All Work and No Play Unmakes China

It is hard to imagine how one of China's innovative business leaders or beautiful movie stars could look at the Chinese loyalists hunched over their desks at a Chinese Communist Party Congress and commit all their energy to further the will of Chairman Xi. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who decided to end the 1989 democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Sq uare by force, proclaimed, "It is a glorious thing to be rich." Yet, Hong Kong's Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, who is said to be among the leaders receiving the highest remunerations in the world, does not pocket any interest on her funds. Prompted by fear of US sanctions, she has no bank account and keeps her cash at home. Mr. Deng neglected to include joy, happiness, fun, freedom, beauty, truth and privacy on his list of glorious pursuits. In AMERICAN FACTORY, the Netflix documentary film about a Chinese factory in Ohio, a Chinese factory manager reveals he has had to commit to two years working away from his family. Even so, the factory manager is one of the lucky men his age who has a wife. China's earlier one-child policy has left 30 million men without mariageable women in 2020. And China's well educated urban women expect to marry men with money; they are not about to settle for villagers. While the Chinese Communist Party focuses on collecting data to control its 1.4 billion Chinese population, the Chinese people entertain other ideas. Ignoring social distancing and assorted restrictions imposed to prevent the coronavirus, China's young people flocked to see Mickey Mouse as soon as Disneyland reopened in Shanghai in May, 2020. For relief from China's "996" work schedule requiring labor from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week, fun-loving Chinese also ignore the government's distain for the lack of socialist values associated with playing Tencent's "Honour of Kings" or watching amateur dancers, singers and comics on Douyin, China's version of TikTok. Some have discovered they can discuss taboo topics away from censors on the Clubhouse app. Unfortunately, a team of Buddhist monks and nomad sheep and yak herders failed to play in a 2019 international basketball tournament because their participation was canceled by Chinese police who felt they might be unable to control a crowd of fans during the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Watching the Chinese Horse Club owners cheering when their Triple Crown winner, "Justify" won the 2018 Kentucky Derby, no one would have known China bans gambling. China's race horse buyers and trainers also can be seen at the New Zealand Jockey Club. Casinos on Macau, the former Portuguese island that is now a Special Administrative Region of China, continue to attract wealthy Chinese. Less affluent Chinese hide in the woods to gamble on mahjong games. At the same time, the Chinese culture that cultivates cheating and lying to achieve business objectives caught up with Lin Qi, the billionaire developer of "Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming," who died of poisoning on Christmas Day, 2020. Founded in 2009, Mr. Lin's Chinese YooZoo Games studio launched his popular strategy game in 2019. Accordig to the BBC, Mr. Lin was poisoned at the hands of a suspect, identified by Shanghai police only as Xu, but later as Xu Yao, the head of YooZoo's film productio unit. YooZoo holds the film adaptation rights to the popular Chinese sci-fi novel, THREE BODY PROBLEMS, the first of a trilogy by Liu Cizin. Like other Chinese movie projects, the plan for the book's film adaptation never developed. But Netflix now seems ready to adapt THREE BODY PROBLEMS for television. China expected its 1.4 million-plus population and twice as many eyes to serve as waving strobe lights attracting film-makers to Qingdao's new 2016, $8 billion film production complex. At first they came, but they soon refused to deal with the demands of censors in China's State Administration of Press Publications, Radio, Film and Television. China's popular film star, Fan Bingbing, was on her way to international fame until the government charged her with tax fraud, and she disappeared. Nowadays, the fledgling movie industry that made a Netflix romantic comedy despite electricity outages in poor little Zimbabwe offers more promise than China. Just as China allows its population limited film fare, readers have to be content with propaganda slogans on factory walls. In 2015, the owner of Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books was arrested and charged with the "illegal sale of books," the political thrillers and bodice-rippers the Central Propaganda Department decided the Chinese population should not read. Before moving his bookstore to Taiwan in 2020, he observed, "Contemporary China is an absurd country." No doubt, most cowed Chinese will self-monitor their activities to conform to Beijing's control requirements. But some will defy personal recognition by shielding their faces with umbrellas and masks, wear black-face makeup to trick artificial intelligence into thinking they are apes, point lasers to disable surveillance cameras and travel on crutches or in wheelchairs to "disguise" their gait. What will the top tier geniuses China needs do? As some have done in the past, they will tire of finding their natural human desires unsatisfied and flee to Silicon Valley.

