In a policy that appears aimed at soothing violent ethnic tensions in the west of China, officials in the region of Xinjiang are offering cash and other financial incentives to encourage marriages between minorities and Han, the country’s dominant ethnic group.Why do they think this could this help?
[T]he county director, Yasen Nasi’er, said: “Interethnic marriages are a manifestation of the increased interethnic exchange in a Han-based culture. It is an important step in the harmonious integration and development of all ethnicities.”Although the policy in Xinjiang is just a trial for now, the idea behind it is nothing new:
He called such marriages “positive energy” and a means by which Xinjiang can realize the “Chinese Dream,” an amorphous term popularized by President Xi Jinping.
Communist officials have long promoted popular tales of mixed marriages to paper over ethnic conflicts.As a thought experiment to tease apart some issues and add a different perspective, I tried to imagine the response if a minority in the US, a country with its own history of ethnic and racial tensions, was told by the government that one way to achieve the American dream was to marry a White American and that they would be compensated for doing so. Or what would China think if Han Chinese in the US were specifically targeted in this way?
Many Han talk of how the Manchus from the northeastern forests, who conquered China to establish the Qing dynasty, eventually adopted Han customs and intermarried, citing this as an example of how Han Chinese civilization inevitably absorbs and assimilates other ethnicities.
In the near future, the protests will achieve nothing, said Brian Fong Chi-hang, a political science scholar at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and a supporter of the democracy movement.The mention of Martin Luther King Jr. is a sign of how some will "look to avatars of nonviolence":
“The most important challenge is that even if they succeed in mobilizing a large-scale Occupy Central movement in a peaceful and orderly manner, they will finally get nothing,” he said. “We cannot change anything.”
But leaders of the movement expect to wage a protracted struggle nonetheless.
“This is a long, long cause,” said Chan Kin-man, an associate professor of sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and co-founder of the movement, known in full as Occupy Central With Love and Peace. “Civil disobedience is the starting point. Look at what happened in Martin Luther King’s case.”
[T]housands of people gathered in intermittent rain to protest a decision by China’s legislature to put firm restrictions on a plan to expand the franchise to allow all adults in the territory to vote for their leader, the chief executive.And this reminds me of something else I saw this past January: shirts for sale at Hong Kong's Lunar New Year Fair pro-democracy booths.
The demonstrators, many of whom wore headbands emblazoned with the Chinese characters for “civil disobedience,” said they drew inspiration from thinkers and practitioners of nonviolent protest, including Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Dr. King.
Opinion polls show that most Hong Kong citizens support the demand for “unfiltered” electoral choice, but also that many have qualms about possible disruption from protests.Beijing's decision was not surprising. What happens next, though, seems harder to predict.
The Chinese government and the Hong Kong political establishment have accused Occupy Central and allied groups of recklessly imperiling the city’s reputation for political stability and support for business. And many ordinary Hong Kong residents have voiced worry about any political conflict that could hurt their livelihoods.
But Occupy Central says it will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience calibrated to avoid major disruption. Its organizers have said that they do not plan to plunge immediately into any protests after the Chinese authorities announce their plans.
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| Two girls out on their own and having a good time in Changde, Hunan |
“It’s a different world out there today. It’s not like when I was growing up, and we’d all play in an apple orchard and we were safe. Today, you just don’t know who’s out there,” said a lovely, well-meaning grandmother who was keeping an eagle-eye lookout on her grandchildren at a water park this summer while I let my kids do the water slides by themselves.Dvorak's piece isn't just about raising children but also speaks to the challenges in evaluating everyday risk and how the good old days aren't always as good as people think. And it reminds me of how I have seen children in China in some ways leading far freer lives than many of those in the US. All issues worth pondering . . .
Yes, it is a different world. It’s a safer world. It just doesn’t feel like it because we know too much.
Back in the apple orchard and latchkey days, there were plenty of child molesters, killers and pervs lurking around. We simply didn’t talk about them and didn’t hear about what they did.
