood blockbuster Avatar is breaking box-office records in China and cinemagoers have been treated to a visual feast from the Shangrila-like moon of Pandora. At the same time, the savagery depicted in the film about the demolition of the natives’ home has also resonated with the Chinese. A young literary commentator wrote that ‘For audiences from other places, barbaric eviction is something they simply can’t imagine – it is the sort of thing that could only happen in outer space and China.’

Much like the Na’vi people from Pandora, forcibly evicted Chinese residents have fought back literally, with bows and arrows and Molotov cocktails against camouflaged hired thugs from real estate developers. Some of the most valiant resisters such as Pan Rong and Tang Fuzhen have indeed become household names in China and assumed folk hero status very much like that of Australia’s Ned Kelly. Tang Fuzhen paid the ultimate price of taking her own life in a bid to stop the demolition of her cloth factory.

Expropriation of land in China has become one of the most polemical social issues. Forced eviction and demolitions often result in violent confrontation between residents and government-backed property developers. This problem is even more pronounced in rural China where corrupt local officials collude with real estate developers to dispossess farmers of their only livelihood.

Many experts and commentators blame the ‘Regulation Concerning the Management and Expropriation of Urban Residences’, promulgated by the State Council in 2001, as the principal culprit.  At the end of last year, five law professors from Peking University petitioned the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s supreme legislative body, to amend or abolish the regulation. They appealed on the basis that the existing regulation is in clear contradiction with both the Chinese Constitution and the newly enacted Property Law.

The existing regulation on expropriation was enacted with the purpose of clearing hurdles for rapid urban development in China, but there was inadequate attention paid to the protection of private property rights. Most importantly, the regulation was also ambivalent on the important issue of land expropriation for public interest. It is commonly recognised across many jurisdictions that it is necessary for the government to compulsorily acquire private holdings in the interest of public welfare such as building infrastructure. But the ambiguity on the definition within the Chinese regulation provides fertile ground for corrupt officials and real estate developers to expropriate land in the name of public interest without the need to compensate people on just terms.

It was recently exposed that a university in southern China expropriated a large tract of framing land for the purpose of building educational facilities. But a large portion of that compulsorily acquired land was resold to a commercial property developer at a premium. The handsome profit made by the university was used to pay off its debt and that of the municipal government. The grossly inadequately compensated famers could do little to seek redress.

Another thorny issue is compensation for expropriated land. At the moment, the compensation scheme is wildly arbitrary, especially in the countryside. Until a transparent and market-based fair compensation scheme has been developed, we will continue to witness endless protest against inadequately compensated expropriation projects.

The State Council just released a new draft regulation on expropriation for public consultation which more clearly defines the scope of public interest, which includes land acquired for defence facilities, infrastructure projects, public health and education facilities, public housing estates and so on. If this draft legislation can be enacted, this could provide a firmer basis for people to challenge unfair commercial acquisition of land in the name of public interest. It also envisages a more market-based pecuniary compensation scheme and proposes to outlaw barbaric eviction techniques such as the termination of water supply.

But this potential new legal protection can be quite powerless in the face of immensely powerful government closely tied together with real estate developers. A compliant and under-resourced court system can hardly be relied upon to constrain the power and authority of government.

A Chinese blogger sarcastically remarked that the film Avatar can serve as a great manual on how to resist unjust eviction. Indeed, without developing a sound and fair expropriation and compensation system, Beijing can count on a very bumpy ride on the road of its great urbanisation drive.

1. Australia and Japan: Emerging partnerships in the shadow of China
2. Social security and housing the poor in China
3. Land reform in China