The annual Reporters Without Borders index of press freedom is out.
The UK is 28. Behind Jamaica, which reminds us that press freedom can’t solve every problem.
Italy is 61. The lowest rank of any major developed country.
China is 174. Out of 179. But still ahead of Iran, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea.
Three recent articles make me think how dull and conservative good industrial policy in developing countries needs to be. And how China is proving the point.
The first piece reveals that only 106 plug-in electric cars were bought in the UK in the third quarter of the year. The second indicates that after biding its time, General Electric is making a move into the solar industry (FT sub needed) — but not into the poly-silicon technology that has dominated thus far, instead into the thin film approach that grew out of the US semiconductor business. The third article concerns GE’s third quarter results (FT sub needed), which were none too bad but which were not helped by falling wind turbine prices, a business where GE is already very active.
China has designs on all these green energy businesses. It also has large domestic firms in each sector which are screaming for subsidies. The government could have thrown its money at the most exciting technology — electric vehicles — or at the one where Chinese scientists lead the world — poly-silicon solar. But instead it chose to place its big bets on wind turbines, where the technological path is most established and the cost of green energy lowest, throwing billions of dollars at the construction of Chinese wind farms. It was the boring choice, but it looks like having been the right one — hands down.
As recent press shows, the market for electric vehicles remains tiny. If China had gotten too far ahead of the demand curve, the country could have wasted vast sums on e-vehicle technologies that fizzle. In the solar business, where private Chinese companies dominate global production of poly-silicon cells, there is a real risk that poly-silicon is not going to be the winning long-run technology.
The shape of the evolving wind turbine market, by contrast, is easier to see. It is largely a matter of making the same turbines bigger. In this context, China has created some of the world’s largest wind turbine producers in the space of a few years and there is little chance going forward that they will be ‘technologically disrupted’. They are competing first on price — hence the pressure mentioned by GE in its third quarter results — capturing market share, over-running the entire production value chain so as to ‘own’ the technology, and they will then start to compete on quality and service later.
Sensible industrial policy in a developing country involves plucking low hanging technological fruit. Then you bring cheap capital — human and financial — to bear.
After a summer of relentlessly serious news stories, it seems the silly season has finally arrived. The FT.com lead story tonight reports from Rome that Italy is hoping to be bailed out of its debt crisis by China (sub needed).
The idea is that sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. (CIC) is going to lend Italy a stack of money. In essence this would amount to China bailing out northern Europe by lending to Italy a few days/ weeks before northern Europe finally concedes that Italy cannot afford to pay its debts.
The outcome presupposes that China and CIC are incredibly stupid. But that is not the case. As a political entity China is in fact from the same stable as Italy — the bullshitters. And the last person you want to go to when you are trying to sell something dodgy like Italian debt is another bullshitter.
Gets even funnier:
The FT claims the Euro and stock markets are rallying on the possibility that China will come to Italy’s rescue.
Just before Europe blows, here are three things worth reading that go to China’s lack of institutional development.
A.
The first is the latest on blogger Wang Lihong, detained since March, and subject of Do something useful No.1. That post contains all kinds of links you can follow to learn more about and to support her case.
Wang’s ‘trial’ took place on 12 August and involved some nice touches. It was declared an open trial, but requests to attend were refused. The courtroom provided only five seats for observers. Two were filled with uniformed cops. Two were filled with goons. And one was taken by Wang’s brother. According to the lawyer, when Wang or her lawyer spoke, the judge interrupted, repeatedly. Two witnesses for the defence were detained en route to the trial by police, one in Beijing (and was then held in a illegal jail) and the other at an airport in Fujian province. Perhaps 20 Wang supporters were detained outside the courthouse…
The below is from From Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
Wang Lihong’s Trial Marred by Procedural Violations; At Least 20 Supporters Taken Away by Police
The trial of human rights activist Wang Lihong (王荔蕻) for “creating a disturbance” in Beijing on August 12 took just two-and-a-half hours and was beset by violations of the Criminal Procedure Law, according to one of her defense attorneys, Han Yicun (韩一村). Hundreds of people—supporters, uniformed and plainclothes police, journalists, and diplomats—gathered outside the courthouse. At least 20 of Wang’s supporters, including a petitioner in a wheelchair, reportedly were taken away by police before the start of the trial. The presiding judge stated that the verdict would be announced at a later date.
After the trial, Han Yicun spoke in detail about how the proceedings were procedurally flawed. Han said that he was hindered in his defense arguments since prosecutors were given more time during extensive cross-examination of Wang and because he was frequently interrupted by the judge. He noted that Wang was unable to complete her final defense statement since the judge interrupted her many times as well. In his written defense statement arguing for Wang’s innocence, Han described the prosecution of Wang as political persecution rather than a legal proceeding, and argued for the necessity of judicial independence in China to ensure due process and the protection of citizens’ civil rights.
There was a large police presence outside the courthouse; one eyewitness counted approximately 20 police vehicles. Petitioners and other supporters chanted slogans or held signs in support of Wang, and some shared information about injustices they had experienced. Around the entrance, police cordoned off an area that included both officers and several foreign journalists, and a large number of national security officers and plainclothes police kept close watch over the large crowd.
Although the court had declared the trial open to the public, virtually all applications to attend the proceedings had been rejected, including from foreign diplomats as well as petitioners and activists from all around the country. Han noted after the proceedings that the courtroom was extremely small—with far too little space to accommodate the number of people who wished to observe the hearing—and that the court had essentially created the atmosphere of a “closed” trial. Only five seats in the courtroom were designated for observers, but two of them were occupied by uniformed police and two by plainclothes police; the other one was occupied by Wang’s son, Qi Jianxiang (齐健翔).
In the days and weeks leading up to the trial, Chinese authorities had warned potential witnesses not to testify and restricted the movement of several other individuals, most notably defendants from the “Fujian Three” netizens’ criminal defamation case from last year. (Wang’s trial for “creating a disturbance” stemmed from her participation in protests outside the sentencing hearing for these netizens in April 2010 in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province.) In the evening of August 11, Wu Huaying (吴华英), after eluding Fujian authorities and making her way to Beijing, was seized by interceptors and then held at the Duxinyuan Guest House, a “black jail,” along with three other petitioners from Fujian. Also on August 11, national security officers in Fuzhou prevented another one of the “Fujian Three,” You Jingyou (游精佑), from taking a flight to Beijing.
B.
