This Generation (12 page)

The issue raised by this fire is not whether fireworks should or should not be banned. That is a trivial matter. After all, this is just a little climax in CCTV's long career of burning itself. The issue we should be thinking about is: Should CCTV be banned? And the government needs to reflect on another issue, and that is: CCTV,
People's Daily, Enlightenment Daily
, the New China News Agency, and other such mouthpieces, under the current operating model, all have a negative impact on the government's image. What starts out as an actual event, after being reported by these media outlets
and after a circular from the New China News Agency, ends up looking like something that's been cooked up. Something that is positive, after all their promotion of it, becomes something negative. And as young people grow up, the news items reported by the media simply become fodder for jokes. Over the last fifty years, so many social changes have occurred, but management of the propaganda apparatus and its methods of publicity are basically just what they were half a century ago, except that we now have ineffectual enhancements like the hacks who get paid a pittance to sing the government's praises. If the official media command no respect from the younger generation, who can be surprised?

Fifty years ago, people were easy to fool. In those days, if
People's Daily
had claimed that
Quotations from Chairman Mao
was circulating so widely in the United States as to trigger its collapse, ninety-eight percent of evening viewers would have been just as ready as CCTV itself to light fireworks and celebrate. But now we live in an age that believes in persuading people by moral example (or in deceiving people through moral browbeating). So I hope this fire will compel the authorities to give careful thought to this question: Do we really need the nightly news?

April 21, 2009

“I'm not sure if it's
good to have freedom or not,” said Jackie Chan. “If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now—very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic. I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.”
¹³

Jackie Chan's remarks, though simple and casual, have a certain airtight logic to them—a difficult combination to achieve.

First of all, I cannot claim that Chinese people do not need to be controlled. We commonly have two ways of looking at the relationship between government and the people, the first in terms of control, as Jackie Chan has put it, and the second—a much less common formulation—in terms of the service industry. If we imagine things in terms of a restaurant, the government naturally
wants to be the owner and not the waiter, because while the waiter can charge only what's acceptable by professional norms, the owner can dictate his share of the cut; a waiter can only operate within the rules, whereas the owner makes the rules. What's the difference between someone who believes we need control and someone who believes we need service? In China, the former can get to the top of the pile, and the latter is treated like a criminal.

I'm likely to get into trouble in this altogether too free place if I take the line that Chinese people don't need to be controlled, so I can only agree with Jackie Chan's view and argue moreover that controls should be further tightened, that in the cultural sphere, for example, we should again observe taboos—not mentioning the names of our leaders, say, and replacing them with other phrases. The good news is, this advanced management system has already been implemented in many of our discussion forums. So, on this point, everyone who says Jackie Chan is talking nonsense should get arrested, on two charges: Firstly, his ideas closely correspond with those of the leaders' final speeches at the last two congresses, and secondly, they're not observing the proper taboos.

Jackie Chan said that things in Taiwan are chaotic. Now, I can't exactly contradict him, because we are supposed to figure out the majesties' intentions.
Global Times
is a paper that excels in doing just that, so when the conversation comes round to democracy in Taiwan, some of its readers will say, “Ha-ha! What kind of democracy is that? You see them cursing each other and even fighting—what a joke!”

You might think they're kidding, but they're not. Their attitude reflects the majesties' intentions, and Jackie Chan is a great reader of the majesties' intentions, too. What they say may be dumb, but it reaps dividends politically.

So on this point, too, Jackie Chan has got it right. “Things are chaotic in Taiwan” is what the people at the top have always wanted to say but felt a bit shy about saying in so many words. If Jackie Chan had been able to carry on in the direction he was moving
and take things to a higher level, then he could have said, “Things in North Korea are great,” or “Kim Jong-il's system of hereditary succession accords with the interests of the North Korean people,” and that way he would have anticipated the leaders' thoughts to perfection. Oops, I shouldn't have said “leaders”—I'm forgetting about the taboos.

Jackie Chan also said, “Things in Hong Kong are chaotic.” There seems to be a problem there—how could such an accomplished reader of minds make such a mistake? Hong Kong has already reverted to Chinese sovereignty—by now, things should be fine there. But of course the man in the street is missing the point—this is a case of profound reading of minds. It's true that Hong Kong was reclaimed in 1997, but because of Britain's brutal colonialism and cultural stranglehold, such advanced ideas as the “Two Whatevers,” the “Three Represents,” and the “Seven Don'ts” failed to work their magic on Hong Kong.
¹⁴
Because of the yawning gap between mainland and former colony, we implemented the “one country, two systems” approach, and now it's essential to establish which of the two systems is superior. What Jackie Chan is saying is, Hong Kong is not good enough, it's too free, everybody there is talking rubbish, and this is all the fault of those wicked democrats. If Hong Kong could employ the same system as the mainland, its future would be brighter. Jackie Chan is trying to strengthen our government's resolve, saying, in effect: “You should be putting Hong Kong in order, you know.”

