We Have Been Harmonised

by Kai Strittmatter

  There is a battle ahead, and first and foremost it must be fought at home, among ourselves. We Europeans – we exhausted, quarrelling, complacent, inward-looking, lame Europeans – need to see China for what it is. Imagine what would happen if this regime, these values, this system were unleashed and allowed to go their way unchecked. We need to act. To throw off our mantle of narcoleptic naivety, and reunite. To rediscover the strength and brightness of the ideals so many generations fought for. Because our ideals are strong – that’s the good news. Despite all its swagger and bluster, the CCP is afraid of the allure of Western democracies and Western values. Above all, it is this fear that lies behind all the efforts the Party is making to influence the West.

  Will China overtake the West and surge ahead to lead the world? The answer will depend in part on China’s strength, but even more it will depend on the West’s weakness. As dictatorship is reinventing itself before our very eyes in Beijing, perhaps our most pressing task in Europe – from Berlin to Athens, Prague to Paris and, yes, in London, too – is the reinvention of Europe, the reinvention of democracy.

  THANKS

  Thanks are due to China, for the endless adventures it has given me over the past three decades. And to its people: those who have become my most loyal friends, and those who shared their stories and insights with me without having met me before. They sometimes took great risks to do so, and many had to endure harassment as a result. For that, I would like to apologise.

  I would also like to thank my family for their great patience during my work on this book. Thanks to Bernhard Bartsch, who was the first to look through the manuscript and provided valuable tips. And to my editor Martin Janik, who retained a constant overview and was always there to provide the necessary impetus at the right time.

  They have all made this a better book. But its failings are my own.

  ENDNOTES

  1 James Mann, The China Fantasy: Why Capitalism Will Not Bring Democracy To China, London 2008.

  2 For more on the Communist Party’s appetite for experimentation and its ability to change, see Sebastian Heilmann, Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy-Making Facilitated China’s Rise, Hong Kong 2018.

  3 Stein Ringen, a Norwegian scholar of sociology and political science based at Oxford University, calls the CCP’s rule ‘the perfect dictatorship’ and terms it a ‘controlocracy’: ‘Although the controlocracy is sophisticated and does not depend on the omnipresence of terror, the threat of terror is omnipresent, and that threat is backed up by a physical use of violence that is sufficient for citizens to know that the threat is not an idle one.’ (Stein Ringen, The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century, Hong Kong 2016, pp.139-140.)

  4 A representative example here is the exposé in the New York Times about the family of Wen Jiabao. Until 2013, Wen was China’s prime minister, and state propaganda always painted him as the modest, folksy ‘Grandpa Wen’. The New York Times revealed that by the end of his period in office, his family had amassed a fortune of at least 2.7 billion dollars. See David Barboza, ‘Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader’, New York Times, 25. 10. 2012 (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wenjiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html )

  5 Li Laifang, ‘Enlightened Chinese democracy puts the West in the shade’, Xinhua, 17. 10. 2017 (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017–10/17/c_136685546.htm).

  6 Extract from interview with Hannah Arendt by the French writer Roger Errera, ‘Hannah Arendt: From an Interview’, The New York Review of Books, 26. 10. 1978 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/10/26/hannah-arendt-from-an-interview/).

  7 Herta Müller, ‘Every word knows something of a vicious circle’, Nobel lecture, 7. 12. 2009 (online: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2009/muller/25729-herta-muller-nobel-lecture-2009/ )

  8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-in-cia-visit-attacks-media-for-coverage-of-his-inaugural-crowds/2017/01/21/f4574dca-e019-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html?utm_term=.a0405f7ed48c

  9 Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich: LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii, trans. Martin Brady, London 2000, p.14

  10 Viola Zhou, ‘Beijing party boss promises to eradicate online political rumours ahead of key party congress’, South China Morning Post, 27. 9. 2017 (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2113041/beijing-party-boss-promises-eradicate-online-political ).

  11 Geremie R. Barmé, ‘New China Newspeak’, China Heritage Quarterly, No. 29, March 2012 (http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/glossary.php?searchterm=029_xinhua.inc&issue=029).

  12 Ibid.

  13 George Orwell, 1984, New York, 1949, p.34

  14 Anna Sun, ‘The diseased language of Mo Yan’, The Kenyon Review, autumn 2012 (https://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2012-fall/selections/anna-sun-656342/ ).

  15 Geremie R. Barmé, ‘New China Newspeak’, China Heritage Quarterly, No. 29, March 2012 (http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/glossary.php?searchterm=029_xinhua.inc&issue=029).

