George Ding

Alexandra Wallace is a fool, but not for the reasons people think. In fact, the basic premise of her rant is quite sound: don’t talk loudly on your cell phone in the library. She even says, albeit as an afterthought, “even if you’re not Asian, you really shouldn’t be on your cell phone in the library,” which she promptly qualifies, “but I’ve just never seen that happen before.” But too little too late. By this point, the offended are already offended.

Wallace’s most basic mistake was to take an inconsiderate action and generalize it to an entire group of people composed of many different ethnicities. That makes her a moron. Then, she assumes that the trend must come from a cultural or racial deficiency. Hence the, “if you’re going to come to UCLA, then use American manners,” and, “Hi, in America, we do not talk on our cell phones in the library!” Asia, she seems to imply, is a land of cell phone library talkers, which might be okay there, but not in the U S of A. This makes her ignorant.

But all this is forgivable. In the jungle of college campuses, the moron and the ignoramus are not endangered species. And the fact that she is a political science major only adds to the farce.

But what makes her a fool is that she filmed these offensive thoughts and then uploaded it to the third most visited website on the planet. Many people, including UCLA’s Asian Pacific Coalition, which wrote a beautiful rebuttal to the situation, are assuming malice where clearly ignorance and foolishness will suffice. Wallace would never have put this on YouTube if she’d known a million strangers would watch it. Instead, she would have commiserated with friends and shared her stereotypical views privately like the rest of us. Sure, Wallace will think twice before blurting out some culturally insensitive remark and videotaping it again, but probably out of fear and not understanding or compassion.

The condemnations of Wallace—the name-calling and death threats—are as without merit as the original remarks. Denouncing the tirade of an angry buffoon isn’t going to educate anyone. What makes Wallace’s video abrasive is that she doesn’t try to understand any of the, shall we say, Asian phenomena around her: she doesn’t ask herself why Asian parents might visit their children on the weekends, and just generalizes that it is something that “all the Asian people that live in all the apartments around” her do. There are reasons why some Asian parents “don’t teach their kids to fend for themselves,” as with Little Emperors in China, but understanding these reasons is not the aim of her video. Although Wallace’s depictions are not entirely wrong, her way of thinking is.

But what about us? Why are we getting mad at an ignorant person venting on the Internet? Isn’t that the Internet? What is the difference between this rant and a bad standup routine? In the lighter moments, that is, before she jokes about the tsunami, one can almost tell that she is joking. At least that’s how I read the, “So being the polite, nice, American girl that my momma raised me to be,” line. In the end, who knew what she was thinking. In fact, she probably wasn’t. But the hurtful and hateful responses, the information mining, the death threats, those are calculated, and much more dangerous. Intolerance is alive and well, but most people know better than to upload it to the Internet.

Oscar Moralde

The Alexandra Wallace affair merely reinforces the idea of the Internet as Panopticon, in which the private and public spheres have been blurred to the point that it’s all a public sphere. It used to be that there was a very delineated and specific way that you entered the public discourse, with clearly marked ways of speaking and behaving that signaled that you wanted to be heard and that you could be judged for it. This of course allowed for institutionalized hypocrisy, but it was accompanied by decorum and boundaries; there were limitations on acceptable targets.

There are no longer any limits, and the Internet is a free-fire zone. It’s easy to pick on Wallace as a target because her words were incredibly offensive, her choice of venue was ridiculously visible, and the whole debacle shows her lack of awareness of the reality of the Internet. But not every case is as extreme as Wallace’s.

Should Gilbert Gottfried have been fired by Aflac for making off-color Twitter jokes about the recent tsunami? How about former Washington Post blogger David Weigel, who was forced to resign for making inflammatory comments about conservatives on a private LISTSERV years before he even took the Post job?