Has China Overplayed Its Hand?

Xi Jinping, Chairman of China's Communist Party, envisions a "China Dream", not to cool or feed the planet, but to regain China's place, center stage in world history. Kublai Khan's civilization, superior to Europe's in the 13th century, waited for Marco Polo to discover Chinese people paid for their goods with paper money and healed their wounds with a kind of vasoline. Unwilling to wait for China to be discovered in the 21st century, Chairman Xi chooses to dream of world domination by following Deng Xiaoping's 1978 advice, "It is a glorious thing to be rich." To be a rich country in the 21st century requires the technological superiority the world associates with Silicon Valley. When Chairman Xi learned, in April, 2018, a US ban on microchip exports could cause the bankruptcy of a Chinese firm, ZTE, he saw how the patent a US company held on a specific semiconductor chip established the international standard for an item essential in every device connected to a cell phone network. From that point on, his "Made in China 2025" program aimed for self reliance and acquiring standard essential patents (SEPs). Using a SEP without being licensed subjects a user to the charge of infringement. According to a German patent data source, Huawei now holds 2000 5G SEPs. Normally, a firm has to license its monopoly rights to anyone on FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms. The US wants to withhold licensing its SEPs to competitors because of national security concerns. To be fair, Huawei would have to be allowed to do the same. The chip situation is very complicated, because Washington has not been able to resist lobbying from US firms that want to continue selling chips to Huawei, a short term gain, since China is determined to end reliance on US supplies. Nonetheless, as of September 26, 2020, the US Commerce Department requires US suppliers to obtain hard-to-come-by licenses to export what China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), considered a supplier to the Chinese military, needs to upgrade and maintain its manufacturing and hardware equipment. Not easy to replicate or fund are the processes of: 1) designing the delicate silicon microchips created for different purposes, such as operating driverless cars, and 2) constructing the automated, super-cooled and shock resistant facilities where chips are manuractured. Ironically, Taiwan, which Beijing claims under its "one country, two systems" policy framework, currently is among the countries with facilities capable of fabricating microchips. Yet, Beijing is at odds with the democratic government Taiwan re-elected in January, 2020. Chairman Xi's detrmination to maintain stability through surveillance-guaranteed control and conformity undermines a relationship that provides Taiwan's top tier brainpower and technology. What steps is China taking to reduce external dependency, even from Taiwan, on foreign sources of semiconductor chips? - Enhanced domestic training of top quality skilled workers - Using experienced Chinese hackers to scoop up foreign researh and development progress in a wide variety of high tech industrial, medical, engineering, solar, gaming and military fields - China Talent Plan, a spy-like program for recruiting foreign individuals with access to intellectual technology property who are willing to work with Chinese partners - Huawei, a Chinese company with total annual earnings of over $100 billion annually from 170 countries, sells smartphones and cellular and internat gear that give Beijing potential access to big data from around the world. Some US professors targeted by the China Talent Plan have seemed oblivious to the way China uses them, but the FBI has been concerned for more than a decade. Yanqing Ye, for example, would see herself on an FBI wanted poster after she entered Boston University's Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering without declaring, on her visa application, her status as a Lieutenant in China's military, her membership in the Chinese Communist Party and her association with China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). The FBI found a Princeton professor working on unmanned drones and autonomous submarines with a scientist from NUDT. Although Huawei has global sales, its biggest customer is China, where a 2017 law requires any citizen or organization, including Huawei, to comply with all government requests. Therefore, the US attempts to prevent countries from making Huawei purchases, especially the countries in the "Five Eyes" spying pact that shares intelligence among Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and US. When Britain concluded a review of an April 24, 2019 decision to build its 5G (fifth generation) network with a limited amount of Huawei equipment, the decision was overturned on July 14, 2020. In October, 2020, Sweden also decided not to use Huawei products in its 5G network. Following the UK's decision, Britain suggested forming a 10-country alliance of democracies to develop 5G technology and to eliminate dependence on Huawei and other Chinese technology companies. With 6G technology already on drawing boards, an alliance of G7 countries (Britain, Canada, the US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan) and Australia, South Korea and India represents an important source of brainpower and financing to develop future networks. Such a NATO-like coalition also could more than match China's future investments in computing power to handle big data, the semiconductor industry, drones, robotics, autonomous weapons and other advanced technology. By attempting to gain world domination, China has stirred up widening opposition to its transgressions, such as internment of one million Uighur Muslims in so-called re-education camps, disregard of Hong Kong's 50-year guarantee of rights under China's takeover agreement with Britian and an expanding claim to the South China Sea. What some are calling a tech Cold War is more. Chinese Communism and the democratic ideals of human rights, the rule of law and representative government are waging a battle for history's center stage.