  16 Quoted in http://chinaheritage.net/journal/on-new-china-newspeak/

  17 Or as other translations have it: ‘What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.’ https://china.usc.edu/confucius-analects-13

  18 Mao said this for the first time on 7 August 1927 at an emergency meeting of the Party’s central committee in Wuhan. See: Shao Jianwu, ‘Mao Zedong qiang ganzi limian chu zhengquan de lishi yu yanbian’ (‘The story behind Mao Zedong’s “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”’), 13. 6. 2017 (http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0613/c85037–29335727.html).

  19 Adrian Zenz, ‘Domestic security spending: An analysis of available data’, China Brief, Volume 18, Issue 4, The Jamestown Foundation, 12. 3. 2018 (https://jamestown.org/program/chinas-domestic-security-spending-analysis-available-data/).

  20 @PDChina, ‘10 000 pigeons go through anal security check for suspicious objects’, People’s Daily on Twitter, 30. 9. 2014, 10 :48 PM.

  21 ‘Tiaolou shangdiao zhuanghuoche, guanyuan eihe zheme jiduan?’ (‘They jump to their deaths, they hang themselves, they throw themselves in front of trains: why do some officials commit desperate acts?’), Beijing News, 7. 4. 2017 (http://news.sina.com.cn/c/nd/2017-04-08/doc-ifyeceza1579240.shtml).

  22 Eva Pils et al., ‘Rule by Fear? A ChinaFile Conversation’, ChinaFile, 18. 2. 2016 (http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/rule-fear).

  23 Safeguard Defenders: Scripted and staged: Behind the scenes of China’s forced TV confessions, CreateSpace Independent Publishing, April 2018.

  24 Ibid, p 24.

  25 Jiang Lei, ‘Zui gao jian: xiang ba da sifa wanzheng liangjian’ (‘Declaring war on the eight sicknesses of the justice system’), Qiushi, 15. 2. 2015 (http://www.qstheory.cn/politics/2015–02/15/c_1114374295.htm).

  26 ‘Cataloguing the Torture of Lawyers in China’, ChinaChange.org, 5. 7. 2015 (https://chinachange.org/2015/07/05/cataloging-the-torture-of-lawyers-in-china/)

  27 ‘Jue bu yunxu ‘dang da haishi fa da’ weimingti ganrao zhengzhi dingli’ (‘It is absolutely forbidden to incite political unrest with the misleading question ‘Is the Party above the law or the law above the Party?’’), Xinhua, 5. 2. 2015 (http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015–02/05/c_1114272511.htm).

  28 Andrea Chen,‘Rule of law debate pointless in China, People’s Daily says’, South China Morning Post, 29. 10. 2014 (http://www.scmp.com/article/1627657/rule-law-debate-pointless-china-peoples-daily-says).

  29 Zhang Ziyang, ‘Zhou Qiang: Yao ganyu xiang xifang “sifa duli” deng cuowu sixiang liangjian’ (‘Chief judge Zhou Qiang: ‘We must have the courage to draw our swords against misguided Western ideologies like the ‘independence of the judiciary.’’), Chinanews, 14. 1. 2017 (https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1600659).

  30 Shang Yang, The Book of Lord Shang, tr. Yuri Pines, Columbia University Press, 2019 20.1

  31 Ibid, 18.2

  32 Haifeng Huang, ‘The Pathology of Hard Pro
paganda’, Journal of Politics, 18. 12. 2017 (https://ssrn.com/abstract=3055019 ).

  33 Sun Liping, ‘Sixiang shi weihe bei kongzhide’ (‘Why are thoughts controlled?’) (http://www.sohu.com/a/220197971_155133).

  34 Anthony Kuhn, ‘China’s Few Investigative Journalists Face Increasing Challenges’, National Public Radio, 6. 8. 2017 (https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/08/06/539720397/chinas-few-investigative-journalists-face-increasing-challenges).

  35 Lin Ping and Xiao An, ‘China Bans Hip-Hop and Other “Sub-Cultures” from State Television’, Radio Free Asia, 26. 1. 2018 (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/hiphop-ban-01262018105320.html).

  36 Yifu Dong et al, ‘China’s Communist Party Takes (Even More) Control of Media: A ChinaFile Conversation’, ChinaFile, 11. 4. 2018 (http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/chinas-communist-party-takes-even-more-control-of-media).

  37 Wu Haiyun, ‘Why Chinese Filmgoers Don’t Buy Hollywood’s Values Anymore’, Sixth Tone, 9. 4. 2018 (https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002055/why-chinese-filmgoers-dont-buy-hollywoods-values-anymore).

