China Translated

Following on from our post last week on New Words for 2009, here is a few more of the new words that Chinese netizens coined in the last year.

Fishing Law Enforcement (钓鱼执法 diao yu zhi fa): a phrase coined to describe the ingenious approaches to law enforcement by some sections of the police force.  Traffic cops are, apparently, particularly inventive when it comes to ways to extract fines from the public - some of which find their way into the officer’s wallet.  The case of Sun Zhongjie in particlar caught the public’s imagination.  Sun picked up a police officer posing as a pedestrian in distress, only to be arrested for operating an illegal taxi service.  Determined to attest his innocence, Sun chopped off the little finger of his left hand.

Temporary character (临时性 lin shi xing): another phrase which points to the casual avoidance of responsibility for wrongdoing by the authorities.  In a town in Zhejiang Province called Nanxun, two police officers were convitced of raping a woman they had found in a drunken state.  Handing down a lighter than usual sentence, the courts opined that the motivation for the crime was ‘temporary, and completely unpremeditated’.  Chinese netizens siezed on the spurious excuse and coined the term ‘temporary rape’ (临时性强奸 linshi xing qiangjian).  ‘Temporary character’ is now used in a satirical manner to explain unfortunate events for which the authorities will avoid responsibility.  For example if a building collapses injuring the inhabitants, you might joke it was a ‘temporary structure’.

Second generation poor (穷二代 qiong er dai): most of China’s citizens have benefited from 30-years of reform and openning up, but some have not benefited very much and millions remain in poverty.  Those born into and raised in poverty have now become the ’second generation poor’. 

About 70 miles/hour (qi shi ma): this phrase refers to an attempted cover up by the police of the true cause of a traffic accident that took place in Hangzhou in May of last year.  A boy racer, the son of wealthy parents, was drag racing on a public highway and, in an accident, killed a pedestrian.  The police officers on the scene asserted that the boy racer had been travelling at ‘about 70 miles per hour’ - hiding the fact that he had probably been travelling much faster.  The case touched a chord with local residents, who sympathised with the victim and saw the case as another instance of collusion between power and money.  The phrase ‘about 70 miles/hour’ became shorthand for any explanation which played fast and loose with the reality in order to protect the interests of the powerful.

As with the new words we translated in our first post, this set speaks loudly for a sense of disempowerment, and the emergence of a kind of black humour as a response.  You can see the original Southern Metropolis article on new words for 2009 here.

Culture, Law, Social Policy

Southern Metropolis has an article in a recent edition reviewing new words that appeared in 2009.  Chinese appears to be a language that lends itself to new constructions, and they are often powerfully reflective of the public mood.  Here are the top 3 for the year gone by - as selected by the newspaper:

‘Hide and Seek’ (躲猫猫 duo maomao): after Li Qiaoming, a resident of Yunnan province, died in police custody, the official report into his death concluded that he had died during a game of ‘hide and seek’ in the prison.  Following on from a string of ridiculous official explanations for deaths in custody, including ‘removed handcuffs using a 1-yuan bill then hung himself with shoestring’, ‘died from over-excitement’ and ‘died taking a bath’, ‘hide and seek’ has become a shorthand for any kind of official explanation that manifestly misrepresents the facts of the case.

Narrow dwelling class (蜗居族 wo ju zu); the pop culture phenomenon of 2009 was the enormous popularity of a TV show called ‘Dwelling Narrowness’ (蜗居 wo ju).  The show relates the struggles of a group of young people as they try to bridge the gap between low wages and high costs of accomodation.  One of the young female characaters even strikes up an adulterous relationship with a middle aged government official in the hope of helping her sister afford a home.  ‘Narrow dwelling class’ refers to the very large numbers of Chinese people who find themselves in a similar predicament - either unable to afford a home or able to afford one only at ruinous cost.  Incidentally, ‘wo’ (蜗) means snail.

‘Age of Compulsion’ (被时代 bei shidai): China’s economy appears to have done very well in 2009.  But optimistic official pronouncements and statistics from the government are still sometimes at odds with the reality of a hard year for many Chinese people.  A family of phrases have sprung up to reflect this gap between the official statistics and the lived reality.  ‘The National Bureau of Statistics increased my wages’ was one joke that did the rounds on the Chinese internet, as web citizens reflected on the gap between official reports of rising wages, and the reality of stagnant wages and unemployment for a large number of citizens.  Another iteration is ‘my university found me a job’ - referring to the practice by universities of manipulating their graduates’ record of finding employment - to create a false positive impression for potential future students.  ‘Bei shidai’ is an umbrella term for this family of phrases.

