Lessons of the Tianjin Explosion

Aftermath of the Tianjin chemical explosion. Source: VOA

Below is my contribution to a conversation on ChinaFile about the destructive Tianjin chemical explosion. The entire conversation can be viewed here.

Five days before the terrifying and deadly Tianjin explosion was the first anniversary of the Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products incident, where a massive metal dust explosion and fire killed at least 146 workers. In a report I wrote for this website about a month after the tragedy, I cited the latest casualty figure: 75. I also explained how the government apparently had deemed the incident a sensitive topic, censoring conversation and reporting. It was only in December, 2014, four months later, after the immediate shock had subsided, that the State Administration of Work and Safety revised the death toll in Kunshan to 146 people.

Is China's Reform Era Over and, If So, What's Next? (ChinaFile)

Fordham Law School professor Carl Minzer's article in the Journal of Democracy sparked a conversation on ChinaFile about the future of China's political landscape. Minzer's argument traces the political evolution of the Communist Party in the "Reform Era", when Deng Xiaoping took over the reigns of power in 1978, to the current day, a time when Xi Jinping's anti-graft campaign and re-entrenchment of nationalist rhetoric has set the Communist Party and China on a new path, which Minzer suggests constitutes a post-reform deliberalizing era. But where this path will ultimately lead currently remains a matter of oracle bones.

I had the chance to participate in the discussion at ChinaFile, which can be viewed here.

No. 2 U.S. Sinologist Predicts "Endgame of Chinese Communist Rule Has Begun"

Photo credit: Kevin Poh. Creative Commons.

In January, researchers at China's Foreign Affairs University (外交学院) published the "American China School Assessment Report" (Chinese link), rating the top U.S. sinologists based on a number of broad measures: a person's influence on actual U.S. China policy, academic influence, and social influence. Specific sub-measures include a sinologist's publications, testimony in relevant congressional hearings, social network and affiliations, etc.

More Exploitation, More Happiness: How Netizens Responded to a Deadly Factory Explosion

This essay was originally published at ChinaFile on September 18, 2014.

It was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in recent Chinese history. On August 2, a massive metal dust explosion killed 75 workers and injured another 186 at a factory in Kunshan, in Jiangsu province, that supplied wheels to General Motors. Asphyxiation killed more than 40 people almost immediately as oxygen in the production facility was consumed in an instant. Many of those who escaped suffered severe burns across their entire bodies as the flames instantly ignited the dust that covered their clothes and skin.

The explosion, like many workplace safety incidents in China, was preventable, and much of the blame for it rests with the factory’s owners and clients. But Chinese Internet users, who spread news of the blast over social media, tended to direct their outrage at the Chinese government, treating the explosion as a symbol of their leaders’ failure to value human life as highly as economic growth, a sentiment mordantly expressed through the popularization of the Chinese phrase “More exploitation, more happiness.”

What is the Chinese Dream?

Over the past three decades, every Chinese Communist Party chairman, upon his taking the reigns of power, has developed a grand guiding principle rolled up into a nifty rhetorical package. Not much unlike U.S. politicians' campaign slogans, in the 1990s, it was Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" (三个代表), and in the 2000s, Hu Jintao's "Scientific Development" (科学发展观).

Soon after Xi Jinping became the top official in China, he developed a phrase that would become his political slogan: "The Chinese Dream" (中国梦). But amidst increasing amounts of both real and perceived inequality, some in China do not feel that they are enjoying the dream, especially migrant workers who built much of that dream with their bare hands.

Over at ChinaFile, Sharron Lovell and Tom Wang asked a few young Chinese people about their dreams. One of the most memorable quotes for me was from a young man who said:

"If there weren't any migrant workers, it would be impossible for China to develop this fast." ... "The place you live was built by migrant workers. What you're eating was grown by migrant workers. What you're wearing was produced by migrant workers."     

“如果没有农民的话，中国不可能发展这么快。”... “你住的地方农民工建的，你吃的农民工种的，你穿的农民工做。”

See the entire video below.

As Hong Kong Rocked in Protest, Transformers 4 Plays Chinese Politics: Critics Call Director "A Giant Tool"

A few hours ago, I was sitting in a local theater with my wife watching Transformers 4, the latest iteration of Director Michael Bay's "robot porn" series. (The fact that we paid money to see it is perhaps an admission of a guilty indulgence.)

Trying to keep warm in the chilly theater, we were enjoying that special Bay combination of explosions, CGI, and corny star-studded humor. All of a sudden, there was a cut-away scene to the Chinese Ministry of Defense in which a top official says "the central government will defend Hong Kong at all costs"!

I felt like my sci-fi escapism had been blind-sided by a Communist Party public service announcement.