  38 Lu Yan, ‘Xuyao lixing keguande kan yulunchang’ (‘Interview with the director of the magazine Seeking Truth: a rational and objective consideration of the place of public opinion’), The Paper, 25. 3. 2015 (https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1314543 ).

  39 Zhao Yinping, ‘Wangluo daren Xi Jinping’ (‘Xi Jinping: the wise man of the internet’), Xinhua, 17. 11. 2016 (http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016–11/17/c_1119932744.htm).

  40 Xuan Yan, ‘Bu neng rang suanfa jueding neirong’ (‘The algorithm cannot be allowed to determine content’), People’s Daily, 5. 10. 2017(http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2017–10/05/nw.D110000renmrb_20171005_4–04.htm).

  41 The whole letter in Chinese and English can be found in David Bandurski, ‘Tech Shame in the New Era’, China Media Project, 11. 4. 2018 (http://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-new-era/).

  42 See Leta Hong-Fincher, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, London 2016.

  43 Javier C. Hernández and Zoe Mou, ‘“Me too,” Chinese Women Say. “Not So Fast, Say The Censors’”, New York Times, 23. 1. 2018 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/world/asia/chinawomen-me-too-censorship.html).

  44 https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/04/minitrue-do-not-report-on-peking-university-open-letter/

  45 Gary King, Jennifer Pan and Margaret E. Roberts, ‘How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument’, American Political Science Review, 111, 3, pp. 484 – 501, April 2017.

  46 Ibid, p. 499.

  47 Kristin Shi-Kupfer, Mareike Kohlberg, Simon Lang, Bertram Lang, ‘Ideas and Ideologies competing for China’s political future’, MERICS Papers on China, No. 5, October 2017, p.10.

  48 ‘Zhulao guojia wangluo anquan pingzhang’ (‘Building a security shield for the national internet’), People’s Daily, 23. 4. 2018 (opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0423/c1003–29943655.html).

  49 David Bandurski, ‘China’s “Great Firewall” is more akin to a “Great Hive” of propaganda buzzing around individuals’, Hong Kong Free Press, 24.09.2017 (https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/09/24/chinas-great-firewall-akin-great-hive-propaganda-buzzing-around-individuals/)

  50 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness, New York 1985.

  51 Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958 (www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/).

  52 Yuyu Chen and David Y. Yang: ‘The Impact of Media Censorship – Evidence from a Field Experiment in China’, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 4 January 2018.

  53 Ibid, p.2

  54 Ibid

  55 The complete works of Zhuangzi, tr. Burton Watson, New York 2013, p.126

  56 Fang Lizhi (translated by Perry Link), ‘The Chinese Amnesia’, New York Review of Books, 27 September, 1990 https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/09/27/the-chinese-amnesia/

  57 Louisa Lim, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, Oxford 2015.

  58 Yan Lianke, ‘On China’s State-Sponsored Amnesia’, New York Times, 1 April 2013 (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/opinion/on-chinas-state-sponsored-amnesia.html ).

  59 Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: the untold story of Mao’s great famine, New York 2012

  60 Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962, London 2010

  62 Perry Link, ‘Politics and the Chinese Language: What Mo Yan Defenders Get Wrong’, Asia Society, Asia Blog, 27. 12. 2012 (https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/politics-and-chinese-language-what-mo-yans-defenders-get-wrong ).

  63 See Deng Xiaoci, ‘China defends Long March’, Global Times, 26. 9. 2016 (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1008494.shtml)

  64 Zheng Yi, Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China, London 1998.

  65 ‘Wenchuan queli “gan’en ri”, rang ai de yongquan benliubuxi’ (‘Wenchuan proclaims “day of gratitude”, let the bubbling springs flow and never run dry’), Xinhua, 6. 5. 2018 (www.xinhuanet.com/2018-05/06/c_1122790543.htm).

  66 Simon Leys, ‘The Art of Interpreting Nonexistent Inscriptions Written in Invisible Ink on a Blank Page’, The New York Review of Books, 11. 10. 1990 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/10/11/the-art-of-interpreting-nonexistent-inscriptions-w/).

  67 Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, London 2010

  68 Speech by Xi Jinping at the 19th Party congress of the CCP on 18. 10. 2017.

  69 ‘Zhonggong zhongyang yinfa “shenhua dang he guojia jigou gaige fang’an”’ (Central committee of the CCP: ‘Plan for reform of the Party and state organs’), Xinhua, 21. 3. 2018 (http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018–03/21/c_1122570517.htm ).

  70 Alexandra Stevenson, ‘China’s Communists Rewrite the Rules for Foreign Businesses’, New York Times, 13. 4. 2018 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/business/china-communist-party-foreign-businesses.html).