The most disturbing development is how Wallace has been rendered a non-person by this incident. She seems to have realized her grievous error and is trying to withdraw from the public sphere. She’s already been branded and humiliated and she’s making a tactical retreat, but that’s not enough. The Internet is legion; it neither forgives nor forgets. Wallace tried to take her bikini photos off the Internet, but someone found them and posted them back up so the world can crack jokes about her tits. The Internet finds her personal information and her address and circulates it; it issues threats and attacks every possible outlet that Wallace has out into the world. The human flesh search engine demands blood, and once someone like Wallace makes a mistake like this she only exists as a target to be violated and destroyed.

The sad thing is that Wallace is only a visible target like this because she lacks the power to defend herself. She’s simply a girl with some unfortunate prejudices who made a mistake and expressed those prejudices in a way that allowed a vendetta to accrete against her. There are plenty of people with the same prejudices, some of whom have their hands on the levers of power and can actively use them to oppress. They will avoid the punishment that Wallace received simply because they’re more conscious of their audiences and can manipulate them more easily. For them, there will never be retribution.

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Fenwick Smith

The execution of Akmal Shaikh has shocked the West, and Europe has vociferously decried this apparently ruthless treatment of a foreign national by the Chinese government.

Legally, Shaikh was treated no differently than a Chinese offender—possession of even 50 grams of heroin is a potentially capital offence in China, making a 4 kilogram payload an open-and-shut case in the eyes of the Chinese judiciary. In fact, the long stay of execution and access afforded relatives would suggest a certain level of special treatment, as most Chinese offenders convicted of a similar crime would be rushed from customs to cell to grave in a matter of weeks or even days. China’s zero-tolerance policy on drugs is a holdover from the Opium Wars, when the foreign-brokered narcotics trade destroyed China’s teetering economy and brought the Qing empire to its knees. The death penalty is liberally applied to drug offenses, as it has been for over a hundred years. It is overwhelmingly supported by the Chinese populace, who consider drug offenses almost tantamount to rape and murder in its potential to ruin lives. You won’t get clemency from the Chinese for drug smuggling, no matter what mental illness you suffer from. Our land, our laws.

Nevertheless, the world seems to feel Shaikh deserved clemency. Whilst I have no doubt his family felt his unstable mental state reason enough to commute his harsh sentence, I am much more skeptical that Shaikh’s mental condition had anything to do with Europe’s attitude to the execution. The reaction from European politicians is simple indignation disguised as moral outrage. We’re not surprised that the Chinese execute people for drug smuggling. We’re surprised at their audacity in executing an EU citizen.

Westerners are accustomed to special treatment while abroad—police turning a blind eye to our misdemeanors and at worst extraditing us with a slap on the wrist and a temporary travel ban. The very idea that a foreign country would actually execute one of us is anathema, and maybe twenty years ago it would have been unheard of, outside of war zones or the fog of revolution. Consequently, gay Europeans have traveled to Tehran with little fear of a government who regularly hang their Iranian counterparts, and British students have happily puffed away on cannabis in Malaysia whilst its citizens convicted of drug possession are publicly flogged. One law for locals, and another for tourists.

Not so in 2010, when China has finally realized it no longer needs to listen to what the West says. Like SkyNet becoming self-aware, China now appreciates just how powerless other countries are to influence its domestic affairs—look at the brushoff Obama’s human rights entreaties received from Chinese leadership, or Wen Jiabao’s neat sidestepping of China’s Copenhagen commitments. Priorities wise, being seen by its own people to treat criminals with equal severity is way above keeping the EU placated. China is scared of its own population, not foreigners.

It is nigh impossible to dredge any positivity from Akmal Shaikh’s sad story. But the lesson for all of us is that playing by China’s rules has surpassed economics. The Chinese have fired another palpable shot in their struggle for global supremacy, and all Europe can answer with is hot air.

J.R. Siegel

The educational system in China focuses on the century of humiliation—in particular the devastation wrought by the introduction of opium by the British. The Communist Party ties its legitimacy to its ability to lead China toward a new, post-humiliation stage of history in which the Mainland reasserts its rightful place as the leading power in Asia and beyond. Thus the execution of Akmal Shaikh in Xinjiang last week should be understood as a domestic signal that a strong China will not allow brook the introduction of drugs on the Mainland by foreigners—especially the British.