John Kamm gets the full treatment visiting Dongguan Prison
Here’s a new piece from the blog of veteran China human rights campaigner John Kamm about Xu Zerong. Xu, a Harvard- and Oxford-trained academic specialist on the Korean war, was sent down for 13 years for ‘leaking state secrets’ in relation to his research. He thought various documents related to Chinese tactics in the 1950-3 conflict were legally in the public domain after 40 years. The People’s Liberation Army and the judge had different ideas. Still, sounds from the Xu interview at the end like Kamm managed to get him into some of the more cushty Chinese prisons…
Xu Zerong: With American Attention … All Prisoners Benefit
In recent years, visits to Chinese prisons made by representatives of foreign governments and non-governmental organizations have been reduced to a trickle. This is due in part to the reduction of Sino-Western bilateral rights dialogues and the elimination of visits to custodial centers that these dialogues once fostered. Consular visits to individual prisoners aside, the International Center for Prison Studies visited prisons in Anhui and Hubei in March 2009; Dui Hua visited the Beijing Juvenile Detention Center in May 2010; and an international humanitarian organization visited two Chongqing prisons in the spring of 2011. No United Nations officials have been allowed into Chinese prisons since Manfred Nowak, the special rapporteur on torture, returned from a visit in late 2005 to condemn its palpable “climate of fear.”
Though dwindling, visits by foreigners to Chinese prisons play an important role in ensuring the humane treatment of prisoners. In a recent interview with Hong Kong’s Open Magazine, Xu Zerong discussed how he ended up serving 11 years in prison and how overseas intervention improved his life in custody.
In November 2002, Dui Hua Executive Director John Kamm visited Dongguan Prison in Guangdong Province. A few months later, Xu was transferred there to serve his sentence for “trafficking in state secrets.” The following is an excerpt from the Open Magazine interview detailing prison conditions and the impact of international concern on the treatment Xu received.
Writing Got Him Through the Prison Years
Cai Yongmei, Open Magazine, August 6, 2011
[Translated Excerpt]
問：與花都相比如何？
Open Magazine: How was [Dongguan Prison] compared to Huadu [National Security Detention Center]*?
徐澤榮：好多了，在花都關在只有一兩個人的牢房中，現在一間牢房有十至十二人，有人說話。東莞監獄是廣東的模範監獄，管理比較文明。這也有美國人的功 勞。中美對話基金會的康原（John Kamm），於一九九九年十一月來參觀過，由司法部外事處的人陪同，監獄小報有報導。有了美國人的關注，監獄環境得到改善，犯人都是受益者。
Xu Zerong: Much better. At Huadu I was held in a cell with just one or two people. [At Dongguan] each cell had 10 to 12 people, so there were people to talk to. Dongguan Prison is a model prison in Guangdong Province. Management is relatively civilized. This is also to the Americans’ credit. The Dui Hua Foundation’s John Kamm visited [Dongguan Prison] in November 1999 [sic] along with officials from the Ministry of Justice foreign affairs bureau; this was reported in the prison newspaper. With American attention, prison conditions improved, and all prisoners benefited.
問：康原對你的案子一直很關注。
OM: Kamm remained very concerned about your case.
徐澤榮：是的，這年十一月我從東莞監獄調到環境更好的廣州西村監獄，我認為是康原幫的忙。廣州西川與東莞這兩個監獄都被評為廣東部級文明監獄，由於西村 是廣東勞改局直接領導，生活上對犯人更要文明一些，加班也沒有東莞厲害。在東莞由於勞動時間長，沒有時間寫東西，我要半夜起來寫。西村監獄十五個監區，一 個關香港人，一個關澳門台灣人，還有一個關外國人，但沒有西方人。我是關在大陸人的監區內。牢房中都有衛生間。一個緬甸人說感覺很好，好像是住賓館。○五 年二月還把我與老弱犯人關在一起，免於勞動，使我有時間寫東西，都是康原與當局交涉的結果。他還給我寄了五本書，是關於美國外交和國際關係這類，還收到他 一封短信。
XZR: Yes. In November of that year I was transferred from Dongguan Prison to Guangzhou Xicun Prison, which had even better conditions. I believe this was [due to] his help. Both the Guangzhou Xichuan [sic] and Dongguan prisons are considered Guangdong’s most civilized prisons. Because Guangdong’s prison administration bureau directly supervises Xicun [Prison], prisoners’ living conditions were even more civilized [there], and [mandatory] overtime labor was not as severe as in Dongguan. Because work hours were long in Dongguan, there was no time to write—I had to wake up in the middle of the night to write.
Xicun Prison has 15 cell blocks, one for Hong Kong people, one for Macanese and Taiwanese people, and one for foreigners, but there weren’t any Westerners. I was detained in the cell block for mainland Chinese. There were bathrooms in the cells. One Burmese said it felt nice, like staying in a guesthouse. In February 2005 I was even put together with weak and elderly** prisoners and waived from doing labor, giving me time to write. All of this was the result of Kamm’s negotiations with the authorities. He even sent me five books about things like US diplomacy and international relations. I also received a short letter from him.
問：你坐牢期間，海外對你的救援是否知道？
OM: When you were in prison, were you aware of the support you had overseas?
徐澤榮：我聽律師講到海外有人聲援我，聯署簽名。也有後來入獄的犯人說在香港電視上看過報導。我最為驚訝的是在廣州監獄收到美國硅谷寄給我的一張卡，有 八個人簽名，其中一位叫周鋒鎖，我覺得名字很熟悉，我查官方出的六四書《新中國大波瀾》，發現他是北京天安門學生領袖，心裡很震動。還收到國際筆會從美國 寄來的四封聖誕卡，也感到意外。你們獨立中文筆會頒獎給我，姪女也告訴我了 ，還把獎盃的照片交給了監獄方面。這些對我都是很大的鼓勵，知道在這個世界上有很多人不認為我是犯罪的。我真的是很感謝大家。
XZR: [My] lawyer told me that there were people overseas who were supporting me and signing a petition [on my behalf], and prisoners incarcerated afterward said they saw reports [on my case] on Hong Kong TV. The most surprising thing for me was when I was in Guangzhou Prison and received a card from Silicon Valley signed by eight people including someone named Zhou Fengsuo. The name sounded familiar so I looked in an official book on the June 4th incident, New China Review, and discovered that he was a student leader at Beijing’s Tiananmen. I was extremely moved.
I also received four Christmas cards sent from the United States by International PEN, which were unexpected. When your Independent Chinese PEN Center gave me an award, my niece told me and even gave the prison a photo of the trophy. All of this was of great encouragement to me, knowing that there are many people in this world who don’t think that I committed a crime. I am really very grateful to everyone.
*In the interview, Xu says Huadu National Security Detention Center was established in 1995 to house special operatives, political prisoners, and Guangzhou municipal officials ranking at or above deputy level. He said conditions at Huadu are better than at other detention centers, noting en suite air conditioners and televisions and good food.
**Prisoners age 55 and older are classified as elderly.
C.
Finally, an interview by the Quiet Canadian in the anorak. Pulitzer prize winning Ian Johnson interviews poet, book writer and serial reporter Liao Yiwu. Liao, currently in Berlin, is one of thousands of Chinese who are either explicitly or implicitly exiles (in his case the government has not actually torn his passport up). He says he’s saving his mum trips to prison bringing him food…
The interview is posted on the blog of the New York Review of Books.