  71 Yu Mengtong: ‘Zhongguo fayuan yuanzhang: “dangxing renxing chongtu shi jianchi dangxing”’ (‘Chinese chief judge: “In a conflict between Party nature and human nature, one must adhere to the Party nature”’), 17. 5. 2016 (https://www.voachinese.com/a/chinese-judge-says-party-principle-before-human-nature-20160516/3332419.html).

  72

  73 David Bandursky, ‘Building the Party’s Internet’, China Media Project, 11. 5. 2018 (chinamediaproject.org/2018/05/11/building-the-partys-internet/).

  74 Ibid.

  75 Peng Lihui, ‘Ma Yun: “Xianjin zhongguo shi zui jia jingshang shidai, buyong gao momingqimiao guanxi”’ (‘Ma Yun: “Doing business has never been so good as it is in China today, you no longer need to rely on your connections”’), 29. 11. 2017 (http://tech.163.com/17/1129/23/D4EP3UDD00097U7R.html).

  76 Li Hua, ‘Ningbo bianyin dangyuan ganbu fumian yanxing tixingben, liechu 68 xiang’ (‘Ningbo brings out a handbook to remind people of negative words and deeds of Party members and lists 68 examples’), Qianjiang Abendnachrichten, 24. 6. 2016 (http://ningbo.news.163.com/16/0624/11/BQAQE3FD03431AF0.html).

  77 Geremie R. Barmé, ‘For Truly Great Men, Look to This Age Alone’, China Heritage, 27. 1. 2018 (http://chinaheritage.net/journal/for-truly-great-men-look-to-this-age-alone/).

  78 ‘Stick to Karl Marx’s true path, Xi Jinping tells China’s communists’, South China Morning Post, 4. 5. 2018 (www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2144716/stick-karl-marxs-true-path-xi-jinping-tells-chinas#link_time=1525427622).

  79 Zhou Yu, ‘Chinese university revives research on official ideology to head off suspicious values’, Global Times, 1. 6. 2015 (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/924726.shtml).

  80 Li Rohan, ‘Students “inspired” by ideology course: poll’, Global Times, 16. 3. 2018 (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1093710.shtml ).

  81 Rong Jian, ‘A China Bereft of Thought’, The China Story, 5 February 2017 (https://www.thechinastory.org/cot/rong-jian-%E8 %8D%A3 %E5 %89 %91-
on-thought-and-scholarship-in-china/).

  82 ‘Leaked Speech Shows Xi Jinping’s Opposition to Reform’, China Digital Times, 27.1.2013 (https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/leaked-speech-shows-xi-jinpings-opposition-to-reform/)

  83 Oiwan Lam, ‘The Chinese Communist Party Forbids Members from Celebrating Christmas, Calling It A Festival of Humiliation’, Global Voices, 24 December 2017 (https://globalvoices.org/2017/12/24/the-chinese-communist-party-forbids-members-from-celebrating-christmas-calling-it-a-festival-of-humiliation/).

  84 ‘Xi Jinping zhuxi Qufu jianghua: shijie ruxue chuanbo, zhongguo yao baochi chongfen huayuquan’ (‘The speech by Chairman Xi Jinping in Qufu: on the spread of Confucianism in the world, China still has the final word’), Guancha, 29. 9. 2014 (http://www.guancha.cn/XiJinPing/2014_09_29_271934.shtml).

  85 English translation of this speech: http://library.chinausfocus.com/article-1534.html

  86 Li Ling, ‘Marxism, the CCP, and Traditional Chinese Culture as I Know Them’, China Digital Times, 5. 7. 2017 (https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2017/07/li-ling-marxism-ccp-traditional-chinese-culture/).

  87 State Council of the People’s Republic of China and Office of the Central Committee of the CCP: ‘Guanyu shixuan zhonghua youxiu chuantong wenhua chuancheng fazhan gongcheng de yijian’. (‘Implementation of the project of spreading and developing the great traditions of Chinese culture.’) (http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2017–01/25/content_5163472.htm).

  88 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, New York 1983

  89 Liu Mingfu, The China Dream, Beijing 2015

  90 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/19/are-china-and-the-united-states-headed-for-war

  91 ‘Zuguo shi ni weinanshi de houzhi, dan bu shi beiguoxia’ (‘The fatherland stands behind you in a crisis, but is not your scapegoat’), CCTV online, 2. 2. 2018 (http://news.cctv.com/2018/02/02/ARTIKRDxg8O3R8cePwGTyUIb180202.shtml).