Like many Guangdong based newspapers, Southern Metropolis is at the radical end of China’s publishing spectrum, and this is doubtless reflected in their choice of words to reflect the spirit of 2009.  That said, these words have been coined in 2009, and are in wide currency on the Chinese internet.  I’ve only translated the first three of a set of 10-new words (I’ll try and return to the rest in a later posting).  But the list so far covers one word to describe mistrust of government statistics, one to describe official cover-ups, and one to bemoan the high cost of accomodation.  This is not suggestive of an entirely contended population.

You can see the original Chinese article here.

Culture, Law, Property, Social Policy, Statistics

The 17th Congress of the Communist Party concluded a couple of weeks ago.  Expectations for the meeting were relatively high.  On the personnel front, it was expected that President in waiting Xi Jinping would be inducted into the top ranks of the committe that controls the military.  On the governance front, further steps to reinvigorate the Communist Party’s governance capacity were widely expected. 

In the end, there was no annoucement on personnel changes and Xi Jinping will have to wait a while longer before being allowed to drive one of the People’s Liberation Army’s many tanks.  On the governance front, hopes for an extension of village elections to the township level where frustrated, but there was some evidence of progress in another area - improving the transparency of governance.

In the report of the meeting, the Party promises to take another step to require top leaders and, crucially, their relatives - including those living overseas, to disclose their financial affairs.  The idea is that the discipline of transparency will prevent the worst excesses of corruption.  This is what Caijing editor Hu Shuli had to say on the subject (my translation of the Chinese, though I see from the Cajing website that they also have an English version):

‘The recent meeting of the Communist Party top leadership concluded with some stern words on the capacity of the party to govern.  The public document concluded that the party’s ability to innovate, to maintain meaningful links to the people, and to consolidate its governance of the whole country have been seriously weakened.  With the country preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary, these are words to rouse the deaf and bring enlightenment to the benighted.

The report of the meeting also said: ‘firmly opposing corruption is the first, last, and most important governance task of the party.’  It goes on to promise: ‘thorough implementation of the regulation concerning ‘leadership cadres reporting of their important affairs’ including rental and investment income, and the financial affairs of spouses, and children, including those who are living overseas.’  Improving transparency in this way, and placing a higher requirement on the Party, is an important step toward addressing corruption.

This system of throwing light on the affairs of government leaders, and holding them to public account has a long tradition in European government and is now used in many countries around the world.

In its ‘regulation concerning inner party supervision’ and ‘compendium on constructing a healthy system of punishments and precautions to prevent corruption’ the Party has already made a start in its fight against corruption.  In 1995, there was a regulation concerning reporting of leaders salaries.  In 1997, there was a regulation on reporting the important financial affairs of Party leaders.  In 2001, there was a regulation  requiring provincial leaders to report on their family’s financial affairs.  Another regulation in 2006, on disclosing leaders important financial affairs, continued to strengthen the framework.  This step by step process has delivered the system on reporting leaders financial arrangements that has now been consolidated in this year’s regulations.

From the beginning of 2008 to today, Xinjiang, Zhejiang, and Hunan have all published first attempts at disclosing leaders’ financial affairs.  These are early attempts and there is considerable room for improvement.  But the enthusisatic support of the public will provide the encouragement for continuing to improve on these early efforts.

The extension of the regulations to include families and especially those living overseas is an important development.  5 years ago, a Commerce Department report revealed that 4000 corrupt officials have, over the years, escaped the country with more than USD50bn.  Many of them did so whilst still in office in China by channeling resources to relatives working or studying overseas.  The new regulation will expose this practice to public scrutiny.

Reform is progressive, but it must continue to progress.  There is still a consisderable gap between the standard of transparency represented by the new regulation and that enjoyed in other countries around the world.  In the scope of reporting of leaders’ financial interests, and the availability of the reports to the public, there is still a considerable distance still to go.  Practice and experience will improve performance in this area.

But perhaps more rules governing transparency don’t get at the root of the problem.  China is not lacking in well written rules.  What we are lacking is an organic system for maintaining proportion in our governance.’

I think the final point is the crucial one.  Efforts to improve party self governance are all well and good.  But an ‘organic system for maintaining proportion in governance’ would require the party to be open also to public supervision. 

In the absence of independent supervision of the party there are two reasons why transparency will be of limited value.  First, who will ensure the rules on transparency are followed?  The Party itself.  And leaders are hardly likely to publish reports saying ‘last year I stole $1m and sent the proceeds to my brother in the USA.’  Corrupt cadres will do their best to hide their misdeeds and the only people able to hold them to account will be their fellow party members. 

