Tiger Paper 001: Fearing Detention, Two Australian Correspondents Flee China

事件 | News

Fearing Detention, Two Australian Correspondents Flee China Beijing keeps being tough on foreign media after the expulsion of American correspondents. In August, Australian Host Cheng Lei for CGTN, a Chinese international broadcaster, is detained for espionage. It is interesting to observe how foreigners detained by China, allegedly as retaliation for their countries’ aggressive attitude or action towards China, are of Chinese descent ( Ye Jianhui for example).

China’s efforts to boost Mandarin-use in schools angers ethnic Mongols Linguistic politics has always been important for politics. But we start to see a trend of more awareness of protecting minor languages. The major players were mainly Cantonese-speakers, Hongkonger or residents in Guangdong province. Now more ethic minorities including major minor ethic groups like Tibetans, Mongols, and Uighurs, join in linguistic politics. Beijing’s reaction is unsurprisingly harsh as linguistic identity has always been the most essential reason and catalyst for claiming sovereignty (such as the case of Flemish Belgium and Quebec).

It is interesting to see how speakers of Sichuanese, Minnan, or Wu has no such strong sense of protecting their language, even though the standard mandarin (Guanhua) has been eroding on these languages.

洞察 | Insight

Chinese Accelerationism. The sentiment of accelerationism is becoming more prominent in China. Accelerationism in China is different from any traditional interpretation of this concept. In China, it is a belief that for there to be a systematic change in China it is necessary to have radical destruction of the status quo; for there to be radical destruction, one way is to conform to, or even to support Beijing’s policies because these policies are so bad that if we carry them out more effectively, disasters will follow and the system implodes.

I think BBC is right to use the word “disillusioned” (幻灭) and “fanatic” (狂热) to describe the younger generations identify themselves with accelerationism. “Disillusioned” is easy to understand, our generation no longer sees the possibility for serious reform. We are the generation that sees less and less freedom, less and less space for public action, and no improvement in protecting private property.

But besides the rational calculation that produces “no possibility for reform” as an answer, accelerationism is also emotional — fanatic it is. It reflects a bit of anger resulting from powerlessness. However, I want to point out that, underneath this emotion, is a simple moral sentiment of retributive justice. If one day China becomes, hopefully, a democratic society, how should we deal with its authoritarian past? From a retributive justice standpoint of view, the perpetrators should be punished to pay their debts to the victims. However, in reality, no historical wrongdoing has been dealt with according to this doctrine. Victims or their future generations may be compensated, such as the case of aboriginal people in Canada and Australia (one may even argue they have not been compensated adequately), but the perpetrators are left unpunished. Taiwan has established a transitional justice committee that tries to identify the perpetrator, but it does not address the problem of what to do with the perpetrators.

This is how powerless some of our generation feel: a disaster is fine, as long as the authoritarian regime, along with its abettors, is destroyed in it, even if it means I am also a part of it. Let us remember this powerlessness and anger so that when one day the change arrives, we can properly redress the historical wrongs.

推荐阅读 | Good to Read

An ‘alliance of democracies’ sounds good. It won’t solve the world’s problems. Both Republic and Democrat leaders are looking for an alliance of democracies. This indicates a change of attitudes towards China from both sides. Historically, Democrats are more friendly and more lenient when it comes to China-U.S. relations. As the authors point out, however, grouping a new alliance would not help with the many challenges the world is facing now, as China and other un-democratic countries have become powerful and impactful enough and it becomes impossible to treat them just as rivals but not cooperators. This article does not provide a solution to the question of how to cooperate with countries with China. And this is certainly the hard, yet essential, question.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years | David Graeber | Talks at Google For those who do not have time to finish a book of 500 pages, this talk by David Graeber, who unfortunately deceased this month, provides a synopsis of his Debt: The First 5,000 Years. A few important takeaways: 1) Adam Smith’s narrative that money evolves from barter and credit evolves from money is historically and anthropologically wrong; 2) credit exists before money and it exists not in an economical manner — it is more like exchanges of help; 3) money is introduced by violent powers, especially a state (for example, to organize militaries).

Podcasting provides a space for free thought in China Not for long though.

Yes, We are Expecting More from stand-up comdies (in China) 对！我们对脱口秀期待更多 An episode of podcast where one of the first Chinese comedians Jony Chou is interviewed. Chou, a former reporter for China state media CCTV, believes stand-up comedy is his channel for speaking freely.