Punishment for Human Rights' Abuses

Like two aspirins for those whose heads ache, because they feel powerless to do anything about unspeakable human rights' violations, the concept of Magnitsky laws is a cure. These laws impact the individuals and organizations responsible for inhuman abuses, who often seem to escape prosecution, to accummulate fortunes by leveraging their high-level contacts and to laundeer and stash their wealth in safe havens throughout the world. Countries, including the US, UK, Canada, the Baltics and members of the European Union, enact a version of the Magnitsky law to freeze accounts of those responsible for human rights' abuses, thereby preventing them from financing their anticipated luxurious lifestyles. While the laudible aim of Magnitsky laws and fate of Sergei Magnitsky are well known, some details are disputed. Mr. Magnitsky, a 37-year-old tax expert, sometimes represented as an attorney, worked for Bill Browder's London-based Hermitage Capital Management investment firm. When Browder's Russian investments in state-owned corporations, especially Gazprom, prospered, he appears to have involved Magnitsky in a scheme to limit his tax liability by claiming a discount for employing disabled workers firms did not employ. In connection with an investigation two Moscow police officers made into Broder's alleged $230 million tax fraud case, Magnitsky ended up in a Russian prison, where a doctor discovered he needed pancreatic surgery he never received. Magnitsky died in prison on November 16, 2009. Mr. Browder effectively tells the story that the two police officers who initiated the tax fraud investigation were responsible for Magnitsky's death. In any case, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) maintains a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) sanctioned under various laws, including the Global Magnitsky Act of 2012. On Friday, August 7, 2020, the OFAC list added 11 Hong Kong officials for undermining autonomy guarantees and restricting freedom of expression or assembly. In mid-July, 2020, the UK's Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations imposed asset freezes and travel bans on: - 25 Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky's death - 20 senion Saudi intelligence officials allegedly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - 2 Myanmar generals connected to ethnic Rohingya autrocities - 2 North Korean organizations that run the concentration camps for political prisoners The UK's sanctions regulations provide review provisions.

Can Democracy Be Exported?

Before accepting as an article of faith the glib notion that Russia, Iraq, and other countries with traditions of authoritarian regimes cannot change, consider the observations of Nabeel Khoury, a retired US foreign service officer with extensive experience in the Middle East. Interviewed by Thomas L. Friedman, on c-span's "Book TV" January 15, 2020, Dr. Khoury questioned this assumption. Basically, he said the freedoms in the First Amendment of the US Constitution have universal appeal.

     During President Trump's impeachment trial, Congressional representatives often mentioned the wisdom of the small group who collaborated on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In essence, Dr. Khoury recommends a transition to democracy requires similar components: a small cadre of smart influencers and a plan. I was reminded of the intellectuals who gathered at Kavarna Slavia, Prague's Art Deco cafe, to plot Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution."

     That is not to say, democratic changes are free of bloody combat, When Hong Kong's democracy activists first protested China's attempt to void the 1997 Sino-British agreement designed to govern for fifty years after London handed its colony over to Chinese rule, many assumed Beijing quickly would crush resistance. That was eight months ago. In that time, clashes with police and injuries have occurred, but Hong Kong's determination seems to have helped strengthen the determination of nearby Taiwan, another island governed by China, to re-elect a pro-democracy government on January 11, 2020.