‘I’m not interested in them; I wish they weren’t interested in me’: An Interview with Liao Yiwu
Amid the recent crackdown on dissidents by the Chinese government, the case of Liao Yiwu, the well-known poet and chronicler of contemporary China, is particularly interesting. For years, Liao’s work, which draws on extensive interviews with ordinary Chinese, has been banned by the authorities for its provocative revelations about everyday life. In early July, amid a worsening atmosphere for artists and intellectuals critical of the Chinese government, Liao fled to Germany via a small border crossing to Vietnam in Yunnan province.
Liao first came to prominence in 1989 when he recorded an extended stream-of-consciousness protest poem called “Massacre” about the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He was subsequently arrested and spent four years in prison, where he met the series of outcasts and misfits who became the protagonists of his first book on China’s underclass. Written in the form of questions and answers, these stories became symbolic vignettes about people from a range of offbeat and unusual professions or situations. Some of them were translated in The Paris Review in 2005, and they were collected and expanded in the 2008 book The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China From the Bottom Up.
Now, one of Liao’s other three books, God is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China, is about to be published in the United States in September. It tells the story of Christian persecution in the early Communist era, mostly in minority areas of Yunnan province. He has also written a memoir of his four years in prison that has just been published in Germany to wide acclaim. His fourth book, on China’s new underclass, has yet to be published.
I recently spoke with Liao at Berlin’s Literaturhaus, where he easily blended in amid the tourists and would-be hipsters. His head clean-shaven, he appears younger than his 53 years, a short, powerful man who often lapsed into a thick, Sichuanese dialect. He talked about his decision to flee, his new book, and how he plans to continue his work from afar.
Ian Johnson: The Chinese newspaper Global Times said Liao Yiwu is not in exile. It said you’re just on holiday and that nowadays it’s not so strange for Chinese to go abroad for extended stays. They say your decision to go to Germany has to do with marketing your books. Are you really in exile?
Liao Yiwu: I never said I wanted to go into exile or flee. It’s just because if I didn’t my books wouldn’t get published. I guess I won’t go back for a while. I’m doing publicity for the prison book now, then I’ll go to the US for my Christianity book. Then Taiwan for the Chinese edition of the prison book. Then back to Germany, where I have a one-year DAAD fellowship in Berlin. So when that’s all over, I’ll see if they haven’t forgotten me.
What did the authorities tell you?
They said, “two books of yours can’t be published overseas.” One is the prison book. The other is the God book. They said both are unacceptable. So I talked with them and asked why. They asked me to sign a paper [promising not to publish]. They said these were “illegal cultural products.” They said these two books disclosed secrets.
Is political repression more severe than it has been in the past?
Yes, especially the first half of the year. Ahhh, I don’t know. I think it’s the government’s own problem. That call for a Jasmine Revolution. They took it so seriously but it was just something someone posted on the Internet. It didn’t exist, but after it was posted they came by all the time, asking and asking. No one had heard of it! They’re nervous.
My writing is illegal…I don’t know. I’m just writing something and now have broken their law. I don’t want to break their laws. I am not interested in them and wish they weren’t interested in me.
So why are they?
The prison book is pretty cruel. I was serving time in Chongqing. At one point they tortured me so much I smashed my head against the wall to try to kill myself. I passed out and then over the next few days the non-political prisoners came by and said, “Hey buddy, if you really want to kill yourself that’s a stupid way to do it. A better way is like this: you find a nail sticking out of the wall and smash your temple against it. It’s much more effective, believe us.” So this book is maybe more cruel than the others. The authorities said to me: “If you publish this book we’ll send you back to Chongqing.” There’s no way I’m going back there. That’s too terrifying. They said we don’t care about the Mao era. You can write about that. The 50s and 60s are okay.
But then the Christianity book should be okay. It’s mostly from that era.
Yes, but the religious question in China is so great that it’s also forbidden, especially the subject of Christianity. I didn’t consider this when I was writing it. Haha, if I had thought of that I wouldn’t have written it [laughs]. They say it’s illegal to publish it abroad. This is strange. It’s a secret if foreigners read it, but not if Chinese read it. So it’s a secret for Ian Johnson to read, but not for me [laughing].
Why did you write about Christians and not, say, Buddhists?
Me, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t have a definite plan. I had this opportunity to meet the Christians and it moved me so I did it.
How was it interviewing these Christians? You’re not a Christian, right?
It’s like this. I was in Yunnan trying to interview the last landlords of China, the ones who were persecuted in the early communist years. I met some people who told me about these Christians. I went to meet them. It was a really poor place. Unbelievably poor. No electricity, no roads, no telephone. We walked four or five hours to get to one village. But I thought this was so unbelievable. You’d get to a village and there’d be a church. Westerners had been there before, a century earlier, and built these churches. It was remarkable. They worked in these villages until 1949 when the Communists took over. The foreigners were expelled and a lot of the Christians killed. The stories are unbelievably cruel. In one case the father was executed and left on the side of the road. The family wasn’t allowed to pick up the corpse. When I heard this I cried.
What will you do in Germany? Your sources of information, your interviews—it’s all back in China.
There are too many stories about China! People say, “you won’t have anything to write about here,” but the problem is I can’t write them all. There are too many.
How do you work? Did you record the interviews?
In some of the other books, no. But in this case God is Red) I did. But when I write down their answers I try to make it sound as good as possible. I’m a writer so I want to use all my skill to write their stories.
How about the prison book? How did you remember all that?
I had a copy of [the classic Chinese novel] Romance of the Three Kingdoms and made tiny notes that I put in the book. It was really difficult, but in this way I was able to recover a lot of memories. These books are different. God is Red was difficult because I had to walk a lot of roads and eat a lot of bitterness, but I was glad to be able to write it. They were moving stories. But the prison book was difficult to write. It was painful.
And the fourth book is finished?
Yes, on the new underclass: some of them are unemployed, others simply don’t fit into society. But I’ve got more. I have seven or eight books I can write. I have a lot of material on me. I don’t lack material.
But from now on you can’t interview anyone, since you no longer live in China.
I’m already 53 years old. I’ve lived through a lot. The 1980s were a golden age for Chinese thought and literature. Then came 1989. Then came the reforms and the economic growth. No one thought the Communists would be so tough and strong. It’s caused all these waves of immigration. After they took over there was a big wave of immigration as people fled. Then after 1989 there was another wave of about 100,000 who left. Now there’s a new wave of people leaving, even though the economy is so good. At least among many artistic people it’s like this. You can’t do anything meaningful in China. If you return you have three choices: flee, sit in prison or shut up. I had to flee. Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei weren’t able to flee but I was. It’s probably because I interviewed a lot of these underclass people so I understand how the police think. That allowed me to figure a way out. I have contacts in the underground.
Can you get used to living abroad? You don’t speak German or English.
Sure, communication is never a problem. I like Berlin. East Berlin has a lot of underground bars that remind me of China. There’s one street there with a lot of prostitutes. I’ve been there many times to observe and watch how different German prostitutes are from Chinese prostitutes. The Germans are more polite. If you don’t want to, they leave you alone. In China, several will fight over you.