Second, in other countries, transparency in governance equips citizens to better decide who they wish to govern them.   In China, it is not clear to what end transparency will aim.  Even if it transpires that all the Party’s leaders are venal, absent the ballot box to what use will the people it governs put this information?

You can see the complete text of the editorial here.

Communist Party, Law

One of the big unknowns about how China is dealing with the economic crisis is the situation of migrant workers.  At the beginning of the year, reports of 20m unemployed migrant workers conjured dark visions of social unrest.  Fast forward several months, and the National Bureau of Statistics has published a note suggesting that the vast majority of migrant workers have in fact found work, and the ones that have not have industriously started their own micro-enterprises.  An unemployed horde laying waste the social order or happy workers returning from the fields to the factories?  The truth lies somewhere in between.

Huong Trieu is a PhD student at the University of Michigan, focusing on access to public services for migrants in China.  She has spent the last 6 months conducting field research amongst migrant communities in Beijing, and will spend another year performing research in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong.  She was kind enough to answer Chinatranslated’s questions on the migrant worker situation.

Chinatranslated: We hear a lot about how migrant workers are being affected by the economic crisis, you have spent a lot of time interviewing migrant workers over the last few months, what’s your assessment of the impact of the crisis on their lives?

Huong Trieu: This really depends on which city these migrant workers are located in. Since Beijing is not a large exporting city, its economy is less affected by the economic crisis. So migrant workers in Beijing are less affected. Unlike coastal cities where migrant workers are concentrated in factories, migrant workers in Beijing mainly work in service industries. When you walk around Beijing, you’ll notice job postings on restaurants, hotels, salon and so on, which suggest that there is actually a labor shortage.

The situation in Guangzhou is quite different.  Migrant workers in Guangzhou are affected by the crisis because most of them work in factories and some of those factories have less work or have closed down. One surprising discovery  from my conversations with scholars and social security bureaucrats in Guangzhou, is that many medium and large firms are not laying off workers. While these firms have cutback hours for many workers, they do not want to lay off workers because they are waiting for orders to rebound. They want to keep these workers on the payroll because it is difficult to hire and train new workers.

For migrants who have returned to the countryside due to economic crisis, many are not too worried. As migrant workers, they lead a very transient life style. It is not the first time that they have lost a job and returned to the countryside. They are optimistic that jobs will rebound, especially given the current government stimulus package. They still have land in the countryside, plus their expenses are very low. Housing and food are not a concern because their houses are paid up front, and they usually have enough food to subsist for at least 1.5 years. However, if they cannot return to the city within that time, social instability is definitely a concern.  Migrants are exposed to new ideas and living conditions in cities, so a prolonged stay in the countryside where they are excess labor with little upward mobility could potentially lead to unrest.

Chinatranslated: The migrant experience is different in different parts of the country.  You have been conducting research in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, what are some of the similarities and differences between life for migrant workers in these three important centers?

Huong Trieu: There are important similarities in the migrant experience across the country. Migrants are relegated to the poorest living conditions because their wages are often a fraction of the local population. They are often doing work deemed undesirable by locals or the so called “3-D” (dangerous, dirty and difficult). Plus they are treated as outsiders in their host cities, ‘waidiren’, in terms of social policies.

Despite these general similarities, major differences do exist between cities. In Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, migrants mostly work in factories. While conditions may be abysmal in these factories, most workers do have labor contracts which stipulate minimum wage, overtime pay, labor safety and social insurances. With the passing of the 2007 Labor Contract Law, workers are more aware of their rights. Even though workers are still at a disadvantage because enforcement of the labor contract law is a problem, the fact that these workers are employed in the formal sector means that there is an opportunity for them to use legal action to address their grievances.

In contrast, in Beijing and Shanghai many migrant workers work in the informal sector. They do not have labor contracts because they are usually working in small enterprises such as restaurants, hotels and so on. They may also be entrepreneurs themselves, selling knickknacks, operating 3 wheel carts, or performing household repairs. As a result, they do not have social insurances and are at the whim of city developers who can designate their home or workplace for demolition within a 1-2 month period.

As a result, migrant workers in Shanghai and Beijing are at a major disadvantage when it comes to disputing about their rights. Another point to keep in mind is that when you have a large number of workers in a single factory, it is much easier for workers to organize. So you see more worker protests and strikes in Guangdong. In contrast, you rarely see large protests in Beijing and Shanghai among migrant workers because they are working in a large number of small, disaggregated enterprises.