Following the execution the Financial Times reported that it did not expect Mr. Shaikh’s death to undermine the political and economic ties between Britain and China. Although the British protested mightily, they were unwilling to take any retaliatory actions that might have imperiled British access to Chinese labor and markets.

The logical underpinning the British response of loud talk and no action mirrors the policies that the West has adopted vis-à-vis China since 1989. The West will condemn China, but when a confrontation erupts that might imperil Western access to China and its 1.3 billion potential consumers, the West invariably backs down. We saw this in Copenhagen, when China refused to allow international monitors to enter the country and blocked an agreement that would have set international emissions targets for 2050. China has come to believe that if it stands firm, the West would rather meet its demands than risk losing access to the Mainland.

While I am not suggesting that the execution of Mr. Shaikh was the opportune time for the West to begin standing up to China, I do believe that the time for action is rapidly approaching. As the Chinese grow more confident on the international stage, it is imperative that the West stand up for some of the principles its represents: human rights, democracy, and free trade. Indeed, the time has come for China to revalue its currency and thereby help bring the international economy back into equilibrium. If the United States needs to impose a tariff on all Chinese goods until Beijing takes such an action, so be it.

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J.R. Siegel

Every time an American President meets with a Chinese leader, there is an expectation that, this time, the Chinese will listen to us and change their ways. Yet the pattern remains the same: Americans offer advice, the Chinese listen, nod their heads, and ignore absolutely everything that the Americans have to say.

The Chinese define their national interest narrowly—the Communist Party does what it thinks it needs to do in order to remain in power. If it means rolling tanks out on the streets, the Party will do that. If it means keeping the renminbi (RMB) pegged to the dollar, the Party will do that.

The problem with the current pegging of the RMB to the dollar is that it’s bad for everyone. This “beggar thy neighbor” policy is taking low-level jobs away from other developing countries in the region and thereby making them more likely to tilt towards the U.S. than China. At some point, China will need to transition its economy towards more service-based industry and stimulate domestic demand—neither of which will happen if wages remain artificially low. In the short run, mercantilism seems like a good thing; in the long run, it will wreck the Chinese economy.

The irony is that, for once, the U.S. President is trying to help China. In order for the Party to remain in power, it will have to stimulate real economic growth—not investment in fixed assets—by letting the RMB rise and the market play a more prominent role. It is also true that, if Beijing wants to be perceived as a “peaceful and harmonious” global actor, it needs to start sharing some of the costs of global leadership. China cannot simultaneously distort the global economy, peacefully rise, and be perceived as a key international stakeholder.

Ignoring the advice of the U.S. was a strategy that served Beijing well for 40 years. If the Party continues to ignore this advice, it risks throwing away everything it has so carefully built.

George Ding

Obama’s main goal in China was the same as the trips abroad during his campaign: don’t do anything stupid. But this was not a simple fact-finding mission. Long before he arrived in the stately halls of Beijing, the American media was opining on his ability to thread the needle on issues like human rights, the two T’s, and climate change.

In a country where strong opinions are discouraged, the president did a laudable job of gently urging without haughtiness or condescension. The amazing thing was how much Obama said without actually saying it. In Shanghai he brought up issues like natural rights and freedom of information, framing them as a brief history lesson on America. It was suggestion disguised as exposition.

Obama’s trip also accomplished something else. By attending state dinners and visiting the quintessential places of Chinese culture, Obama gave Chinese leaders massive face. The only thing the Chinese government loves more than symbolism and pageantry is face, and Obama’s trip was a mixture of all three. Throughout his trip, Obama embodied a respectful America that earnestly wants to understand and work with China. This is political capital in the new era.

Only time will tell if Obama has ushered in a new chapter in U.S.-China relations or if the two countries will return to bickering as usual. The critics who say he has returned to America with no concrete accomplishments are right. But what he has returned with could be much more valuable: respect from the second most powerful nation in the world.