Some people ask why you publish so much overseas.
I’d like to publish in China but since 2001 I haven’t been able to. In the 1990s it was difficult but then after 2001 nothing at all. There is a lot of illegal, underground publishing. Most is related to sex. A friend told me I’ve got some good news for you: your book on the underclass is competing with the sex books! That was funny. But the two books coming this year are the ones I most value. They are the most personal and have moved me the most.
Do you still have relatives back home?
Yes, my mother, brother and sister.
Did you tell them ahead of time that you were leaving?
No, you cannot. I was the only one who knew.
Can they understand?
[Sighs] Slowly they’ll understand. For example, if I’m arrested they have to deliver food to me in prison—it’s a burden for them [laughing]. All those trips to the prison [laughs]. I’ve spared them those trips …
Does your mother understand what you do, your writing?
She does, but she wishes I wasn’t mixed up in politics. But I’m not. I’m not interested in politics. I’m not like Liu Xiaobo. I didn’t write a Charter 08. I did sign it. The police asked me why I signed it and I said I don’t know, I just felt like it.
You seem to have a knack for finding sensitive issues.
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really mean to but somehow it happens.
August 15, 2011 11:15 a.m.
(Do something useful No.2)
Bloomberg has a great story today about academics from some of the leading US universities being banned for political reasons from China and their universities doing nothing, or less than nothing, about it.
If you are a student or graduate of one of these esteemed schools, you might like to write a letter to the top lady or gentleman of the institution, telling them how impressed you are.
If not, or in addition, send this on to someone connected with one of these institutions.
Lest I be accused of being unfair to China, here are a couple of links to a well-known cases of the US beating up on academics.
Tariq Ramadan was banned from taking up a professorship at Notre Dame (Michigan) in the US by the Baby Bush administration.
Adam Habib was deported from the US upon arrival for alleged ‘links to terrorism’.
In the more distant past, writers including Graham Greene, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, and Doris Lessing were banned from America for their political views. Sill, there is no real moral equivalence (I believe) with China, from where thousands of Chinese people have now been exiled because of their beliefs.
Here is an article about Hong Kong and Macau ignoring their mandates to operate different ‘systems’ to PRC and policing academics in a similar way.
The equity markets threw quite a tantrum on Monday and on Tuesday morning, but Mr Market appears to have found his valium.
Wednesday evening insert:
Strike that! Mr Market picked the wrong bottle and actually took some acid. He’s freakin’ out again.
What is the American equities terror all about? Not much as far as I can see. Noise.
I am no Bernanke groupie, but the message from the Federal Open Markets Committee Tuesday looked about right. No immediate promise of QE3. It isn’t needed yet and given the epicentre of crisis at this point is in Europe (see next par) it is hard to see how US government debt yields are going to be pushed significantly up. There was an FOMC promise of long-term cheap money, but everyone expected that anyway. The US may just (unlike the UK) continue to crawl towards recovery. If not, there’s time.
The real story is on two different fronts. The first is the European sovereign debt crisis, where the ECB is applying to Italy and Spain the medicine that did not work for Greece, Ireland or Portugal — buying the bonds of a country that cannot otherwise afford to service them. For Spain, at least this may be a useful subsidy while the country makes further adjustments to ensure its independent fiscal survival. But for Italy, it is simply a matter of how much time elapses before the market remembers that Italy cannot get its act together. I can’t see how this can take very long at all. The trigger for renewed panic in the debt market, however, could be one of many: German politicians decide unilaterally that they have had enough of Italy; Italian blue collar unions affirm their intransigence; Berlusconi opens his mouth; some new scandal breaks; the ‘professional’ classes go on strike; or the sheer scale of what is entailed in buying Italian (and Spanish) debt sinks in — the total the ECB spent on Greek, Irish and Portuguese debt last year and this was Euro74 billion; it will likely be asked by delighted sellers to buy that much Italian (and Spanish) debt within a month. Waiting for one of these things to go bang is a bit like watching old episodes of Dallas: predictable.
More interesting perhaps is what is happening on the China front, another key to the rebalancing of economic and political relationships that must happen before this crisis is over. Here we see what can be construed as the method in American madness. The S&P downgrades of US debt and the hoo-ha about a possible QE3 is backing the Chinese leadership further into a corner it hardly even realised it was in. There was old China, all tough and proud with a couple of trillion dollars of US dollar-denominated foreign exchange reserves (out of a total of more than three trillion USD-equivalent). Everyone was all afraid of the big panda that was buying up all the forex. But suddenly the Chinese government doesn’t feel so clever buying USD in order to depress the Renminbi exchange rate. So what else do they buy? Euros? Ho, ho, ho. Japanese Yen? Hee, hee, hee. Sterling? Ha, ha, ha, ha. There aren’t enough Swiss Francs or Swedish Krona to last China a week. And if it buys gold, what happens when the crisis is over and the price falls off a cliff?
It is no fun at all being the Chinese government right now and the path of least resistance is to let the Renminbi appreciate. The central bank allowed it to shift a quarter of a percent in a day when the S&P downgrade was announced, to 6.43 to the USD. (This would be nothing in a free market, but it is a big jump for China.) The official news agency, Xinhua, has taken to running political commentaries demanding the US guarantee the value of Chinese investments, which must have the China people in Washington rolling on the floor and slapping the carpet. At least someone is having fun. The more the Renminbi appreciates, the better the US net trade position becomes. The process also imports some inflation into the US, which is good. And the rising Rmb becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as speculative capital moves into China in search of higher interest rates and a rising currency. Basically, China either lends America cheap money to fund the deficit, or it takes the (upward) currency hit. They ain’t feeling so forex macho any more.
More…
Sloppy graph of USD-Rmb exchange rate: USD Rmb Sep10 to Aug11
And in the news:
Appreciation does not prevent a monster Chinese July trade surplus (FT sub needed). But imports, year-on-year, continued to rise faster than exports and the growth gap widened a little versus June. Going forward, it is worth bearing in mind that China could still see increasing trade surpluses as the Rmb exchange rate rises and exports slow, by virtue of falling domestic investment and hence lower capex imports. This would be consistent with the huge trade surpluses of the mid-1980s in east Asia which caused the US to put its revaluation gun to the head of Taiwan and Korea in 1987. However the trend to narrowing surpluses and a positive impact for the US economy is my base China case.
The Renminbi kicks on following yesterday’s FOMC statement.
Latest from not-so-gay Paris and not-so-dolce-vita Roma: (FT sub needed)
Zoot alors! King Sarko summons his ministers as selling fever turns on Italian bond-laden French banks. Pas bon: this FT story focuses on the sell-off of French bank stocks today, but notes further down that the Italian big 3 banks also got a caning. What is really telling, I suspect, is that French and Italian banks that own Italian (and other toxic) debt fell by double digits today, even as Italy was able to sell new bonds at lower interest than a few days ago (figures in the freakin’ out again link if you need them). Would that be because a few days ago the ECB wasn’t buying Italian bonds?
