An Open Letter On The Xinjiang Cotton
This open letter by Andy Serwer, editor-in-chief at Yahoo Finance, to China’s Xi Jinping inspired me to get on the topic that I planned on writing but was distracted by other stuff that is “newsier” or more current. Serwer sounds more open minded with a softer tone than many, he treated China’s Xi Jinping with some degree of respect, and implicitly invited Xi’s responses to the issue he focused on: the Xinjiang cotton, “the latest flashpoint between China and the U.S. (and the rest of the West for that matter).” The letter uses the phrase “I wonder…” several times, like “I wonder how you would describe it, Mr. President.” and “I wonder how much you were in the loop on that Mr. President?” or “I wonder President Xi if you will change too?“
These are the things and words I like, and drive me to an informative discussion on the topic. Just a side note: I would not engage in a serious conversation with guys like Pompeo, who accused Biden’s climate pledge as an enormous gift to China. All he wants is public attention to help his campaign for the White House, knowing that China is on top of the bipartisan radar these days. The best response is therefore no response. If I had to choose between Trump and Pompeo, I would prefer Trump in 2024 — if he can get away from his legal troubles by then — because it is better to have someone real or original than someone phony and as the most sycophantic heat-seeking missile after Trump’s ass. Trump and Ivanka also showed support for the vaccines.
Like Serwer, I have questions myself about what exactly happened or happening in Xinjiang, and what the real issues are there. I also believe in a “Hot war of words” between the two countries or two fronts of west versus China, exaggerations, lies, spying activities and non-descent moves are to be expected, at least not surprising. For some people, fighting China is their daytime job or self appointed mission. There is nothing wrong about some indecency: The end justifies the means. Others, myself included, still believe we should fight like gentle human beings: to fight by truth or facts. “Winning by all means” is wrong not only in a moral sense but carries risks as it ruins the competition and can hurt ourselves: We may win today but the other party may hit us back later like a boomerang. Playing by transparent rules is better for everyone.
The US Has Been Further From The Truth
Having said that, I do believe the US and the west have been further from the truth than China has when it comes to genocide and forced labor charges. Do not get me wrong, I fully support the US leadership and sincerely believe the world will be better off from the continued leadership than from a changed leadership from China. I also dislike Xi Jinping’s domestic moves lately toward Mao era with tightened control of people.
It’s just that we can do better in our competition by focusing on the US and by targeting the real problems in China, not by stirring ethnic conflicts with shaky evidences from Xinjiang.
Lies For the Iraq War
We should really draw lessons from the Iraq war, where a few propagandists had taken extraordinary step to manipulate a 15 year old girl named Nairah, as shown in this shocking video of February 17, 2021 on YouTube.
The story was that prior to the invasion of Iraq, there was a vast propaganda campaign in the US that is now mostly forgotten. Nairah was from Kuwait and on October 10, 1990, the 15 year old gave her tearful testimony before the Congress about the horrors inside Kuwait after Iraq invaded there. The clip inside the video clearly showed her saying that she was a Kuwaiti and just came out of that country; that her sister and her five year old nephew travelled across the desert, with no milk to feed the baby; that she decided to stay in the country as a volunteer to help others in a hospital; that she saw Iraqi soldiers came to the hospitals with guns, and took the babies out of the incubators and let the children die on the cold floor (sobbing)!
As pointed out by the hosts, the video of her testimony was rebroadcasted across the country over and over and brought the turning point of public opinions on invading Iraq. President George H.W. Bush repeatedly cited her claim. Three months later he ordered the invasion of Iraq.
The only inconvenient fact is that the tearful testimony was not true and Nairah turned out to be not just any Kuwaiti teenager but the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US. She was coached by the PR firm Hill+Knowlton hired by Kuwaiti government to help the campaign.
Videos From Inside China
You can watch this video from some Han Chinese living in Xinjiang for her first 18 years of life, in a city 20 KM away from Urumqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang region in Northern Xinjiang. One interesting point she brought up was that her own parents never even understood what forced labor is, because they wanted all their children getting jobs, as sitting idle is a waste of time and will make the person suffer later in life. In her words, all Chinese parents had the “original sin” of “forcing” their kids to work. The other thing I learned was that Xinjiang government not only relocate surplus labors to the inland, but also spent money attracting factories from inland to open in Xinjiang. Firms did not want to come but some did, due to the government incentive.
This video from CGTN, a state own TV network but if you are open to absorb any information from any source, this network should help you. The guests there tend to have reflections and observations that an overseas Chinese can easily relate and find highly believable. This particular guest, Carlos Martinez, made an interesting comparison that in the US, on a per capita basis the number of people in prisons is 6-7 times higher in the US than in China, and yet people call China a prison nation.
I do not agree with everything the guest has said. One point I want to make however is that democracy does have great power in shaping people’s prior beliefs and offers great advantages to allow its citizens go off the hook of being charged or accused of horrific crimes like genocide or forced labor.
Learning From Cyrus Janssen
This video posted on YouTube October 10, 2020 by an American entrepreneur named Cyrus Janssen, who lived in China for more than 10 years and kept traveling there today, shared one interesting story that shows how Bayesian evidences can be incomplete and misleading — with or without conscious intention of doing so.
The video started from a reporter named Eva Dou (apparently an ethnic Chinese by her last name) for Washington Post with a tweet: “China has gone into a soft form of food rationalizing nationwide.” and “Everyone from Alibaba’s Jack Ma to elementary students under pressure to comply. Some restaurants switch to half portion, others issue fines.” But there was a picture attached to the tweet, in it everyone could see a sign on the dinning table, where three Chinese guys were having their meal, that reads: Saving foods, do not waste!