Jackie Chan all along has been presenting himself as a kindly big brother, and from his ideas and his participation in some activities we can see that he actually has some ambitions regarding the political arena in mainland China—greater ambitions than those in the
cultural realm, and that's why, when his latest movie has just been banned in China, he still claims that Hong Kong is too free—he is really prepared to put up with a lot of aggravation if it helps him achieve his ultimate goal. Judging from his knack for anticipating his masters' wishes, I feel he has this ability, but—sad to say—I don't think he's going to end up as Minister of Propaganda or Minister of Culture, or anything like that. No matter how well he can anticipate things, the most he will ever be is a Benevolent Big Brother in the Ministry of Culture.

Why? Because his name counts against him.
¹⁵
It may work well for an actor, but it damages his prospects as an official. In China's feudal society it would have been thought a reactionary name, and in modern society it sounds a bit feudal. The current majesties would never allow a man with such a name to reach high office alongside them, for it sounds way too menacing. So Jackie Chan's best bet is just to continue making movies—a lot of the ones he's made I've really quite enjoyed.

As for the argument advanced by some online commentators, that Chinese people really need to be controlled, otherwise things will be in a complete mess, I think they're confusing things. Any country, any planet, needs to be managed, but what manages them shouldn't be an ideology, a system, a culture, a religion, or one's superiors, but reasonable laws and the utmost possible justice. What the people most need is to be served, not controlled, and what officials most need is to be controlled, not served, and the reason why so many places are “unharmonious” is that we have somehow got things the wrong way round. Not needing to be controlled doesn't mean giving yourself the green light to kill and loot or assault any woman you choose; what it means is that when a powerful official burns down your house, kills your children, and rapes your wife, you can make sure he gets what he deserves, rather than being
controlled by the authorities when you appeal against the injustice, rather than having reporters muzzled and the news suppressed when you tell your story, and rather than being labeled a deranged wife-beater and falling to your death when jumping rope and ending up in the history books as a classic case of lunatic frenzy.
¹⁶

June 8, 2009

It's reported that the chief
of a branch of the national tax bureau in Sichuan spent six thousand yuan to have sex with a minor. Chief Lu was held in administrative custody for fifteen days and fined five thousand yuan. The police announced, however, that his actions did not constitute a criminal offense.

On March 3 of this year, the victim, Ms. He, made a statement at Tianchi police station that on December 27, 2008, she was taken to a hotel near a hot pot restaurant in Baixi Township and there had sex with a male. Yibin Public Security investigated this as a case of suspected rape. The proprietor of the hot-pot restaurant was immediately detained, and the following day others implicated—Lu, a Mr. Xu and a Ms. Yan—were also taken into custody. That same day Lu and the restaurant proprietor were arrested, and on March 5 another suspect, surnamed Tu, was taken into custody.

Investigators established that Tu had first sought out Ms. Yan and proposed that she sell her virginity, but was turned down. Yan then relayed the same proposal to her classmate Ms. He, and introduced her to a classmate of hers named Xu. Xu put Ms. He in contact with
Tu, and on December 27, 2008, she was taken to the hot-pot restaurant by the proprietor, Tu, and others, and there introduced to Lu, for a fee of six thousand yuan; Lu then had sex with Ms. He. The restaurant proprietor pocketed two thousand yuan, while Xu, Tu, He, and others each received sums ranging from several hundred to one thousand yuan.

Yibin County Public Security Bureau met to discuss the case and concluded that the sex was a consensual act and that Lu was unaware that Ms. He was a minor under fourteen years old; Lu's actions therefore did not constitute a criminal offense. Since Lu did not know that Ms. He was or could be a minor when he paid to have sex with her, there was no case to prosecute him on those grounds.

Lessons:

1. From the case three months ago we learned that the first article of the Constitution is “If we say you're guilty, you're guilty.” Now we learn the supplementary amendment to that article is “If we say you're not guilty, you're not guilty.”

2. Many people get into trouble because they know too much. This bureau chief got off scot-free by pretending to know nothing.

3. From the distribution of monies to the hot-pot restaurant proprietor and the others, we see that a mere pittance is allotted to the one who takes on the most arduous duties—the lion's share goes to the middleman.

4. Relations between the various state organs in Yibin County are extremely cordial; their lines of communication are excellent.

5. Leaders in many branches of government, it is clear, have a special weakness for underage girls. As our propaganda departments would put it, this reflects their patriotism: They love our country, so they love our country's blossoms, and it's
only natural that they want to deflower them. Their actions demonstrate the utmost loyalty to the Party (and partying), so of course we're going to make sure they keep their Party affiliation.

6. Those guys who get caught with their pants down while socializing at the sauna are really unlucky. For one thing, they pay to have sex with women who are only pretending to be young, so they don't get such good value. And secondly, even though they get their kicks in spas that have paid protection money, they end up as sacrificial victims—with a six-month jail term—as a result of some dispute about profit-sharing or in response to some temporary clean-up campaign. Compared to our Mr. Lu, they really got the short end of the stick.