     Just as violence can be expected to accompany a transition to democracy, factions within democratic movements also are likely. Authoritarian governments fail to satisfy not only the employment opportunities sought by educated young people in the Middle East and elsewhere, but in Russia, for example, they can fail to accommodate the needs of pensioners who resist increasing the age when they can draw benefits. Some seek freedom from corrupt officials who rob national economies, and others emphasize the desire for personal freedom to express their opinions and to live and work in humane conditions. The earlier marches Alexei Navalny led in Russia sought democratic reform, but he found protests against corruption had more appeal.

     If teachers guided students through the process of writing a Classroom Constitution, their students would see for themselves how factions would emerge to complicate the process. Students would come to appreciate how difficult it is to define the powers and responsibilities Articles would assign to a teacher, students, and administrators, as well as to create mechanisms for resolving disputes.

    Democracy brings with it a battle of ideas, once waged in pamphlets; now in social media. The highly-educated citizens China depends on for technological military and commercial advances value more leisure and call for shorter hours and fewer work days. They also value internet access free of censorship and figure out how to use Western sites both for technological tips and as a means to escape government oversight. On the other hand, new rural arrivals in China's metropolitan areas seek to fulfill basic needs for education, health care, and housing. 

     In order to fashion a democratic structure agreeable to all, masterful leaders need to study political theory and constitutional compromises. The US founders did not share the same objectives. Some owned slaves and others were abolitionists. Some preferred a strong central government; others clung to states' rights. When a rash of countries achieved independence from colonial powers after World War II, Dr. Lorna Hahn envisioned a way global experts could help satisfy the needs of newly independent countries. For 20 years, she sponsored forums and personal contacts that brought together a variety of scholars, such as attorneys experienced in writing constitutions, and leaders from developing countries at an Association on Third World Affairs. 

     For more echoes of Dr. Khoury's belief in the persistent universal quest for freedom that democratic systems of government provide, check out the earlier posts: "Why Do They Love Us?" and "Don't Give Up On Us."

Children of the Year

Not only Greta Thunberg but you also are TIME magazine's 2019 "Person of the Year."  Children have the means of communication to meet the challenges of reducing and eliminating global threats of climate change, migration, and gun and nuclear weapon destruction by terrorists and nation states at home and abroad.

     Inaction no longer satisfies indigenous peoples confronting destruction of the Amazon forest in Brazil, democracy activists in Hong Kong, or religious orders of nuns offering proposals at the Vatican and stockholder meetings in New York.

     Just as Greta Thunberg did, children can paint a slogan for change on a sign and hold it up in front of the adults in the media, legislatures, banks, and corporations that have the power to act now. And young people have the numbers and time to keep the pressure on from now into the future.

     For other thoughts on the impact children have, see the earlier post, "Youth and Social Media Fuel Democracy."

Beijing Meets Its Match

Continuous protests begun in Hong Kong in early June, 2019, achieved results on September 4, 2019. The government withdrew a bill that would have required those charged with domestic crimes to be transferred to mainland China for trial. Nonetheless, Hong Kong's leader, Ms. Carrie Lam, failed to resign and protests could continue.

     When China's President Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong for the first time in July, 2017, he said attempts to challenge Beijing's sovereignty, security, and power were "impermissible." On June 30, 2017, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry had said Beijing no longer considered itself bound by the 1984 Sino-British treaty that ended the UK's rule and prepared Hong Kong to become a semi-autonomous region of China for 50 years.

     Under terms of a secret provisional agreement, on August 26, 2019, atheistic China allowed the Roman Catholic Pope, Francis I, to ordain Bishop Anthony Yao Shun of Jining in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Bishop Stephen Xu Hongwei of Hanzhong in Shaanxi. Previously, Beijing claimed such appointments would be considered foreign interference with China's internal affairs.

"Don't Give Up On Us...."

Skeptics scoff at the activists in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Turkey who still cling to the belief that democracy and dignity will overcome the authoritarian rule that triumphed following the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011-2013. How can today's Rohingya Muslims fleeing their burning villages in Myanmar envision democratic rule when they lack support from Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose civilian party won a parliamentary majority in 2015, after the country's military regime released her from house arrest in 2010?

Perhaps the key to never giving up on democracy is believing it is not a sure thing, but, as the demonstrations in Iran suggested on New Year's Eve, 2017, neither is democracy's defeat a done deal.

Since 1961, Amnesty International has been keeping track of those subjected to human rights violations. If you have as few as five minutes to help alleviate suffering, go to amnestyusa.org and find out what you can do.