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| In Hengyang, Hunan province |
Ferguson, Missouri, was just a place — a working-class suburb of St. Louis — before an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by the police, before protests and looting erupted, before local forces responded with armored vehicles, tear gas and rubber bullets, and Ferguson became #Ferguson.Often relishing an opportunity to opine on America's high profile struggles, China's state media has been noticeably quiet on the matter. Josh Chin in The Wall Street Journal identified some of the roots for the most likely explanation:
Although the politics and level of violence involved are different, there are plenty of similarities between Ferguson and Xinjiang [a region in northwestern China]. As alleged in the case of Mr. Brown, [Muslim] Uighur advocates accuse Chinese security forces of using deadly force against civilians who present no immediate threat. In both places, authorities have confronted lingering anger over racial discrimination with military-grade weaponry. And in Xinjiang, as in Ferguson, reporters have been detained while trying to put together an independent picture of events.China's relative silence, though, has not stopped others from putting words in China's mouth and further calling attention to conditions in both China and the U.S. For example, in the satirical piece in Vox "How we'd cover Ferguson if it happened in another country" Max Fisher imagined:
"The only lasting solution is reconciliation among American communities and stronger Missouri security forces," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech from his vacation home in Hainan. "However, we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America. So we will continue to pursue a broader strategy that empowers Americans to confront this crisis."After reading Fisher's piece, it could be easy to assume Natasha Culzac's article in The Independent is also a work of satire:
Xi's comments were widely taken as an indication that China would begin arming moderate factions in Missouri, in the hopes of overpowering rogue regime forces and preventing extremism from taking root. . . .
A Chinese Embassy official here declined to comment but urged all parties to exhibit restraint and respect for the rule of law.
As anger erupted again on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, a human rights team from Amnesty International worked on the ground in the US for the first time ever. . . .But it is not. And like China's silence and possible U.S. responses to similar events elsewhere, Amnesty International's actions provide yet another perspective on a situation which is far more complicated than people simply needing to "settle down".
Amnesty International, said it would be observing police and protester activity and gathering testimonies . . .
I would say China is the most competitive market in the world. There are so many local players, and some of them are not logical in how they do business. They don’t want to make money in the short term. We definitely don’t want to lose our leadership position in China, and we must balance growth in market share with profitability.It would be interesting to hear more of Yang's thoughts about the "not logical" local players and their long term potential.
In little over a year, Xiaomi has risen from being a niche player to become the leading smart phone vendor in the world’s largest market, overtaking Samsung in volume terms in Q2. Xiaomi took a 14% share in China, on the back of 240% year-on-year growth. With Lenovo, Yulong, Huawei, BBK, ZTE, OPPO and K-Touch, the eight Chinese vendors in the top 10 together accounted for a total of 70.7 million units and a 65% market share.Though as someone from Lenovo might point out, higher volume doesn't necessarily mean higher profits.
Like many premium brands, Burberry PLC had been fretting about a flood of discount Burberry products—some of them fakes—on Alibaba's two big marketplaces, which accounted for 80% of China's estimated $300 billion in online shopping last year. Burberry hadn't authorized any of those vendors to sell its goods.Some would say this is the pragmatic side of doing business in China.
Alibaba would do its best to get those products off its sites if Burberry opened its own shop on Alibaba's online mall, Burberry was told, according to people familiar with the talks. Burberry opened a store on Alibaba's Tmall in April.
Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has begun keeping the personal data of some Chinese users on servers in mainland China, marking the first time the tech giant is storing user data on Chinese soil . . .The article notes a few issues this change raises, such as data access speeds and privacy. Relevant to these issues is a definition of "some Chinese users" that would indicate exactly who fits into this category. I haven't seen one yet.
The data will be kept on servers provided by China Telecom Corp Ltd (0728.HK), the country's third-largest wireless carrier, Apple said in a statement on Friday.
