Barbarian Lost

by Alexandre Trudeau

  “This woman was a friend of my father’s. Quite smart and entertaining, but quirky. I guarantee there are some highly debatable things in here. But look for the mad cult of the free spirit so important in the West, especially remarkable among independent women like the author,” I tell her.

  “Thank you. I’m touched.” Viv blushes. “I’ll be sure to read it.”

  Why do I keep forgetting how powerful even insignificant gifts can be?

  Shenzhen lies two hours away by fast train. On the north side of the gulf formed by the widening Pearl River, Shenzhen is the last bit of mainland China before the Hong Kong peninsula and archipelago and the seas beyond. Here, the People’s Republic set up its own shops to imitate and complement the Hong Kong manufacturing economy. Free of the real estate concerns of Hong Kong and able to access vast amounts of labour from throughout China, the student has surpassed the master. Shenzhen’s port is now the world’s third biggest, after only Shanghai and Singapore.

  Having failed in Guangzhou, Viv and I are keen to visit factories in Shenzhen. Viv has been dialling contacts. She’s playing connect the dots, looking for people who might know people connected to Shenzhen industry. I’m always amazed how well this game works in China. I suppose that the density of people and their extreme mobility greatly facilitates the transmission of information. Everyone in China is but a few steps removed from a huge number of people, theoretically assuring access to virtually any information about anything. Someone always knows someone who knows something.

  Connecting the dots works even better among young journalists. What comes around goes around, they say, as they constantly exchange contacts with each other. They’re also always ready to cold-call people. I listen with fascination as Viv dials up a succession of complete strangers who are somehow connected to manufacturing corporations. Viv obtains these names from people who know people she worked with years earlier.

  With the landscape flying by outside, she takes on her daintiest voice and politely yet obliquely tries to arrange for us to visit a factory, while giving out few details about who we are and why we would possibly want to see widgets being made. She finally secures an appointment. Tomorrow afternoon, we’re to visit a facility for the fabrication of micro-condensers in a newly erected technopark. As codified a society as it may sometimes seem, there’s remarkable spontaneity in China.

  Shenzhen has been called a city with neither class nor soul, hastily thrown together and bent to base purposes. Forget trying to stay somewhere interesting here; you’ll find a concrete-and-glass tower with a gaudy lobby leading to an elevator—and beyond, a generic room.

  Viv and I head out immediately to find food and do some people-watching. We walk a large circuit through the downtown core. It has emptied out this evening and reminds me of many a North American business sector that can run at a low din after dark. The newly tree-lined boulevards seem unused. Food options are limited. We don’t want to eat instant noodles or greasy fried food from the fast-food joints we pass. Looking for action of any kind, we finally enter a large, brightly lit mall. It too is new, rolling out its selection of boutiques. We pass the predictable assortment of luxury shops. Shoppers are mostly absent. Instead, giddy youngsters walk arm in arm, or linger in coffee shops, sipping bubble tea.

  Upon completing the circuit, we laugh when we discover that the best food option is in fact the restaurant right next to our hotel. We eat surprisingly delectable dishes served to us under the guidance of the kindly and attentive owner of the establishment, who stands watch between our table and the restaurant’s open doors.

  Neither Viv nor I feel surprised by what we have seen so far in Shenzhen. Our present neighbourhood strikes us both as a serious contender for the most boring one in China.

  I figure that it’s a good time to take up the subject of Taiwan with Viv. During our time together, we’d already worked our way through the roster of subjects important to Chinese geopolitics: relations with the West, relations with Russia, relations with Japan, Korean unification, the Tibetan and Uighur independence movements.

  Viv often surprises me with her liberal and even pacifist views. I find myself marching Chinese nationalist arguments at her progressive ideas, to test them. For her, a strong China is desirable, but her idea of it does not mean that it is callous toward minority peoples or seeks conflict or even dominance over its neighbours. She laments the destructive colonization of Tibet by the Han. She accepts China’s deep reach into central Asia but wishes that relations with the Turkic peoples could be more harmonious. She also resists recklessly fast development pursuits that bring undue stresses to the people and the environment.

  With regard to Russia and Japan and the West, she reasons that China can no longer be bullied by foreign powers but also must avoid becoming a bully itself. The schoolyard squabbles are of no use to anyone anymore. Without any great optimism, she holds out hopes for democracy in China and believes it necessary to usher in a period of calm and prosperity in the Far East whereby old regional enemies might move toward peaceful trading relationships and become partners in meeting the great environmental and spiritual challenges facing humans on earth, especially the three billion-odd souls of the Pacific Rim. Her views are balanced, humanist and quietly proud of both China’s great heritage and the awesome future she envisages for it. She remains, however, an acerbic critic of most present-day Chinese leaders and the system they stand for.