U.S. citizen Joshua Holt, a former Mormon missionary charged with spying, and his wife were arrested in Venezuela in June, 2016 when guns were planted in their apartment. U.S. citizen Alan Gross could tell them political conditions can change for the better. He was released in Cuba in 2014, when relations between the two countries improved. Mr. Holt and his wife were released in 2018.

St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions were martyred trying to convince North Koreans of their worth before God, but the current regime could not kill Oh Chung-Sung, the North Korean soldier who was seriously wounded when he ran to freedom across the border in November, 2017. The long tapeworms, tuberculosis, and hepatitus B his South Korean doctor found in the 24-year-old soldier tell how wounded North Korea's army already is.

China feels the need to prevent engineers building railroads in Africa from having any local contacts and to control internet access by its citizens at home. Nobel Peace Prize poet, Liu Xiaobo, and his wife had to be confined to their home to keep his pro-democracy works from inciting the public. But a year after Mr. Liu died, his widow, Liu Xia, was released and allowed to go into exile in Germany.

Hong Kong's young pro-democracy activists, who carried on knowing they faced repeated arrests after leading a 2014 protest, triumphed when an appeals court overturned their sentences in February, 2018. Despite the threat of receiving a prison term of up to three years, Hong Kong soccer fans bravely turned their backs on the playing of China's nation anthem, "March of the Volunteers," in October, 2017. Hong Kong protests that began in early June, 2019, aimed to eliminate the threat of transferring domestic criminals to the China mainland for trial. As demonstrations continued into August, both demands for democratic reforms and police intervention increased. China's slowing economy already raises Beijing's fear of an inability to control mainland dissatisfaction with a declining standard of living and seems to restrain the Xi government from further aggravating conditions by using military force against its citizens in Hong Kong. Unknown is how much broadcast and social media coverage of the Hong Kong protests reaches the restive Tibetan and Muslim populations in western China and what impact the news might be having.

In Russia, Putin's prosecutors have to rely on bogus accusations to keep the Navalny brothers, Oleg and Alexei, from running for President and using social media to mount anti-corruption proptest marches, not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia. Communist politicians lost elections in 2018, when Russia's senior citizens began protesting Putin's plan to raise the age when they could retire and claim pensions.  In TIME magazine (the May 1/May 8, 2017 issue), former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said, "I am convinced Russia can succeed only through democracy."

Classic World War II Christmas carols retain their meaning during this holiday season. We think about the spread of democracy and sing, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas...Next year all our troubles will be miles away...Some day soon we all will be together, if the fates allow."

Look East at South Korea, China, and Japan

North Korea is not the only country drawing attention eastward. On February 9, 2018, the Winter Olympics will begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

     In October, 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China confirmed Xi Jinping as China's President for his second, and probably not final, 5-year term. His Chinese Socialism for a New Era is designed to replace Russia with China as the world's other superpower.
Unlike Russia, Xi cracks down on the corruption that makes President Putin vulnerable to opposition by those suffering economic deprivation. But Xi is not confident enough of his position to lessen censorship or to release from house arrest the widow of Liu Xiaobo, a leader of China's pro-democracy demonstration in 1989, or to free, permanently, critics, such as activists, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, who organized a 2014 pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong.

     China's neighbor in Japan continues to push for a constitutional amendment that would give the country the right to maintain a military force. Like Xi, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a landslide election in October, 2017 that solidified his position and plans for economic growth. In 2020, the Summer Olympics will come to Tokyo.

   

Youth and Social Media Fuel Democracy

Young leaders in both China and Russia show they are not buying into the Communist indoctrination their elders accepted with little or no question. Fear of arrest, prison terms, the gulag, and being sent to a penal colony now have to compete with exposure to the alternative future social media describes for young digital pros.

     Sparks of democratic fervor have erupted before social media existed. The Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Czechoslovakia's 1968 reforms, and the pro-democracy movement that brought students to China's Tiananmen Square in 1989 were unsuccessful. But activists persisted and broke up the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Now they have the social media that helped fuel the 2009 Green Movement named for the campaign color of the losing presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi,  in Iran; the Arab Spring; the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong; and anti-corruption rallies in Russia.