We start our report in the Third World’s richest nation, Italy.
I haven’t blogged about the Sollecito-Knox Satanic ritual murder case in my local provincial capital Salem* for some time because the case has been unravelling as predicted. The star witness turned out to be a junkie-dealer who already testified for the police in two other murder trials (so much for drug addicts spending all day in bed). And the forensic procedures and DNA ‘evidence’ have been shredded by a long report from Rome’s Sapienza University.
We are now in the end game. The prosecutor Giuliano Mignini is firing off criminal defamation suits against people who point out he is unfit for office even in Italy at a rate unprecedented even for him. After the Rome academics introduced their report in court in Perugia this week, Mignini and his pals despatched two squad cars of police to Sapienza University in the capital in what appears to be a bizarre act of attempted intimidation. (The university sent them packing.) There is no real doubt that Sollecito and Knox are going to go free. The main point of interest for Italy-watchers is to ascertain that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY is held responsible for burning witches**. That includes the prosecutors; the half-witted magistrates; the gormless, overcharging lawyers; the thoroughly incompetent and corrupt police; the lazy and self-serving journalists who leaked the official side of the investigation at every turn in contravention of the law, and every other medievally-minded member of this shameful lynch-mob***.
When nobody is held responsible, it is important that you do not think of Sollecito and Knox. A couple of years inside will for them have been an interesting life experience. Think instead of the family of Meredith Kercher, the murdered girl. They are the real victims of this pantomime performed by adults with uniforms and titles.
*Known in dialect as Perugia
** Should read: ‘sending innocent kids to prison for life’.
*** Should read: ‘professional mafia’.
A link to another part of the Third World that I cover is provided by poor old Google. The same US internet firm which last year decided to stand up to China by refusing orders to censor its service recently got a demand via Mr Mignini to shut down an Italian blog he does not like. The China decision has cost Google much of its market share in the Middle Kingdom as the Chinese government does almost everything it can to slow down and disrupt Google’s service (pushing many users to move to the Chinese Google rip-off provider, Baidu). In Italy, Google has already been intimidated under the country’s media laws in a case that saw some of its executives sentenced to prison (they won’t actually go, because that only happens to kids and poor people). So what did Google do when Mignini came knocking? The firm immediately pulled the site Mignini does not like (without contacting the blogger), even though there is no prima facie evidence it contains anything libelous under Italian law. The firm that took on the Dragon is caving in Italy. However, the blog in question has been moved to WordPress (which I use!), and which so far seems to have the necessary cojones for our Italian adventure.
The global battle against men who live with their mums, men with comb-over hair-cuts and men and women who call themselves ‘doctor’ but don’t actually have a doctorate, goes on.
We close today on the subject of the recent, horrific high-speed rail crash in China’s Zhejiang province and the official efforts to (literally) bury the truth of what happened (with corpses still inside). Rather than more news reports that you have probably already seen, here is a translation of Han Han, China’s most famous blogger. I wonder, is there anything in these lines that rings a bell for Italians with regard to the conduct of their own ‘professional’ classes:
“The Derailed Country”
You ask, why are they acting like a bunch of lunatics?
They think they’re the picture of restraint.
You ask, why can’t they tell black from white, fact from fiction?
They think they’re straight shooters, telling it like it is.
You ask, why are they running interference for murders?
They think they’ve thrown their friends under the bus. And they’re ashamed.
You ask, why all the cover-ups?
They think they’re letting it all hang out.
You ask, why are they so irretrievably corrupt?
They think they’re hardworking and plain-living.
You ask, why are they so infuriatingly arrogant?
They think they’re the picture of humility.
You feel like you’re the victim. So do they.
They think: “During the Qing Dynasty, no one had television. Now everyone has a television. Progress!”
They think: “We’re building you all this stuff, what do you care what happens in the process? Why should you care who it’s really for, so long as you get to use it? The train from Shanghai to Beijing used to take a whole day. Now you’re there in five hours (as long as there’s no lightning). Why aren’t you grateful? What’s with all the questions?
“Every now and then, there’s an accident. The top leaders all show how worried they are. We make someone available to answer journalists’ questions. First we say we’ll give the victims 170,000 kuai apiece. Then we say we’ll give them 500,000. We fire a buddy of ours. We’ve done all that, and you still want to nitpick? How could you all be so close-minded? You’re not thinking of the big picture! Why do you want us to apologize when we haven’t done anything wrong? It’s the price of development.
“Taking care of the bodies quickly is just the way we do things. The earlier we start signing things, the more we’ll have to pay out in the end. The later we sign, the smaller the damages. Our pals in the other departments—the ones who knock down all the houses—taught us that one. Burying the train car was a bonehead move, true, but the folks upstairs told us to do it. That’s how they think: if there’s something that could give you trouble, just bury it. Anyway, the real mistake was trying to dig such a huge hole in broad daylight. And not talking it over with the Propaganda Department beforehand. And not getting a handle on all the photographers at the site. We were busy, ok? If there’s anything we’ve learned from all this, it’s that when you need to bury something, make sure you think about how big it is, and make sure you keep the whole thing quiet. We underestimated all that.”
They think that, on the whole, it was a textbook rescue operation—well planned, promptly executed, and well managed. It’s a shame public opinion’s gotten a little out of hand, but they think, “That part’s not our responsibility. We don’t do public opinion.”
They’re thinking: “Look at the big picture: We had the Olympics, we canceled the agricultural tax, and you guys still won’t cut us a break. You’re always glomming on to these piddling little details. No can-do spirit. We could be more authoritarian than North Korea. We could make this place poorer than the Sudan. We could be more evil than the Khmer Rouge. Our army’s bigger than any of theirs, but we don’t do any of that. And not only are you not thankful, but you want us to apologize! As if we’ve done something wrong?”
Society has people of means, and those without. There’s people with power, and those that have none. And they all think they’re the victim. In a country where everyone’s the victim, where the classes have started to decouple from one another, where it’s every man for himself, in this huge country whose constituent parts slide forward on inertia alone—in this country, if there’s no further reform, even tiny decouplings make the derailings hard to put right.
The country’s not moving forward because a lot of them judge themselves as if Stalin and Mao were still alive. So they’ll always feel like the victim. They’ll always feel like they’re the enlightened ones, the impartial ones, the merciful ones, the humble ones, the put-upon ones. They think the technological drumbeat of historical progress is a dream of their own making.
The more you criticize him, the more he longs for autocracy. The more you gaomao him (piss him off), the more he misses Mao.
A friend in the state apparatus told me, “You’re all too greedy. Forty years ago, writers like you would’ve been shot. So you tell me, have things gotten better, or have they gotten worse?”
I said, “No, you’re all too greedy. Ninety years ago, that kind of thinking would have gotten you laughed out of the room. So you tell me: after all that, have things gotten better, or have they gotten worse?”