Janssen points out that Dou was implying China was having a food crisis, without enough foods to feed its people. The video then cites another American marketing analyst named Shaun Rein stationed in Shanghai for almost 20 years (I heard about Rein when I was teaching in Shanghai from 2004-2010, he was already there), who says “I find it depressing I have to post video of me in supermarkets and restaurants to prove there is food on shelves & ppl can order what they want because media sites Washington Post and The Hill lie about food situation in China. Lying media deserve large blame for US/AUS-CN tension.” Janssen continued by saying the real story was that the UN issued a warning about food crisis in 50 years, and urged countries to take actions to save food. China heeds the call and issued policy encouraging food saving behaviors.
Janssen continued with another western media story, this time another reporter named Anna Fifield for the Washington Post: “My final dispatch from China: Reporting from China increasingly feels like reporting from North Korea. No one wants to talk to journalists and often times, like on this trip to Kashgar, I don’t try talk to people — for their own safety.” Note Kashgar is the city and also the prefecture in Xinjiang with a heavy concentration of the Uyghurs. Janssen rejected her claim by saying anyone from another country will tell you how friendly the Chinese are toward foreigners. He pointed out that Fifield had been publishing negative reports of China for over a decade.
What Anna Fifield of Washington Post said in her tweet needs to be addressed because she specifically mentioned Kashgar in Xinjiang that people are so afraid of talking to journalists. Janssen did not have video from Xinjiang, so I will later look for someone else with local footage to prove Anna was lying or not.
Other Good Points By Janssen
Another example Janssen cited was Gordon Chang, another ethnic Chinese who published a book 20 years ago “The Coming Collapse of China” and we all know Chang was wrong for 20 years and still is regarded a top China expert.
I like Janssen because people like him are trying to promote cooperation of the two countries, which is the most promising thing to do for the entire world. I learned that he was an entrepreneur taking the opportunity in China and stayed there for 10 years, now lives in Canada.
In this video of April 24, 2021, Janssen made a valid point that Chinese has not increased their political freedom but much more personal freedom. He has another key point I would agree: China today has changed profoundly and is now closer to the American set of values more than ever in its history.
Chinese Values & American Values
I would add another point of my own: Chinese government has been playing an active role in teaching the supposedly American set of values to its own people. Of course, Beijing did not want to promote these values as totally imported from the US, so they reframed them into the so called the Core Values of the Socialism (社会主义核心价值观), which is grouped into three subsets of national, social and individual values. I will simply cite the Wikipedia page for a quick introduction.
The national values pronounced at the 18th party congress in 2012, the year when Xi Jinping came to power, are “prosperity (富强)”, “democracy (民主)“, “civility (文明)” and “harmony (和谐)“; the social values are “freedom (自由)”, “equality (平等)“, “justice (公正)” and the “rule of law (法治)”; and finally the individual values are “patriotism (爱国)”, “dedication (敬业)”, “integrity (诚信)” and “friendship (友善)”. I know it sounds like Beijing simply has stacked up a bunch of nice terms. But the ideas are the same as in the US, and what is appreciated here is also there.
Chinese Can Have Their Voices Heard
Do not think these are simply party propaganda slogans that mean little. Janssen cited in the same video of April 24, 2021 some new laws passed this March, such as grabbing the steering wheels when the bus is moving will be jailed for up to one year; molesting a child means serving up to five years in prison, having sex with anyone under 14 will be treated the same as raping and will be punished harshly, having sex with anyone under 10 will be punished by a minimum of 10 years, or lifetime sentence or death; identity thefts for national college entrance exams (高考) or public servant exams (公务员考试) are punishable for up to 3 years in prison plus a fine; intellectual property violations like copyright infringements will lead to a maximum of 3 years jail time, or up to 10 years if the monetary loss is a large sum. Finally, making or selling fake and unauthentic drugs is subject to at least 3 years and at most 10 years prison time. For those involving many people, it can be up to lifetime sentences.
The point Janssen is making is a good one: A typical westerner would not believe that ordinary Chinese citizens had any chance to express their concerns and to make a difference in laws or government policies, but this has exactly been happening for decades in China. As an example, a law professor named Luo Xiang in China has more than 12 million followers for his channel in a public platform called Bilibili.com (哔哩哔哩), something similar to YouTube. What does his content focus on? Pointing out the legal loopholes in China’s existing legal codes (also providing tutorials for preparing the national judicial examination). Just when you thought that Mr. Luo would get himself in trouble for attacking the Chinese law, he was nominated as “the annual character in rule of law” by China Central TV network CCTV (央视), for his endeavors in conveying spirits of the law to the general public.
China Is Changing, the Government Is Changing
Another comment by Janssen is also excellent: Chinese government was, is and will be changing over time, which implies, I venture to translate his point that the US has no need to launch or plot regime changes for China from outside. After all, the track record of doing that by the US government has been pretty poor.
He used a good example toward the end of the video that Woodrow Wilson, a democrat, was an avid supporter of the KKK, and his administration passed legislature to segregate blacks and whites. Would you say Joe Biden, who is also a democrat, is a racist because Wilson was? Of course not, because the same party has been changed dramatically.
Janssen has many other videos on China published on the YouTube, and I will not discuss all of them here, except to mention this one on China versus Mike Pompeo, and this one on Chinese freedom.
I must say I have learned much from Janssen, who has the deepest thoughts and ideas generated from his first hand experiences living in the US and China. I was so concentrated that I even forgot one of my daily walks at noon, something rarely happen to me. We are motivated by the same notion of looking out for things to do to make the two great countries getting along better and wiser.
I know American expatriates sometimes have been looked down, or more accurate, people do not understand why anyone from the most powerful country in the world would go to live in another country. But do not see them as “marginal citizens,” because they chose to live and learn from another culture, another system, with another group of human beings.