     When the three under-30-year-olds who led Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement were sentenced to prison terms in August, 2017, they said they considered their arrests a threat, rather than an end to confrontation. China shows it recognizes the threat of social media by trying to monitor who is saying what on the internet and by demanding ID verification for posts. Beijing's leaders refused to allow Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize winning leader in Tiananmen Square, to leave China for treatment of liver cancer. In the West, unlike in China, they knew he would be able to share his poems about democracy in person and on social media.

     It should be mentioned that not only social media, but also travel and education connect the world's democracy advocates. In  Hong Kong, for example, the Penn Club is a network of the University of Pennsylvania's alumni, families, and friends. Students from Penn and the families that sent them there recognize the university's home in Philadelphia also is the location where the US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written to inspire the American Revolution. Recently, faculty visitors from the University of Pennsylvania conducted a Global Forum in Hong Kong that brought business and government leaders together with alumni to consider the key issues facing global business. Who knows what else these leaders could have discussed when they got together. Hong Kong protests that began in early June, 2019, aimed to eliminate the threat of transferring domestic criminals to the China mainland for trial. As demonstrations continued into August, both demands for democratic reforms and police intervention increased with no end in sight.

     In Russia, corruption by the select group that has benefited from the country's newly found oil and gas wealth motivates anti-government marches and rallies. Led by the blogger, Alexei Navalny, young protesters risked arrest to take to the streets throughout Russia in March and June, 2017. When Navalny was sentenced on a false charge in 2013, 10,000 protesters marched in Moscow to secure his early release. Russia's leaders can only imagine how many more protesters social media will bring out to welcome Alexei's younger brother, Oleg, when he finally is released from a false charge that sentenced him to a penal colony for three and a half years.

     For protection, in April, 2016, Vladimir Putin created a Russian National Guard loyal to him alone. By creating his private cadre of as many as 300,000 troops, however, Putin also created a prime target for infiltration by anyone out to do him harm. It is no wonder that, as head of the Guard, Viktor Zolotov, Putin's long-time personal bodyguard, is in a position to monitor those authorized to get close to Putin, and Putin is in a position to monitor Zolotov's activities. In September, 2018, whether from irritation or real fear, Zolotov challenged Alexei Navalny to a duel.

     But what will China's and Russia's students find when they go West for advanced educations in the United States and England? They'll meet President Obama's daughter at Harvard and Nobel-prize-winning Malala at Oxford. Students from Hong Kong, who attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, found they could sit on a bench next to a statue of Ben Franklin, and they probably ventured downtown to tour Independence Hall and to visit the Liberty Bell. Democracy stands ready to outlive the current leaders in China and Russia.

(Also, check out earlier posts: China's Manifest Destiny East, West, and South; Hong Kong Update, Remember Liu Xiaobo, Russia's Alternative to Putin, and 29 Countries Influence 7 Billion People.)

       

China's Manifest Destiny East, West, North, and South

Mainland China is not about to let Hong Kong stand in the way of its "Manifest Destiny" to the East. Despite the terms of the 1984 Sino-British treaty that ended colonial rule and prepared Hong Kong to become a semi-autonomous region of China on July 1, 1997, the island is unlikely to remain unchanged for 50 years. In fact, free elections ended three years ago. On June 30, 2017, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry said the mainland is no longer bound by the 1984 treaty.

     On July 1, 2017, just before Hong Kong's annual march to commemorate the 1984 treaty, China's President Xi Jinping, on his first visit to the island, warned "Any attempt to endanger China's sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government...or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland" is an "impermissible" way to cross a red line.

     Martin Lee,  who is known as Hong Kong's "father of democracy," observed money is all the Communist Party has. (Under Deng Xiaoping, China embraced striving for economic progress by the country and individuals.) It has no core values or principles of freedom, civil rights, or a rule of law.
He told the 60,000 or more pro-democracy protesters on July 1, "Even if our country will be the last in the entire world to reach that goal, we will still get there."