Worthwhile links:
No longer on Google’s Blogger, but now at WordPress (great courtroom detail):
Long reports can also be funny when they deal with Italian police conduct:
http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/
The highlights of this report (at least those that have thus far been translated into English) are here:
http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/contents/conclusions-2/
Note the discovery at Sapienza of starch (err…food) on the knife between the blade and the handle. Prosecution claimed the knife had been thoroughly cleaned by the killers, but their great forensics still uncovered (internationally-unacceptably small trace of) Kercher blood on the blade. Presence of starch residue now shows satanic ritutal murder gang cunningly cleaned off blood but not food from the knife… just like they cleaned all their fingerprints, bloodprints, DNA, etc from the room where Kercher died while leaving Rudy Guede’s evidence all over the place. I say: Burn ‘em already…
Finally, here is that YouTube video of the chief investigator on the Sollecito-Knox case again, talking about his ‘exquisitely psychological’ investigation. There have been another 2,000 hits since I first posted it. It deserves 2 million. You will not find anything funnier on a comedy programme, so settle for Italian reality and send it to your friends.
I.
On Saturday 16 July I was robbed for the second time since living in Italy on the same train, the one that runs from Fiumicino airport into Rome. On both occasions I was targeted because I was travelling with children and had a lot of luggage. The first time I was with my pregnant wife and one child, going to Malaysia to start work on my last book, Asian Godfathers. This time I was returning from a month in China with my 8 year old daughter where I finished my latest book, to be published this year. This time I lost not only passports, wallet, laptop, etc, but also 500 pages of interview notes. The robbery was very professionally done, involving at least two people, and perfectly timed as the train reached a station. The Italian passenger next to me was also fully taken in. Money and cigarettes were dropped on the floor, and my daughter’s case moved, by one person, my rucksack grabbed from behind my daughter’s back by another.
The theft problem on the Fiumicino trains is endemic and could not exist without either the studied incompetence or the collusion of Italy’s railway police (Polizia Ferroviaria or Polfer). In 2004 I was robbed beneath a mass of video surveillance cameras on platform 26 at Termini station; I noted the location of the nearest cameras and the exact minute the robbery occurred; the police blithely said the cameras do not work. This time the theft occurred as the train arrived at Tuscolana station. A young policeman who helped me check bins around the station in the vain hope of finding my documents said on the subject of police collusion that he himself found it strange when recently transferred in to this unit that he was not asked to start out in plain clothes making some arrests on the trains; that, he said, is the norm in other rail police units; here, he was sent out on day one in full uniform.
When I took my daughter back to the station where we were robbed (the train had carried on to the next stop), we found the decoy (the ‘palo’) in the robbery sitting on a bench there. I asked him in Italian: ‘You were the person who dropped the money and cigarettes on our train, weren’t you?’ In front of myself and my daughter he said: ‘Yes’. He wasn’t afraid, didn’t try to run. When the police showed up he said he was just a builder catching a train (He was smoking a cigarette from the red Italian brand packet he had dropped before my eyes and showed the police the charger unit for an electric tool he had in his pack — with no tool). They searched him, said he had no prior form, and let him go. I gave him my phone number on a piece of paper, begging him to ask his accomplice to return the documents. That, really, is where Italy is at. You beg the person who robs you for some sympathy, because nothing else works.
Then we went to do the ‘denuncia’ at the Tiburtina police station. After 17 hours flying, and two hours of being robbed and looking for my documents, I rang the bell and the policeman who came to the door told us to come back in half an hour. I asked if we could wait in the waiting room inside. I had one credit card in my pocket, but no money, because four bank machines I had tried were out of order (the phone lines were down). The policeman said we could not come into the station and should wait in the street. When we returned, a policeman holding an i-phone, sporting an expensive watch and wearing spotless Sunday casuals launched into the preemptive statement about what a terrible place Italy is, how foreigners are mad to live here and how under-resourced the railway police are. Who can say, but he did not look to me like he works night and day catching thieves on the trains. Instead, he patronised my daughter: ‘Ciao, bionda.’ She is only eight, but she is already old enough to spot a certain kind of Italian man.
The policeman was insistent that I fill out a denuncia in English — instead of the standard Italian form — saying it ‘would be translated’, and despite my expectation and willingness to do this in Italian. As ever, you wonder why. Do the police really tell us how many people get robbed on that line? All we know for sure is that almost all the victims are foreigners.
Throughout this whole experience, my daughter and I were calm and accepting of our situation, including with the man who helped rob us. (My daughter cried very briefly at one point, for just about 30 seconds. She was trying to blame herself for the robbery because she asked to sit on the top deck of the train.) When I thought about this the next day, I realised that we have become the kind of people who accept suffering and unfairness as a part of normal life. In a sense, we have become Italian. The problem is — with the very greatest respect — I don’t want to be Italian.
II.
On 21 July I spent some time phoning around the railway police (Polfer) in search of published statistics about crime on the two Fiumicino train lines (to Termini and to Tiburtina). After some persistence I was put through to a woman who introduced herself as ‘Dottoressa Caccia’. Ms Caccia was the only person in my enquiry who was willing to give a name. (A web search suggests she is likely Barbara Caccia; like the vast majority of Italians who present themselves as ‘doctor’ she holds only an undergraduate degree.) Ms Caccia said that her office is responsible for Polfer statistics and, although my experience of being robbed twice on the airport lines was unfortunate, the statistical reality is that crime on the Fiumicino trains has fallen ‘at least 85 percent’ in the ‘last five years’. She was, however, unable to give me actual numbers, because she did not have them ‘sotto mano’.
After the robbery on 16 July, Gaia and I had to return from Tiburtina station to Tuscolana to see if my bag and papers had been abandoned (when we found the decoy sitting at the station) and then back to Polfer at Tiburtina station to do a denuncia. As we sat on our cases on these two trips, I watched at least two more pairs of impoverished eastern Europeans walking around the carriages in a manner wholly unnatural for actual passengers. Almost certainly they were looking for robbery victims. The policeman who took our denuncia said himself that we can have ‘no idea’ of the scale of theft on the line when he reflexively sought to defend the performance of Polfer. The helpful policeman who helped me look for my papers around Tuscolana station described the situation as running out of control, and said he understood that a member of parliament, whom he believed is from the Northern League, had been robbed on the train a few days previously.
There is no way that crime on these trains is down 85 percent. When I asked Ms. Caccia whether her numbers jived with reports received by foreign embassies about stolen passports, she pretended not to understand what I was saying and became defensive. ‘My memory is not perfect,’ she stated with respect to the data, telling me to write a request for figures on the state police ‘scrivici’ (write to us) web site. This site, I discovered, limits enquiries to 600 characters (about 100 words). None the less, I wrote a request, reassured by Ms Caccia’s guarantee that ‘If you write, we must respond.’