Chinatranslated: Your research is focused on access to public services for migrant workers, could you briefly outline the access migrant workers and their dependents have to education and healthcare, and how the costs and the benefits of the services they receive differs from the native population?

Huong Trieu: On education, migrant children are supposed to receive free, compulsory education in public school in cities, but all schools have quotas for migrants due to limited resources. Migrant children need to take qualifying exams to attend public schools. Good public schools are very hard to get into because the space is very limited. Even local residents have a hard time securing spots for their children in good schools because they need to have enough resources to buy an apartment in that particular community.

What is more, under the current education system, all migrant children need to return to their hukou place (home town) to take the college entrance exam. This is a not a national, standardized exam. Each locality has its own curriculum and therefore a different exam. So many of these migrant children are sent home to their grandparents when they reach middle school age because attending schools in their host cities would be useless if they want to pursue a college education. If these children plan to go attend vocational schools, they do not need to return to their hukou place.

On healthcare, there are three types of public insurance available in China: urban employee basic medical insurance, urban resident basic medical insurance, and rural new cooperative medical system. In the new healthcare reform released in April 2009, migrants can choose between urban employee basic medical insurance and rural new cooperative medical system (RNCMS). A 2006 State Council report showed that only 10% of migrant workers have any type of health insurance. I believe this number is much higher today because the 2007 Labor Contract Law has pushed many enterprises to provide social insurance for their workers. Plus the rapid roll out of RNCMS has also captured some of this migrant population.

In my interviews, many migrant workers have signed up for RNCMS at their hometown. While many of them do not have any experience using this new system, they are relieved to have some health insurance coverage. For many migrants, unless it’s an emergency, they would wait and return to their native place to seek medical treatment, partly because overall medical costs are lower and partly because they can get reimbursement from their health insurance in the countryside.

In China, all medical costs need to be paid in full and then reimbursed. To get a medical procedure done, you need to put down a deposit to secure an appointment. Depending on the procedure, it can be a couple of thousand to tens of thousands yuan. In many respects, migrants cannot afford to get sick. In host cities, local residents can apply for social assistance, but migrants cannot because local social assistance bureaus are not responsible for them. They would need to return to their hukou place to apply for social assistance.

Chinatranslated: Migrant workers have been a feature of Chinese society since the beginning of the reform period.  How are the latest generation of migrants different in their attitude and expectations from previous generations?

Huong Trieu: The biggest difference between older and younger generations of migrants is that the younger generation is less tied to their native places. While many migrants still come to cities through social networks, they may not always stay within this social network. They may choose to socialize and live with friends made outside their native place network.

In Beijing, there used to Zhejiangcun, Anhuicun, Henancun where migrants from a single province would live in the same settlement, but these no longer exist, partly because the city government have demolished them and partly because people have chosen to live with people from other provinces.  Migrant villages still exist in Beijing, mostly outside the 5th ring road, but not by native place anymore. These villages have become a melting pot of people from all over China coming to Beijing looking for better opportunities.

This younger generation of migrants does not see Beijing or Shanghai as their last destination. They are young, and they want to see the country. They are willing to move wherever their next job takes them. They do whimsically think about going back home eventually when they strike rich.  But if they do get rich then they can buy an apartment in Beijing or Shanghai as well, they need not return to their native place. This is very different from the older generation who sees their last destination to be their native place (laojia). They have built 2-3 stories homes in their villages with earnings from earlier sojourns in the city. Even though they are still working in the city to support their children through higher education, they plan to retire to their village with future financial support from their children.

Agriculture, Financial Crisis, Labour markets, Law, Regional, Social Policy

The arrest of Rio Tinto’s China representative Stern Hu, an Australian citizen, by the Chinese authorities on suspicion of spying, bribery, or some combination of the two, has fired the imagination of China watchers.  The combination of high finance - with the failed Chinalco - Rio Tinto deal, resource nationalism - with the ongoing iron ore price negotiaitons, and the opportunity to pass judgement on China’s opaque judicial system, has everyone interested.

The foreign press is warning darkly of the negative consequences for China of this latest state-ist intervention, suggesting that it will make China a less attractive place to invest and make other countries less wiling to welcome Chinese investment.  The Chinese press is asking who was selling the secrets.  The Economic Observer, one of the better Chinese business publications, has a front page editorial on the subject today.  These are some of the main points, translated by me:

‘China’s large steel factories are almost all state owned and firms like Anshan Steel are controlled directly by the central government.  The China Iron and Steel Association, which is representing China in the annual negotiations on the iron ore price, is representing the interests of the state owned steel companies.

In theory, the interests of the people and the interests of state companies are identical, and so the secrets of state steel companies have the character of national secrets.