Fenwick Smith

If a President of the United States speaks in a closed, government-vetted forum, does he make a sound?

Obama in Shanghai displayed once again his abilities as a consummate public speaker. He certainly seemed to believe he was addressing China as a nation, but as any observer would note, the faces behind him, albeit youthful, had the fixed, stiff-necked half-smiles that denote Chinese Communist Party officials. There were few flickers of actual engagement with the content of the President’s address. The democracy agenda was pushed gently, but with a didactic tone far removed from the bullheaded rhetoric of the previous administration. His refreshing humility, more akin in tone if not in content to, dare I say, a Chinese politician than an American one, no doubt warmed his audience to him.

But did he make an impact?

The transcript of Obama’s Q&A has been sought out by Chinese netizens but those are not the people he needs to reach.  The Chinese government within minutes diluted and edited Obama’s speech using their own templates and enabled strict Internet and television controls to limit viewership. Enough encouragements of Sino-U.S. friendship were made to allow his remarks to penetrate into the public arena, but in a format “suitable” for the old hundred names. Essentially, by filling the studio with previously-vetted Shanghai students who were mostly Party members, the Chinese government has kept Obama’s “public” appearance isolated. The Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology was sealed off from the rest of the city, ostensibly “closed for maintenance,” keeping the general public in the dark about Obama’s presence until the last possible moment. Content was not screened live anywhere in China; the text of his speech containing remarks concerning an uncensored Internet were removed from Xinhua websites as quickly as they were posted. I doubt government officials were forcing these deletions—they were more likely an example of the Chinese media’s innate capability for self-censorship. A number of questions, particularly the “randomly selected Internet questions” were blatantly skewed in favor of the Chinese administration.

The President engaged well on a personal level with his questioners, and replied smoothly and candidly, but he was speaking to the Party, not the people, and thus the entire appearance felt—and indeed was—staged. Like a high-level Chinese tourist, or any of his predecessors, Obama was ferried from one photo-op to another, remaining a long way from the political and social realities of the nation he was visiting. And, in the corridors of power where the Internet is uncensored and knowledge unrestricted, the Chinese leadership will nod, smile and dismiss the visit as a publicity stunt well executed. Obama will go home with the feeling that the U.S. will have to continue to negotiate with China on China’s terms. Simply put, China is powerful enough not to listen, and the U.S. is no longer powerful enough to make China listen.

Yulin Zhuang

The key thing to take away from this procession is the lack of any sort of behavior that could be construed as inflammatory or provocative, even by hypernationalist Chinese netizens, whose paranoid frenzies are legendary for their lack of scruples. From declining to meet the Dalai Lama in October to promising that the United States does not seek to contain China’s rise, President Obama has shown a more nuanced understanding of diplomacy as practiced by the Chinese—in public, bland, uninformative, and undistinguished; in private—who knows.

But we can be certain Obama understands that saying or doing anything likely to set the Chinese off would merely be counterproductive to a meaningful dialog. China would be forced to spend its time elaborately posturing to “save face” and Obama would lose the chance to engage China’s cooperation on a wider range of issues. In the view of your average Chinese citizen, China will no longer be dictated to by arrogant foreigners. The orgiastic display of jingoistic pride that was the National Day celebration on October 1st merely served to reinforce this view among Chinese. Sino-U.S. relations may be headed the way of U.S.-French relations—two proud countries eager to put each other down.

What are the implications of China’s space program and the latest spacewalk?  Is it a waste of money or the start of a new space race?  Here are our thoughts.