  Among all these brave and dissident positions, I could feel that Taiwan stands out in her discourse. With Taiwan, I wouldn’t need to be arguing from the flanks. Viv’s beliefs in democracy, in minority rights and in self-determination don’t quite carry over into her thoughts about Taiwan. For her, China and Taiwan are like two pieces of a broken heart, and the whole subject is charged with emotion. Viv, who despises her Communist government, wants the reunification with Taiwan as fiercely as it does.

  “There are a lot of indigenous peoples in Taiwan, people with very little to do with China,” I begin to argue.

  “Actually, they’re all but gone,” she counters. “All that is left is a few scattered populations in the mountains. The Japanese were brutal to them, you know.”

  “Han Chinese settlement on the island is rather recent in the grand scale of things—1700s, I believe. It’s not part of dynastic China until recently, under the late Qing, and then it evolved under the Japanese,” I argue.

  “People who know Taiwan well say it’s more Chinese than the mainland. At least, Chinese classical culture is better preserved there,” she responds.

  “For my part, I have always been struck by how much Taiwanese food culture borrows from the Japanese.”

  “Stop trying to goad me!”

  “Anyhow, we are wrong to think the point is even a historical one,” I continue, “even if, yes, history makes Taiwan diverge from mainland China in various different ways. What is important is that Taiwan is different and independent from China now and that the Taiwanese people should be able to choose the fate of their nation. If they decide through a majority vote that they want to stop calling themselves the Republic of China and opt to call their nation the Free State of Taiwan, on what grounds can we outsiders oppose them? That’s the liberal position: people always get to choose.”

  “I can’t imagine the Taiwanese choosing to reject China altogether,” Viv says. “They would need serious protection, American or otherwise. But no protection would be enough. No Chinese leader would allow this to happen. An invasion would be guaranteed.”

  “Realpolitik may well work like that. The Americans and the rest of the world may well concede Taiwan to the PRC. That doesn’t mean that it’s right, that the Taiwanese aren’t entitled to choose for themselves.”

  “Is this how you feel about Quebec’s separation from Canada as well?” Viv asks pointedly.

  “Absolutely. Personally, I am against Quebec’s separation from Canada, of course. But not against Quebec’s right to separate if ever that were the will of a clear maj
ority there.”

  “Well, if Taiwan actually broke with China, it would be too sad. Think about all those who fled China in 1949. How sad it would be for them: the graves of their ancestors in a foreign land.”

  “I am not sure you would feel the same if you yourself were Taiwanese,” I argue. “Why should you have to become responsible for all these things? Why would someone else’s past hold precedence over your future?”

  “A permanent split would mean ending the dreams of Sun Zhongshan, of Chiang, of Mao and Deng. Everyone would lose. China needs Taiwan. Without Taiwan, China cannot be whole. I fear that China needs Taiwan back for it to proceed and evolve. Taiwan and Hong Kong, for that matter, must be part of China because their inclusion can give inspiration to end the one-party state and finally make way for a liberal-democratic republic.”

  “There might be violence in those ideas, Viv. You must see that.”

  “I sure hope not.”

  I leave it at that. We all have our own mythologies, beautiful and flawed like us their creators. Blending in both light and dark, everyone holds a few things sacred. Some wear their hard limits on their sleeve. Others have them buried deep inside. When it comes to Taiwan, bigger issues are clearly at work for Viv.

  Perhaps because the universe is not created anew each moment, that which was started must end. Maybe the dark and light must come spiralling together and families must be made whole. Maybe the sons, Mao and Chiang, must return to the father, Sun, and his vision for China—whole, harmonious and free—must be realized. So says the Tao?

  By day, Shenzhen doesn’t make easy sense to the visitor. It goes on and on without form or history. It doesn’t help that our day’s appointments are at opposite ends of the city. In the morning, we head to the far eastern end to meet with Zhou Litai, a lawyer of some note who has made a name for himself representing injured migrant workers against huge corporations. Our connection to him is that he once represented our noble friend from Chongqing, Li Gang.

  “I feel I should warn you that, from our phone conversation, he strikes me as slightly eccentric,” Viv says cryptically.

  “How is he eccentric?”

  “He’s boastful.”

  Zhou’s office is on a big commercial boulevard that’s in a state of construction, and there is dust everywhere. This hasn’t stopped the bustle; as far as the eye can see, shops line the road.

  Zhou greets us at the door to the building and we follow him up to the second floor. He’s short and stout and incredibly energetic. From the moment we step into the large space of his office’s main room, he engages in a high-speed monologue to establish his credentials. He claims his firm to be the most important one in China for the defence of worker rights. He brings us before a wall of indecipherable degrees, awards and certificates and carefully points to each one as he explains it.

  It’s hard to get a word in. Viv doesn’t try to translate his tirade.

  “Like I said to you earlier, he’s eccentric,” she merely says under her breath.

  Zhou has us sit around an ornate conference table and returns with a stack of photo albums. He hands one to Viv and one to me and urges us to browse through them. Each album is full of classic Chinese-style portraits of groups of people standing upright in rows against a colourful backdrop. In page after page of such portraits, Zhou is often at the centre, grinning like a Buddha. He tells us that they are pictures of clients, officials and dignitaries.