Thinking about Ms Caccia’s ’85 percent fall’, I looked again at the ‘foreigner’ denuncia that the officer at Tiburtina’s Polfer station had been so adamant I should fill out in preference to the standard Italian one. I realised what made me uncomfortable about the form: it contains no reference number of any kind. On Carabinieri denuncia forms I have looked at, there is always a ‘Numero protocollo Sdi’ and sometimes a ‘Numero protocollo Verbale’ as well. In other words the document is logged in ‘the system’. What I was made to fill out at Tiburtina station has no log in the system. It is simply a bit of floating paper, that could disappear without leaving any suggestion that it ever existed.
In addition, I note that at the top of the Polfer form are two small boxes to be ticked for either ‘stolen’ or ‘lost’. I missed these in filling out my form at the station. What then happened is that the Polfer officer photocopied my hand-written version, stamped a photocopy, and only ticked ‘theft’ on the copy he gave me. I very clearly watched him, through an internal office window, do the copying of the original and then bring a copy to me. I did not see him tick ‘stolen’ on the original or on any other copy, although he may have had me sign more than one copy. I cannot remember.
So. Is theft on the Fiumicino line down 85%? Or is reported theft down 85%?
III.
The problem with my mini-investigation is that checks with consular sections of embassies do not provide much useful evidence. The British embassy confirms it has had several thefts on the Fiumicino trains reported in recent weeks. But the US, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian embassies say that while they do have thefts reported on the trains, they see no particular trend. The Japanese say that the vast majority of thefts affecting their nationals at present are on Line A of the Rome Metropolitana (underground) on stops close to Termini station. While the Chinese say that most of their tourists come in groups and are rigorously warned by tour leaders about the risk of theft on Italian trains. (The Chinese embassy web site has descriptions of scams like the one that happened to us written up in great detail. There is also a description of an entire Chinese tour group recently being drugged and robbed on an Italian train. Of course all this is in Chinese… if stated in Italian, the content would likely lead to a minor diplomatic incident.)
What the consulates told me privately that they see does not add up to the industrial scale theft which I suspect goes on perennially on the airport trains. The reason may be that victims only turn to consulates if they lose their passports or all access to money, or both. And the vast majority of people are not as dumb as I am in keeping all their stuff in their back-pack. They have passports and credit cards closer to their person, in a wallet or pouch.
If I had not lost our passports on both occasions, it is unlikely I would have contacted the British embassy in Rome. After all, embassies are hardly places that invite extra business, and the British one in Rome is about as bad as it gets — one is told the (out-of-country) emergency number is for cases of death or equivalent seriousness, while the switchboard is only manned from 0915 to 1200 each day.
My first letter to the US embassy last week was met with a written response that any information about thefts on trains affecting US citizens ‘is police information held by Italian law enforcement authorities. We therefore suggest you to refer to the Italian Police/Carabinieri to get the needed information.’
The modern embassy/consulate is a pretty shameful institution, and robbery victims are sensible to avoid it unless absolutely necessary. So the one potential source of reliable information about the scale of crime on trains in Italy — and the Fiumicino lines in particular — is Polfer. Which brings us back to those new ‘foreigner’ denuncia forms with no serial numbers. I will pass this post on to various foreign embassies in Rome and see if anyone is interested. Hold your breath!
Exhibits:
The header of a standard Carabinieri denuncia form, with ‘protocollo’ serial numbers, is here.
The front of the foreigner denuncia form I was told to fill out is here. There is no serial number of any kind. This is the photocopy of the original given to me by the Polfer policeman. He has crossed the ‘Report of theft’ box at the top left, but he did not do this in front of me for the original or for other copies. (I have blanked out my phone numbers on this scan.)
The back of the foreigner denuncia form is here. It is all ready for one of those Italian policemen who are fluent in foreign languages to bang out the translation and log the theft into the statistical record.
(Do something useful No.1)
Just back from China and from pretty much getting latest book finished. Except for a small hitch, about which I will blog later.
Meantime, I am adding a new Category button called Do Something Useful. I will use it to file interesting miscarriage of justice and political persecution cases about which readers of this blog might want to do something. Like onpass the cases to friends, sign petitions, even write letters. Imagine how good you will feel if someone you decide merits your support gets let out of prison…
Please only support cases that you have read. Do not assume that me posting stuff automatically means people are innocent of what they have been accused of.
Most of the cases will come from China and Italy since they are — in institutional terms — the Third World countries in which I spend most time. But let’s not pretend nothing ever goes wrong in the UK; there is just a lot less of it. At some point I will go through previous posts and link ones like Knox and Sollecito into this new category.
Our starter for ten today is a lady from China called Wang Lihong. Read on. The link to her case on the Global Voices campaign site is here.
The Chinese government has been arresting human right activists and political dissidents since February 2011 under the pretext of the Jasmine crack down. Many of the detainees have been released, including the prominent artist activist Ai Weiwei. However, a female activist, Wang Lihong has been detained for 117 days, with the court finally deciding to prosecute her last week.
A number of prominent bloggers have decided to break the silence and campaign for the release of Wang Lihong even though the political climate is still tense. Independent documentary maker, Ai Xiaoming has written a biography [zh] for Wang Lihong in her blog:
Who is Wang Lihong?
Wang Lihong
王荔蕻，1955年10月出生于青岛一个军队干部家庭，在北京读完小学和中学。1975年4月赴陕北延安插队，1978年10月至1982年7月就读于延安大学中文系。大学毕业后回到北京，在北京市某机关工作。1991年起离职，后下海经商。2008年王荔蕻退休后居家，有了更多时间上网并开始参与公益活动。
Wang Lihong was born in October 1955 in an army family in Qingtao and finished her elementary and secondary education in Beijing. She was sent to serve the rural society in Shaanxi in April 1975 and enrolled in the Chinese Department of Yanan University between October 1978 and July 1982. She returned back to Beijing upon graduation and worked there. She left her job in 1991 and became an entrepreneur. She retired in 2008 and started participating in social welfare activities online.
Wang was arrested on March 21, 2011, under the charge of “inciting social unrest”. Later in the official arrest document issued on April 22, 2011, the charge has been changed to “disturbing public transportation in a crowd”. Many believed that the police referred to the “surrounding gaze” flash mob action in Fujian, back in April 2010 (see below).
Below is an incomplete list of social activities that she has participated in since 2008.
Wang’s citizen practice
During her detention, the police have asked Wang to make three promises for a probation arrangement: 1. to never meet sensitive people again; 2. to never travel to sensitive regions again; 3. to never get involve in other people’s business again.
She refused to sign the document and made a statement instead (via @Wanyanhai [zh]):
我是一个有良知的人，我不能保证面对苦难时保持沉默，我不能保证面对像钱云会、唐福珍、李淑莲……这样的悲惨事件假装看不见。 假如我面对苦难和恶行保持沉默，那么下一个被恶行打倒的就是我自己。
I am a person with a conscience. I cannot guarantee that I can keep silence in front of others’ suffering. I can’t guarantee that when I stand in front of Qian Yunhui, Tang Fucheng, Li Shuling… I can pretend that I do not see their miseries. If I keep silence in front of all these suffering and evil deeds, the next person beaten down by evilness will be myself.