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Oscar Moralde

Why is China pursuing space development? The answer is simple: space exploration is the sole domain of the superpowers. As in the Olympics, only the United States and the Soviet Union have made it to the top of the leader board in recent memory, and not coincidentally they are the only nations to have successfully launched human beings into space, and only the U.S. has landed a man on the moon. But these days Russia’s space program is limping along, catering mainly to space tourists; while the beleaguered U.S. has relegated its space program to an afterthought when it is not beset by tragedy. This is another opportunity for China to shine on the world stage, another venue that offers prestige without threat, another way for China to show it has the infrastructure and drive to achieve what few other nations on the planet can do.

Is it worth it? Undoubtedly. It is almost disingenuous to label funding of space exploration as wasted money, especially when the same nations barely bat an eye when they maintain million-man armies and enough nuclear weapons to lay waste to the globe. The same people who fail to see the benefit of space exploration would have belittled the discovery of the structure of the atom in the early 20th century. Space research has paid handsome dividends in terms of propulsion technology, material sciences, and advanced communications.

The Chinese push into space is a good thing, if only to give the space programs of the world—the U.S. especially—a kick in the pants. Like Sputnik’s clarion call back in the fifties, maybe it’ll take a Chinese flag planted on the rock that has only known American footsteps to remind people: looking into space is worth the trouble.

Will Coggin

It’s easy to blow off the spacewalk as, “Yeah, the U.S. did that several decades ago,” but to do so would miss the bigger picture.  China is playing the tortoise to the West’s hare, as it is slowly but surely catching up to the West in technological prowess.

The spacewalk highlights China’s capability of self-sufficiency apart from the West in new initiatives.  This theme, which can be seen in Russia’s brazen invasion of Georgia, and its brushing aside of Western criticism, this could be the modus operandi of the two countries for the future.

J.R. Siegel

The Communist Party is willing to do anything that makes the Party and motherland appear strong and this most recent mission to space is no exception.  The thinking in Beijing is rather simple: If the Party demonstrates that it is making China a strong country and returning it to its central place in world affairs, then the people will accept its hold on political power.  If the Party thinks that landing a man on the moon will further legitimatize its hold on power, then it will spare no expense to do so.  If the Party thought that proving the man on the moon is Chinese would place them more squarely in the hearts of the people, it’d take steps to do that as well

Amanda Weiss

There are certain imagined criterion for entrance into the fraternity of first world powers: becoming a nuclear power, developing a massive economy, having a destructive military force, and catapulting men in little capsules out of the stratosphere. In many ways (sewage, average standard of living, customer service, hair styles), China is still a third world country. Thus the development of the space program is designed both to demonstrate that China can match the U.S. step for step on every technological feat and to create a sense of accomplishment, hope and national pride that is extremely, extremely effective propaganda.

Did you notice that Li Ning’s run around the rim of the Bird Nest during the Olympic opening ceremony’s final act looked suspiciously similar to walking on the moon? Not a coincidence.

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Yulin Zhuang

Gold has intense cosmological significance to the Chinese. A friend of mine related the story of a court case involving a large building in Melbourne that many Chinese bought apartments in due to the fact that the top of the building was gold in the model. I’m sure many of us may have noticed that a lot of Chinese restaurants have names like “Golden King” or “Gold Lotus.” The drive for gold medals is certainly given extra fuel by this auspicious association.

But that’s only part of the reason. China’s major drive is to prove to the world that it deserves attention and respect, in any way it can. The Chinese are burning with a desire to prove their country’s eminence, powered by their seemingly unstoppable economic growth. In a country where many people are height-conscious, nouveau riche, and worried about their international image, the Olympic gold medal count provides a visible symbol of China’s rise. They are determined to prove that China is just as good as the United States, if not better. There’s an enormous chip on China’s shoulder where the United States is concerned—conspiracy theories about how the U.S. is trying to suppress China abound. What better way to get over insecurity about China’s place in the world order than to beat the U.S. soundly in the gold medal tally?

J.R. Siegel

The Chinese focus on winning the gold medal count is rooted in the institutional fabric of the nation. China is a country of superlatives—the highest train, the longest bridge over water, the most people, the oldest culture, and so on. For the state, winning the most golds validated the rule of the Communist Party by assuring the population that the Party was working to make China strong again. This is what the Olympics were about—proving that China could compete with, and defeat, the best other countries had to offer. It was about reinforcing beliefs of Chinese exceptionalism.