  Hovering over us, Zhou bounces between Viv and me, making sure we don’t miss a single page. When we’re through our respective albums, he intervenes to pass them between us and urges us not to forget to peruse the three other albums remaining on the table. He leaves the room to fetch something else for us. Viv and I exchange an amused look.

  Zhou returns with gifts and press clippings. The gifts are ornate publicity folders for his firm, with multiple business cards for himself. Each for a specific purpose, he explains. Litigator. Consultant. Chairman of some legal association. He hands us photocopied newspaper articles about himself, explaining and justifying each one as if he were filing evidence in a case: Zhou Litai v. The stillness of the universe.

  Finally, Viv intervenes to get some useful answers out of him. We want to know the specifics of what he does. He starts in on a long series of case descriptions with the same energy he used to establish his credentials. He handles injuries, like Li Gang’s, but also wrongful dismissals, complaints about working conditions, about wages. He also mentions lawsuits around worker suicides—families wanting compensation from abusive employers for inhumane conditions.

  The abstract of these explanations would go something like this: China in general and Shenzhen more especially are filled with huge manufacturing entities. They sprout up like weeds. In all this activity, labour standards are difficult to uphold. Some entities employ tens of thousands of people. They are rarely simple structures; many subcontract out elements of production to other entities, so the line of responsibility between executives and employees is often blurred and complex. Oversight is also poorly conducted. Trade unions are absent. Production and labour structures are organized ephemerally. Whole operations are constantly being shut down while others spring up. Market forces do work for labour when it comes to wages. Salaries have been growing steadily. Profit, not any notion of welfare, is the prime driver of all this activity. In the confusion and bustle, corners are cut. Safety is sometimes compromised. When there are incidents, the process of filing grievances and making claims against so many moving targets can be difficult. Zhou explains that his first mandate is usually to untangle complex corporate structures in order to clarify who or what might be held responsible for torts.

  In simpler times, government was heavily involved in labour issues. Party players would intervene to manage grievances and hold elements responsible before any legal proceedings even kicked in. Now with industry growing so fast and the heavy orientation toward foreign clientele in the export market, government is often more interested in its cut than in labour issues, so this work must be dealt with through the legal process and in the courts. As it should be. But many corporations manage to hide their responsibility. There’s great impunity here, and lots of work for Zhou.

  Behind his outrageous boasting, Zhou shows real insight into social-political realities. His work does involve intense clerical and forensic research. He waxes into rhetoric when it comes to the human rights dimensions of his practice: Doesn’t the little guy need a voice? How else is he ensured the dignity he deserves in this world of giant factories and globalized economies? He needs an advocate. He needs Zhou Litai.

  One might think that human rights advocacy in China would put him at odds with the Communist government. I lead him with questions along these lines. He seems entirely unconcerned about his government. Perhaps human rights law is also a misnomer for his practice, a glorified term for something more mundane. Labour and injury lawyer might be more appropriate. As such, he’s of use to the government rather than a nuisance as it slowly and knowingly surrenders its responsibilities to society at large. Zhou does something the government can’t entirely do anymore: hold corporations accountable for negligence toward employees.

  We ask Zhou whether the continued strong links between various tiers of government and large corporations might make things difficult for him. There, he concedes, we might be on to something. The courts are not always terribly impartial. Settlements in favour of his clients are sometimes ridiculously small for substantial negligence and debilitating injuries. Still, he adds, even in the face of localized corruption, higher levels of government generally want justice to be done when it comes to corporate responsibility. The Communist Party of China—the CPC—deems the exercise important; it’s part of the drive toward the ever more sophisticated economy that the CPC usually desires.

  As Viv and I finally exit into the street, we quickly conclude that we like Zhou Litai. Eccentric as he is, China would be well served by more like him. For the rule of law cannot
just be imposed from above but must also rise up from the trenches below.

  To get to our factory, we need cross all of Shenzhen. Our taxi driver is pleased with the distance involved in the trip from the far east to the far west. We even allow him to pay tolls so that he can take the northern peripheral around the city.

  Thus I get to see the outskirts. Shenzhen doesn’t taper off into the countryside but ends abruptly at a solitary range of hills, all covered in jungle. As we glide along the highway beside the forest fringe, I can see that it is quickly falling to exploitation as well. Strip-mine excavations are occurring all along the hillside, making way for high-end residential complexes and golf courses. Then, as we come off the ridge heading south, a vista momentarily opens for us. In the distance, the hazy gulf of the Pearl is dotted with ships: ferries, immense cargo vessels, the tiny specks of fishing boats. The shoreline is a swath of human activity: port, shipyard, industry, inhabitation and construction. From our position on the hill to the gulf several kilometres to the south lies only city, or city in the making. When the highway drops from hill into city, people, production and distribution disappear. Our single mission shines out to us again in the abstract.

  “Viv, tell me about our factory.”