Prominent citizen reporter, Tufuwugan, has encountered with Wang in various public incident since 2009 and he has written a blog post on his impressions of Wang [zh]:
是的，我和她两种风格，她总是据理抗争，一点妥协都不愿意。我和这帮流氓打交道总是嬉皮笑脸，胡说八道，玩世不恭的态度。正因为这种原因，我喜欢这个耿直疾恶如仇的大姐，喜欢她那种纯粹，喜欢她那种喜怒写在脸上的大姐，喜欢她的对人的真诚不做作。…她是一个真正的优秀公民，但她是那些没人性不是娘生的混蛋眼里的眼中钉肉中刺。
We have completely different styles. She likes to argue for the truth and never compromises while I like to hang around with a [flash mob] group and joke around. That’s why I really like her righteousness and simple mindedness. She has everything written in her face and never lied about her feelings… She is a really engaging citizen and a thorn in the eyes of those mother f**kers.
What Tufu and Wang have been doing all these years has opened up a new political space in China. Ai Xiaoming wrote another blog post about the significance of Wang Lihong’s citizen action [zh]:
但他们由于网络相识，开始身体力行地履行公民责任。全国敢于为底层发声的专家学者，也许屈指可数，但无数普通人以网民的身份参与，带来了新的政治。这正是这个国家不曾有过却已然开始的美好生活，公民通过网络连接起来，参与公共事务。无论地位身份如何，人们以网友的名义聚集在一起，无需相识，无需实名，只要有共同的关注。代之以无力感和麻木不仁的是，网友觉得无名小卒可以做一点事情，哪怕是为无辜入狱的网友喊一嗓子。“围观改变中国”的想象在推特上传扬，2010年，福建马尾法院开庭审理期间，法院门口聚集了来自全国各地的网民，而在网上凝聚起来的签名关注更达到五千之多，正是源于这样的想象。北京独立纪录片导演何杨的作品《赫索格的日子》详实记载了这场前所未有的政治景观，人们凭着朴素的信仰，自八九之后第一次（至少在我是第一次看到）走上街头高呼：言论无罪，自由万岁！
Free Wang Lihong
A blog, Free Wang Lihong [zh], a Facebook event page [zh] and a Google Group [zh] have been set up to collect articles and news reports about Wang and campaign for her release.
Back in Twitter, @weiquanwang has created a signature petition page [zh] for the release of Wang Lihong. Children’s rights activist @zhaolianhai [zh] also helps collecting signatures via a Google Spread Sheet [zh].
Some netizens have claimed that they will surrender themselves to the police if the court sentences Wang to imprisonment. @tufuwugan [zh] is among one of them and there are more, he reports via Twitter:
刚才云南朱承志大哥来电话说，如果王荔蕻大姐被判，他准备去自首，叫我了解一下自首法律相关问题，是的，我也是这莫须有罪里的主犯，大姐如果有罪，我们也是有罪，我们会陪她有罪，不就是想通过治罪让人害怕吗？那我们主动接受你们的迫害，满足你们这帮畜生的迫害人的欲望。
Just now I received a phone call from Chu Chengzhi saying if Wang is founded guilty, he would surrender himself. He asked me to get some legal advice first. He is right. I was also involved similar “crimes”. If she is guilty, we are all guilty, let us all be guilty. They just want to terrify people through prosecution. Let’s take the initiation to take your prosecution, to fulfill your animal thirst for prosecuting people.
Yin Longlong has written a poem, ‘Search for Wang Lihong‘ [zh] to pay his tribute to Wang. Below is the translation of the poem’s first verse:
我寻找我的骄傲，一把锉
一根绳子。宫殿外面的海已经没过摩天大厦，公主和美人鱼
在上上世纪
我只寻找王荔蕻，告诉她王朝的飘零
告诉她我们选择了沉默是因为他们不值得聆听
告诉她泥土里有姊妹死亡的气息
告诉她
夏天牢房里的动物昆虫
I look for my pride, a steel file
A string. The sea has submerged the skyscrapers, princesses and mermaids outside the Emperor’s hall
In the century before the last one
I look for Wang Lihong, only to tell her that the Dynasty is falling apart
Tell her that we have chosen silence because they are worthless to listen to
Tell her that there are still breathes under the earth of our dead sisters
Tell her
Animals and insects are inside the summer prison cell
Why don’t I feel happier? In the past week, Arsenal beat the best soccer team in the world (Barcelona), I went skiing and a metre of snow conveniently fell from the sky, Berlusconi was scheduled for trial in April, and Berlusconi’s soccer team Milan lost to Spurs. Surely that is a pretty good week?
Milan are clearly rubbish, the snow-boarding was definitely excellent, and Arsenal have a slither of a chance of holding on to their advantage in the return leg at the Nou Camp. So the problem must be with Berlusconi’s trial. It is. The press coverage grates on me because of the drearily repeated notion that one desperate old fool is the sum of Italy’s problems (here is the FT with some typically superficial coverage, though you likely need a subscription).
In reality, the investigation into Berlusconi’s latest lies and idiocies is a tale of a system failing to change. Details of the investigation, including testimony and wire tap evidence, have been leaked by police/magistrates in the standard contravention of the law and due process. (Here is one of many leaks, translated into English in The Guardian)
You would have thought that just once those who represent the legal system could have said to themselves: ‘Why don’t we try doing things the correct way this time? After all, we are dealing with an elected prime minister, so it might be smart to be impeccably professional.’ But oh no. Not for this lot the quiet, calm comportment of the thoughtful professional. For this lot, it is showtime, freshly-ironed magistrates’ togas, newly-pressed carabinieri trousers, and the rest — all of which allows Berlusconi’s followers to nurture their persecution complex.
I am reminded of remarks made by one of China’s bravest and most sensible lawyers, Mo Shaoping, at a conference last year. Mo, who defended as best he could the Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, offered his analysis of why the rule of law has been regressing in China in recent years. Strikingly, he said that one of the biggest problems is judges overstepping their role: ‘Originally [at the beginning of efforts to stregthen the rule of law in the 2000s], there was emphasis on judicial neutrality and passivity: the judiciary should be passive and neutral,‘ he remarked. ‘Now, the emphasis is on the active initiative of the judiciary. I myself consider this a step back.’ You are not alone, Mr Mo.
In vaguely related news:
The parents of Amanda Knox have been committed to trial for criminal libel for saying that their daughter was mistreated by police investigators. The trial, scheduled for July, will be the perfect opportunity for Perugia police and magistrates to produce THEIR TAPE-RECORDING of Knox’s illegal all-night interview. Then everyone can listen to what happened and make an informed judgement. Presumably the tape also includes the police explaining to Knox her right to have a lawyer present. (Note that The Guardian article behind the link is wrong that libel is only a criminal charge in Italy; it can be either criminal or civil — the police have opted for criminal. It is fair to say that criminal libel laws are typical of institutionally backward societies; such laws are opposed by all major writers’ and civil liberties groups that I am aware of.)
