Thanks for the two article links, @patience_limited. There are so many thoughts I don't know where to begin. For one thing, the Chinese State plays it double. On one hand, it nurses nationalistic...
Thanks for the two article links, @patience_limited. There are so many thoughts I don't know where to begin.
For one thing, the Chinese State plays it double. On one hand, it nurses nationalistic sentiments among the less privileged class, the youth, and perhaps a tiny fraction of the true believers in the elites, which I shall label as "the powerbase". On the other, it is in symbiotic relations with the powerful oligarchies, tycoons, and state-owned megacoporations, the centres of wealth that have been direct beneficiaries of the wealth transfer from the Chinese household sector -- including the lower rungs (the majority) of "the powerbase" -- under the political and economical system.
The irony of the nationalistic underclass is apparent. As they cheer the repatriation of artifacts (largely blind to their artistic significances or absence thereof), as they participate in this frisson, they're largely unaware that the very power that includes the "patriotic" moneyed class is the one responsible for their difficulties living in the towering inequality, the systemic state capitalism.
I tend to agree with Slavoj Žižek on the point that each ideology has its "obscene virtual supplement", an obscene underbelly. If you look close enough, you can discover a lot in the shadows of the official ideological landscape, in China and elsewhere.
I can't think of much else coherently now, but an experience I had some years ago emerged from memory.
I was returning from a meeting in Sweden and landed in Beijing. It was an early-morning (hence cheap) flight, and I took a cab from the airport. The cabby was a young male of roughly my age (early 20s then). He kept on complaining. He stayed up to pick up the earliest international arrivals because he could then rip off the stupid, possibly sleepy foreigners. But he got me instead, a native knowing the rules and street rules. He couldn't refuse the hire, so his chance (or right, from his point of view) to a handsome rip-off was gone. Apparently he trusted me enough, as a compatriot but not the kind who would rat him out, to be quite brazen about his "business plan".
I listened to his story with interest, and at one time asked how he felt about his own admission. His justification was that the "foreign nations" got powerful and rich by taking advantage of China, and he had no sympathy towards them. He asked me where I was coming back from, and then lumped Sweden with the vague group of "those countries" that invaded and looted in China.
I asked if he had visited another country. "Malaysia", he said. I asked him how he felt about Malaysia, admitting I know hardly a thing about it. He was bitter, and said he lost his savings gambling in casinos there. "After all, this (China) is the best of places," said him. Except that gambling was illegal, and hard work didn't seem to get him through, and forever traumatized by "those foreigners".
See also: China’s ‘stolen’ cultural relics: why the numbers just don’t add up [There's some contention about China's claims as to the extent of the artifact looting, the broadness of the political...
See also: China’s ‘stolen’ cultural relics: why the numbers just don’t add up
[There's some contention about China's claims as to the extent of the artifact looting, the broadness of the political assertion that all foreign ownership of "Chinese cultural property" is illegitimate, and so on.]
I've posted this in ~news as it's one facet of genuinely concerning covert activity by the Chinese state. The nurturing of old nationalist grievances, the increasing boldness in circumvention or disregard of international law, and the impunity of China's new feudal class, represent continuing shifts in the balance of global power. None of this is for the better in preserving relative peace.
The more that nations act on a "who will stop us" basis, and the weaker consensus norms of international law become, the greater the likelihood of violent conflict.
Thanks for the two article links, @patience_limited. There are so many thoughts I don't know where to begin.
For one thing, the Chinese State plays it double. On one hand, it nurses nationalistic sentiments among the less privileged class, the youth, and perhaps a tiny fraction of the true believers in the elites, which I shall label as "the powerbase". On the other, it is in symbiotic relations with the powerful oligarchies, tycoons, and state-owned megacoporations, the centres of wealth that have been direct beneficiaries of the wealth transfer from the Chinese household sector -- including the lower rungs (the majority) of "the powerbase" -- under the political and economical system.
The irony of the nationalistic underclass is apparent. As they cheer the repatriation of artifacts (largely blind to their artistic significances or absence thereof), as they participate in this frisson, they're largely unaware that the very power that includes the "patriotic" moneyed class is the one responsible for their difficulties living in the towering inequality, the systemic state capitalism.
I tend to agree with Slavoj Žižek on the point that each ideology has its "obscene virtual supplement", an obscene underbelly. If you look close enough, you can discover a lot in the shadows of the official ideological landscape, in China and elsewhere.
I can't think of much else coherently now, but an experience I had some years ago emerged from memory.
I was returning from a meeting in Sweden and landed in Beijing. It was an early-morning (hence cheap) flight, and I took a cab from the airport. The cabby was a young male of roughly my age (early 20s then). He kept on complaining. He stayed up to pick up the earliest international arrivals because he could then rip off the stupid, possibly sleepy foreigners. But he got me instead, a native knowing the rules and street rules. He couldn't refuse the hire, so his chance (or right, from his point of view) to a handsome rip-off was gone. Apparently he trusted me enough, as a compatriot but not the kind who would rat him out, to be quite brazen about his "business plan".
I listened to his story with interest, and at one time asked how he felt about his own admission. His justification was that the "foreign nations" got powerful and rich by taking advantage of China, and he had no sympathy towards them. He asked me where I was coming back from, and then lumped Sweden with the vague group of "those countries" that invaded and looted in China.
I asked if he had visited another country. "Malaysia", he said. I asked him how he felt about Malaysia, admitting I know hardly a thing about it. He was bitter, and said he lost his savings gambling in casinos there. "After all, this (China) is the best of places," said him. Except that gambling was illegal, and hard work didn't seem to get him through, and forever traumatized by "those foreigners".
See also:
China’s ‘stolen’ cultural relics: why the numbers just don’t add up
[There's some contention about China's claims as to the extent of the artifact looting, the broadness of the political assertion that all foreign ownership of "Chinese cultural property" is illegitimate, and so on.]
I've posted this in ~news as it's one facet of genuinely concerning covert activity by the Chinese state. The nurturing of old nationalist grievances, the increasing boldness in circumvention or disregard of international law, and the impunity of China's new feudal class, represent continuing shifts in the balance of global power. None of this is for the better in preserving relative peace.
The more that nations act on a "who will stop us" basis, and the weaker consensus norms of international law become, the greater the likelihood of violent conflict.