But the iron ore price negotiations don’t actually impact the interests of everyone equally.  In particular, the smaller steel steel companies have a different set of interests to the big state owned companies.  Whatever the outcome of the negotiations, they will still have to buy iron ore from the big players at the market price.  even if the result of the negotiation is a lower price, they won’t see any benefit.

So these small companies don’t have so much interest in the outcome of the negotiation, or in protetcing the secrets of the industry.  In fact, at a critical point in the iron ore price negotiations, they showed their self interest by importing a considerable quantity of iron ore, when the national interest was to keep imports low to try and get a better price in the negotiation.

So if China really wants to protect the national interest and get a positive outcome in the iron ore price negotiations, it needs to give small firms an interest in the outcome.  If they don’t have a commercial interest in a positive outcome for China, they can’t be expected to protect the commercial secrets of the steel industry.

In a situation where companies with the monopoly control of iron ore imports have not shared the benefits widely with smaller players, many small steel companies simply do not see the national interest in the iron ore price negotiations.

If we want to overcome this problem we need to reform the iron ore import system, have a little less government control, and a little more commerical initiative.  That way, all the Chinese steel companies will have a commercial interest in the outcome, and they will get a little better at protecting their own commerical interest, and the national interest.’

It’s interesting that the focus of the foreign and the domestic press is so different.  The foreign press sees the Stern Hu story as a lense through which to analyse China’s state controlled industry, the hand of the government in commercial affairs, and the willingness to use the legal system to gain commerical advantage.  The Chiense press, at least this editorial, is oblivious to all of these points.  The starting point is that commerical secrets were revealed and the focus is on how the structure of the steel industry could be changed to ensure that this does not happen again.

Industry, Investment, Law, Trade

In 1979 a local official in Heilongjiang province, a woman as it happens, was executed for corruption.  30 years on, pictures documenting her execution are causing a storm on the Chinese internet, where they have been posted again recently.

This is my rough translation of a blog post which addresses the question of why the pictures have sparked so much interest.

“In 1979, the People’s Daily reported that Heilongjiang had unearthed a case of corruption amonst local officials.  Wang Shouxin and others were arrested and charged with accepting bribes, trafficking stolen goods, and other offences.

In 1980, this case caused an uproar in China and overseas.  Heilongjiang Hotel Fuel Company and local Communist Party Secretary Wang Shouxin was executed in Harbin.

A few years ago, the pictures of the execution were posted on the internet.  More recently, they have been posted on Sohu [a popular Chinese website], where they have been the focal point for attention.  In the last few days, 11.3m people have viewed them.

Of course, no matter how serious the crime, the end of any life is a tragedy, and no one should gloat at another’s unfortunate end.  But the sheer number of people who have viewed these photos, and the complex feelings they have aroused, deserves to be considered deeply.

Concerning those who profit from others toil and gobble up the country’s resources without lifting a finger themselves, people’s feelings are the same today as they were 30 years ago.  But seeing these pictures arouses a feeling that is completely different from 30 years ago.

30 years ago, if you stole a few 100,000 yuan you faced the death penalty.  Now, you can steal tens of millions of yuan and get a stay of exceution.  In Heilongjiang itself Han Guizhi stole 7m yuan and has not been executed.  And then there’s the former governor of Heilongjiang, Tian Fengshan.  He stole 4.98m yuan and only received life imprisonment.  If Wang Shouxin was executed, why weren’t Han and Tian?

30 years ago justice was swift and resolute.  Now, there is so much emphasis on procedure and the burden of proof that avaricious officials can get away with their crimes.  In the past their was public trials, and the crowd could come along to the execution ground.  Now, the rights of criminals are maintained and many provinces prefer death by lethal injection.

So today the death sentence is used less and less, and public executions are even less frequent.  With this state of affairs, the death penalty can’t act as a deterant to avaricious local officials.  So it is difficult for people to avoid cherishing the memory of the public trials and executions of a few years ago.

Perhaps if we treated today’s corrupt officials with a bit more resolution, a bit more force, and a bit more publicly, people wouldn’t have to pay so much attention to pictures of times gone by.”

You can see a link to the blog post here.  Warning: there are pictures of the execution up there.

Leasing aside questions of the morality or otherwise of capital punishment, what is interesting about this blog posting is that it turns on its head the argument of foreign human rights activists.  Foreign human rights activists argue that the Chinese people need to be protected by due process and the rule of law, and that use of the death penalty in China is execessive.  What this blog posting suggests, is that actually many people in China prefer rough justice and would like the threshold for the use of execution lowered.

Law, Regional, Social Policy