Striving to be the best is manifest in many other aspects of Chinese culture, perhaps none more so than business and education. Business in China is about haggling harder, making more money and winning. The gaokao is about outscoring your classmates and jockeying for position in competitive colleges. In China, the educational and economic pies are inelastic; if someone else wins a contract or spot at a university, it precludes you from doing the same. The belief that there is a limited amount of opportunity is perhaps the greatest difference between American and Chinese cultures.

American culture and democracy are rooted in an understanding that compromise is a central part of life. Perhaps this is why Americans take a certain pride in being sportsmen, win or lose, and are humbled by the very chance to compete. The lack of compromise within Chinese institutions and the constant focus on superlative achievements, on the other hand, may be why the Chinese were so focused on winning the gold medal tally.

George Ding

I once saw a Chinese woman with a fake D&G bag. I asked her, “Do you like Dolce and Gabbana?”

“What,” came the reply.

“Dolce and Gabbana.”

“I don’t know it.”

I pointed at her bag. “Dee and Gee.”

“Oh! Yeah, I like it.”

I imagine you could repeat this experiment with any number of hard-to-pronounce brand names but the point is, there is a tendency in China to emphasize things without understanding the historical and cultural context behind them, and the Olympics has proven to be another example of this semiotic myopia.

The woman knew that the letters “D” and “G,” when splayed on a purse, meant something important, just as the Chinese government knew that five colored rings and an inextinguishable fire meant something. But what?

The fact that China decided to focus on winning gold medals instead of addressing human rights issues, solving its long-standing internal disputes, or even warning its own citizens about tainted milk, shows that China has completely missed the point.

The plan to dominate the gold medal tally, Project 119, began seven years ago and shows China’s commitment not to athleticism but to winning. So much for the spirit of competition. In Chinese this ability to bend the rules without breaching them is called xiao cong ming—literally, small intelligence.

The emphasis on medal-grubbing cheapens China and the Olympics alike. It belies an insecurity or self-consciousness, like a classroom bully trying to prove something. Ironically, by attempting to showcase its power and gain international respect through the collection of gold trinkets, the government might have done just the opposite.

Oscar Moralde

There is undoubtedly a great amount of prestige associated with being on the top of the medal count; the last time any nation besides the United States or the Soviet Union was at the head of the leader board was Germany in 1936. “Winning the Olympics” via medal count is something that is automatically associated worldwide with being a superpower. The American media this past Olympics was very fond of calling nations “sports powers,” and most often this referred to the PRC.

The Olympics is a perfect platform for China—a non-threatening venue to show off its “peaceful rise” to a global audience. The same characteristics that garner success in the Olympics—a highly motivated and diverse populace, an intense and competitive training network, and the manpower and budget to sustain such a system—generally translate to national success. Each victory in the Games is emblematic of similar such victories in other fields.

An interesting dichotomy between the U.S. and China when discussing medals is the distinction between the gold count and the total medal count. The American media prefers to count total medals, while most of the world, including China, prefers golds when ranking nations. This could be ascribed to the Americans clinging to the count they won in 2008, but the U.S. has used the total count since the beginning of the modern Olympics.

Does this say anything about the two nations’ sports philosophies? One line of thinking is that the preference for total medals reflects the American preference for a sports system where excellence results from individual drive—the wide spread of medals reflects the breadth and depth of sports acumen amongst the entire American people.

The preference for the gold count fits with the viewpoints of smaller, more specialized countries, and nations with centralized, top-down sports infrastructures. For these nations, it doesn’t matter if no one else in the country is any good at a certain sport, as long as the best person in the world at that sport is one of their countrymen. In this view, silvers and bronzes are immaterial.

Which viewpoint is better? Are they even accurate? It’s conjecture, really; but it sounds good, doesn’t it?