Why has ownership of wealth become so important for the Chinese elite? And why have so many Chinese leaders sent their children abroad for education? One answer surely is that they lack confidence about China’s future.
Early this year, as a crisis unfolded in the chambers of power here, three men flew into this fog-wreathed riverside metropolis within a day or two of one another. They were members of the inner court of Bo Xilai, the Communist Party aristocrat who ran the city, and they had come to repair a rupture between the strong-willed Mr. Bo and his equally driven police chief.
The arrival of the celebrated Chinese rights activist, Chen Guangcheng in the U.S. after years of prison and house arrest, raises the larger question of what the whole incident will come to mean in terms of the status of dissidents in China and in U.S.-China relations.
When Chen Guangcheng landed in New York—still on crutches from a daring nighttime escape from house arrest—he found himself giving a press conference in which his abundant thanks extended to Chinese officials for “dealing with the situation with restraint and calm.” It might not have been the first thanks on everyone’s lips. One could read that as a diplomatic comment, intended to protect those still in China, including his mother (whose house is reportedly being fenced off by local officials) and the fellow dissidents who helped him escape.
Is Yang Rui a xenophobe? Wait, back up. The sort of people who read this blog will almost certainly have heard about Yang Rui, the anchor of CCTV International’s program “Dialogue,” and his postings on Weibo and the shit-storm that ensued, but if you haven’t, you can bring yourself up to speed by reading WSJ Realtime, James Fallows, and ChinaGeeks‘ takes on the whole sorry situation, and Bill Bishop’s run-down on Sinocism. Or you can get the same effect more quickly and less harmfully by ramming your head into the wall a few times as hard as you can; it’s your call.
For weeks, U.S. officials have kept secret many of the sensitive details about their negotiations over Chen’s fate. But with the 40-year-old lawyer safely aboard a plane Saturday, senior administration officials described extensively for the first time their dealings with the Chinese — how they struck the first deal only to have it fall apart, and how the negotiations almost collapsed again.
It is true that there are no direct references here to human rights violations, to Tiananmen or Tibet. But the pieces included in Shi Cheng (Ten Cities)—are far from uncritical of the status quo.
The blind human rights lawyer caused a diplomatic crisis when he escaped house arrest to arrive at the US embassy in Beijing last month. Speaking outside New York University, where he has been offered a fellowship, Mr Chen said China had dealt with the situation with "restraint and calm". But he raised concerns about ongoing reprisals against his family. "Acts of retribution in Shandong have not been abated and my rights to practice law have been curbed - we hope to see a thorough investigation into this," he said.
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