     Meanwhile, China will continue to pursue its eastward quest to dominate the South China Sea and maintain control over its so-called semi-autonomous regions: Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

     Activities involving India and Myanmar (Burma) also reveal China's interest in securing a strategic position in the West. Its Maritime Silk Road (road, bridge, and tunnel) project, estimated by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to cost at least $1.7 trillion per year through 2030, is designed to reconstruct the ancient Silk Road linking China to India. The hydroelectric dam China built on the Brahmaputra River gives Beijing control over the needed monsoon water that flows from Tibet through India and Bangladesh. And China's interest in securing access to the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar prevents Beijing from pressuring that country to severe its military ties to North Korea.

     As for China's quests in the North and South, see the posts, "China Stakes a New Arctic Claim," China's plans for its Polar Silk Road in "Santa Opens Arctic for Business,"  and "China Is Everywhere in Africa."

Soft Power

What changes minds, governments, behavior? The idea that a trainer can get a horse to do something by using a carrot that rewards or a stick that hurts translates into soft power and hard power. In international relations, hard power takes the form of tanks, bombs, drones, assassinations, prison sentences, torture, and economic sanctions. Soft power can defeat an enemy without firing a shot or sending anyone to a dungeon.

     Young men from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, began kicking a soccer ball around in Andahuaylillas, Peru. Children heard the familiar sound and joined them. Adults came to watch and some also joined the game. The Loyola students were in a program exploring the way sports can be used as a means of youth and community development. Communities determined to prevent gangs from destructive activity during summer vacations can beef up policing and arrests or they can work with businesses to provide summer jobs and with parks to leave the lights on for midnight basketball games.

     Why were a female music group, a Ukrainian filmmaker, and a blogger sent to Russian prisons and penal colonies? Why are Hong Kong book sellers in Chinese prisons? Authoritarian states recognize the soft power of music, film, social media, and books to overthrow repressive governments.

     Fashion, video games, educational systems like Montessori or Suzuki, and ethnic foods also spread values and cultural influence.

     Of the millions of people who have visited Disney theme parks, few have noticed the employees dressed as costumed characters when they enter or exit the park. The doors they used are in dim, uninviting alcoves away from the fun, excitement, and bright lights designed to entertain visitors.

     The bottom line is: recognize the impact, influence, and power of soft power.

(You can find additional information about the influence of films and soft power in the earlier posts: "You Oughta Be in Pictures" and "What Moscow Could Learn from History."

   

Hong Kong Update

 In January, 2016, protesters again took to Hong Kong's streets, when booksellers and publishers of books that often feature sex stories of Communist Party leaders disappeared. Under the Basic Law that has governed Hong Kong ever since the UK returned the island to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed freedoms of speech not granted on the Chinese mainland. The Basic Law governing Hong Kong as one of China's special administrative regions also barred Chinese legal authorities from exercising jurisdiction over Hong Kong's courts, a power that Chinese political pressure seems slowly to be undermining.

     Ten weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations ended in Hong Kong on December 11, 2014, when police cleared the streets and arrested activists in what came to be called the Umbrella Movement. Initially, young activist leaders, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, were sentenced to community service. On August 17, 2017, an appeals court changed what was considered too light a sentence to up to eight-month prison terms that also bars them from running for office for five years. They were released on bail in October, 2017.
 
      As this 2005 photo shows, democracy protests in Hong Kong are not new, but there's been a
shift from violent confrontations with the police. Proponents of non-violent civil disobedience began calling for a new strategy to maintain the democratic measures they expected in 1997.

     Under the terms of the UK's accord with China, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong was to be elected by universal suffrage. John Tsang was the popular choice for Chief Executive in Hong Kong's April, 2017 election, but the electoral college chose Carrie Lam in order to accommodate China, which had announced it would select acceptable candidates to run in the 2017 election.

     During the peaceful 2014 protest demonstration, Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen was among the Occupy Central non-violence supporters who tried to turn themselves into Hong Kong's Central Police Station on December 3, 2014. They were neither charged nor arrested for an illegal protest. The police told them their protest was illegal and asked them to fill out forms providing personal information. The police did not want the Central Station to attract more protesters who wanted to be arrested and, therefore, to become another center for occupation.

      Given heavy censorship and spin on the news, Beijing controls how Hong Kong's protests are portrayed as illegal and influenced by foreigners. It has been said that the mainland Chinese are not sympathetic with Hong Kong protests, because they feel people in Hong Kong already enjoy more freedoms than they do. (For additional information about current affairs in China and Hong Kong, see the earlier blog post, "Let's Visit China.")

