What Would Xi Do?

Today in China, President Xi Jinping expects his Thoughts to replace those of Confucius, Mao Zedong, Mohammed, and Jesus. But what are his Thoughts?

At last year's 19th Communist Party Congress, President Xi announced China entered a new era of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." Since then, many have tried to attach actionable meaning to President Xi's vague dictum. University professors lecture on the Chinese characteristics of socialism; party cells attempt to study a 355-page book on the subject; major companies, libraries, and community centers set aside space for Thought study.

     Much to President Xi's annoyance, since Deng Xiaoping's 1978 emphasis on full tilt economic and scientific progress creeps into discussions, some claim "socialism with Chinese characteristics" really is "capitalism with Chinese characteristics." Maybe President Xi is a little jealous of Deng, who is glorified for beginning China's 40-year economic transformation, while he is left to stifle constitutional, democratic, and religious rumblings from Hong Kong to Tibet. Just to add to the confusion, one of Deng's sons, Deng Pufang, who was paralyzed when Maoist radicals threw him off a building during the Cultural Revolution, disagrees with the aggressive foreign policy and "world class" army Xi's Thought seems to espouse.

     Judging from what is rewarded at China's universities, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects are consistent with the Thoughts of Xi. Students receive financial rewards for STEM papers published in the Scopius catalog of abstracts. Some oppose the tendency of students to play it safe with incremental research rather than aiming for breakthrough innovations, especially with meaningful engineering discoveries that advance modernization or with new social science theories about human behavior. In his new book, Blueprint, genetics psychologist, Robert Plomin, also exposes some of the defects in papers published in scientific journals. He observed researchers are tempted to report only the most novel results, the best story, even though their experiments did not gain the same results every time. In other words, results could not be replicated.

     The Chinese Party definitely agrees with what Xi's Thought prohibits: 1) belief in universal values, such as human rights and freedom of speech and assembly, even though China's constitution allows these rights, 2) an independent judiciary free of government interference and open to public scrutiny, and 3) criticism of past Communist Party mistakes.

     Recently, Western ambassadors, however, have not been reluctant to criticize the mass detentions and surveillance of Muslim Uighurs in western China's Xinjiang province. According to an article in the Financial Times, China uses facial recognition technology to track at least 2.5 million people in the province.  Foreign reporters who recently visited the camps were shown those in detention happily singing in English. They also found Beijing's re-education strategy seemed to have reduced the Uighur Muslims' religious devotion.


   

   

Changing Cuba

In over a half century since Cuba's 1959 revolution, relations between the U.S. and Cuba have yet to reach an equilibrium. President Trump's new regulations began to undo the eased restrictions President Obama put in place only a few years ago. US relations with Cuba also were compromised when State Department representatives began to suffer dizziness, hearing loss, and even brain damage similar to a concussion. By 2018, investigations indicated Russia, which has maintained a major presence in Cuba, had been using something like microwave bombardments to cause these injuries in order to undermine any attempt to move the US and Cuba closer together.

     Nonetheless, Cuba is changing. Modern cars now join the familiar U.S. luxury cars of the 1950s Cubans have managed to keep running without imported parts. Sister Jeannine Gramick rode in a new air conditioned Chinese tourist bus, when she and members of the Rainbow World Fund participated in Havana's International Day (May 17, 2017) against Homophobia and Transphobia.

     Sister Jeannine, who has served a ministry of gay Catholics since 1971 and served as executive coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns since 2003, notes alterations to Cuba's constitution in 1992 stipulate the country as secular, rather than atheistic. Decades of atheism have, however, reduced both the number of practicing Catholics and the use of sacred symbols and images in Cuba's art and ceramic crafts.

     Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, credits eased religious discrimination, lifted restrictions on religious displays, and tax exemptions for property owned by religious organizations to Baptist pastor, Rev. Raul Suarez, founder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Old Havana.

     Among other positive developments Sister Jeannine mentioned are:

• Cuba's 99% literacy rate
• Free universal health care in clinics, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. Money does enable richer patients to receive faster and better care.
• A UNESCO-designated sustainable community, the Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve
• Acceptance of LGBT and HIV/AIDS citizens and same-sex unions

Big problems do remain: A one-party system, no freedom of expression, business transactions controlled by the government and military.

(Also see the earlier post, "Changes to US-Cuban Relationships.")