Let's Visit China

While the world is focused on Scotland's vote to remain in the United Kingdom, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and ways to contain the ISIS menace, a  number of Chinese developments merit attention.


China's e-commerce platform, Alibaba, raised $25  billion when its shares went on sale September 19, 2014. As with other e-commerce firms, there are charges pending about the lack of sales tax paid on Alibaba purchases, and there is concern about e-commerce sales of counterfeit items. Also, there has been no news about how well China's shipping and delivery network is handling online purchases, a problem that has adversely affected India's e-commerce boom (See the later blog post,"Problems Present Career Opportunities.").

Alibaba was not the only company to enjoy a strong response to its initial stock offering. China's CGN nuclear power group received a similar response when its shares went on sale for the first time in Hong Kong. Yet, in January, 2015, the Chinese residential real estate developer, Kaisa Group Holdings, defaulted on a $128 million payment to foreign investors holding $500 million in bonds promising a 10.25% yield.

Urbanization and higher incomes in China are raising demand for locally produced goods, baby formula, disposable diapers, Western foods (such as cheese and Starbuck's and Costa coffee) and movies. Aiming to expand into the film business, Dalian Wanda, China's fourth richest man, who operates China's largest cinema chain and luxury hotels, is expected to open a major office in Hollywood, where he  has shown interest in buying shares in and film collaboration with Hollywood's Lionsgate studio. Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba, also has had discussions with Lionsgate. In 2017, movie box office revenue in China will be $8.6 billion. By then, film studios and movie stars will begin to stash revenue in the Khorgos tax haven on China's far northwestern border with Kazakhstan.

Local governments continue to prop up failing heavy industrial plants, and China's manufacturing sector does not turn down opportunities to produce religious items. Though an atheist country, a Chinese factory has published over 125 million Bibles. Unfettered industrialization continues to cause China problems with pollution. Recent studies show China's population produces more carbon dioxide (CO2) per head than the European Union and U.S. Therefore, it was great news November 12, 2014 to learn that China and the U.S. have signed a pact, however symbolic, to limit carbon emissions. At a dinner and meeting in Beijing's Great Hall of the People during the November 11-12, 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, both President Obama and President/General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, stressed peace, prosperity, stability, and a partnership that fosters security in a Pacific Ocean "broad enough to accommodate the development of both China and the United States."

At the end of the APEC summit, after Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, and China's President met on November 10, 2014, Abe said he hoped the two countries would talk again and again (a hotline to prevent their vessels from conflict in the East China Sea has been proposed) and that they would work toward a mutually beneficial relationship. Earlier, a Chinese diplomat in Iceland was arrested as a spy for Japan.

Hong Kong tycoons are spending freely. The Chan brothers have donated $350 million to Harvard and expect to make another sizable donation to the University of Southern California. Stephen Hung ordered $20 million worth of Rolls Royces to transport gamblers at his Louis XIII resort in Macao. Nonetheless, Chinese gamblers, who have been staying away from Macao's casinos for fear of being targeted in China's crack down on corruption, have put a big dent in the island's revenue as they try to stay clear of China's anti-graft investigations into the origin of their wealth. Casinos in Cambodia have benefited from this exodus of Chinese gamblers trying to stay under the radar. Macau's investors, on the other hand, are trying to regain visitors by following the Las Vegas model and giving the island a more family-friendly image by adding a $2.3 billion theme park to a new casino.

Despite the use of tear gas and the arrest of a leader of the pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, which has an almost country-to-country border crossing procedure with mainland China, protests continue to oppose Beijing's attempt to dictate which candidates can run for election in 2017. (See the later blog post, "Hong Kong Update.") Though not secure from authorities, Hong Kong protesters are using the smartphone mobile app, FireChat, to communicate with each other without relying on Internet connections. President Xi believes foreign countries are involved in the protests.

The number of Chinese students, who once made up 33% of international grad students in the U.S., is decreasing. French speaking Chinese students are on their way to former French African countries to work for Chinese companies there. In English-speaking Africa, China is building a $12 billion, 1,400 km railway in Nigeria.

(For more about China, see the earlier blog post, "See the World.")