China state media seen stepping-up anti-Western rhetoric

[webfact]

China state media seen stepping-up anti-Western rhetoric
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

BEIJING (AP) — Western values are a "ticket to hell," a newspaper published by China's Communist Party said in a recent editorial that held up Ukraine and some Arab countries as examples of outside ideas causing turmoil.

It was the latest colorful example of a rising level of invective targeting critics of the authoritarian government. In the two-plus years since President Xi Jinping took the helm of the ruling Communist Party, state media have become more strident in defending the one-party system and stoking nationalism.

Events of recent months have accelerated the trend. Last fall's pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong opened floodgates of disdain against "anti-China" forces. Last week, the party tabloid Global Times laid into well-known blogger Ren Zhiqiang for questioning official warnings against Western values infiltrating Chinese college classrooms.

The newspaper pointed to turmoil in Ukraine and the Arab world to show how any adoption of Western models by non-Western countries "basically amounts to the copying of failure."

"No matter how beautiful they appear on the surface, they are in fact a ticket to hell, and can only bring disaster to the Chinese nation," the newspaper said.

While Cold War brickbats such as "running dogs of the American imperialists" have yet to return, there's been an overall revival of tough language laying down the party's bottom line and seeking to undermine opposing arguments.

Some critics fear a reversion to the extreme intolerance of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and will scrutinize the speeches at China's annual ceremonial legislature opening Thursday for more signs of the trend.

"Over the last two years or so, the propaganda has become less refined. There's a big market for this kind of crude nationalism," said Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong's Chinese University.

The exchange involving the blogger followed a stern warning in January by Education Minister Yuan Guiren against threats to communist ideological purity in higher education. His comments, in turn, reflected an internal party document, leaked in 2013, that warned against Western values such as constitutionalism, respect for civil society and press freedom.

A further echo was heard last week, when the president of the Supreme People's Court, Zhou Qiang, demanded that judges stand strong against Western concepts of judicial independence and division of powers.

"Resolutely resist the influence of erroneous Western thought," Zhou said.

Such pronouncements are clearly being dictated from the highest party echelons, said Li Datong, a political commentator who has been removed from a state media senior editing job for broaching sensitive subjects.

"These people talking so harshly now were only recently espousing greater openness, not less. Clearly things have changed," Li said.

Foreign countries and leaders are frequent targets.

The state media pilloried Britain after Prime Minister David Cameron met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by Beijing. Britain, the Global Times said in a December 2013 commentary, is no longer seen as a "big power" among Chinese, but as "just an old European country apt for travel and study."

Especially strident outrage from Beijing was sparked by last year's "Occupy Central" protest movement in China's semiautonomous region of Hong Kong. Beijing rejected the protesters' demands for open nominations for elections for Hong Kong's top executive.

Protest leaders were accused of being pawns of shady outside forces and foreign governments. An October, the party's flagship newspaper People's Daily accused organizers of seeking to "arouse social conflict and incite illegal activities under the name of election issues." They were leading democracy "into peril," it said in an editorial.

Government allies and retired officials condemning the demonstrators included former ambassador to the United Nations Zhou Nan, who warned that "anti-China forces inside and outside Hong Kong" were conspiring against the city and could threaten China's socialist regime.

Observers see the more combative language as an outgrowth of Xi's calls for stronger party control and a more vigorous role for China on the world stage.

"I do think this is very much an initiative that Xi Jinping approved, if not started," said Steve Tsang, senior fellow at the University of Nottingham's China Policy Institute.

Shortly after taking over as party leader in 2012, Xi took a hard line on issues of national sovereignty and state survival. He said that while China seeks a peaceful international environment, "No country should presume that we will engage in trading our core interests or that we will swallow the 'bitter fruit' of harming our sovereignty, security or development interests."

Tsang said that approach underscores Xi's confidence in the political model he's adopted, but also betrays his nervousness about the party's ability to retain power. The Hong Kong protests were especially nerve-rattling because they showed the influence of Western thinking over public attitudes in the former British colony, which enjoys its own legal system and other freedoms.

"Hence the current warning against Western values," Tsang said.

Beijing political commentator Zhang Lifan warned of a "vicious cycle" of insecurity leading to ever-sharpening criticism. Political debate already has fallen behind that of the relatively open 1980s, and threatens to revert to the violent intolerance of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang said.

Despite that, Lam said internal party polling shows the stridency has resonance with patriotic young Chinese, seen for example in the rising number of university graduates volunteering for the armed forces.

"Xi's major objective is to stoke the flames of nationalism, especially among the young people. They're proud of what Xi is doing for China's position in the world," Lam said.

Yet, while surveys show high levels of patriotism, Chinese society also displays a strangely contradictory attitude toward the West.

Despite their willingness to defend their nation and join in condemnations of its enemies — particularly arch-foe Japan — many Chinese are voting with their feet when it comes to their futures, with the West receiving the strongest endorsements.

An estimated 274,000 Chinese are studying in the United States alone, with tens of thousands more in Australia, Britain and elsewhere.

And while estimates vary, millions more are believed to have obtained foreign residency or purchased property abroad, particularly among the elite. So large are the numbers that financial experts have begun to warn of the dangers of capital flight, though China's economy remains on a firm footing.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-03-03

[squarethecircle]

3 thoughts

(1) Wasn't Marxism-Leninism, on which Maoism is founded, arise in Parisian cafes?

(2) So will this mean an end to Chinese state industrial espionage against countries with functioning intelligentsias?

(3) And will this mean an end to the mass exodus of the elite and their families to the west, such as Australia?

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

"Western Values are a ticket to hell"??? You mean like pooping in private? If that's the case I will take hell any day, thank you 3 times.

[wabothai]

May be all these foreigner bashers know more than we do.

If so come up with it.

if not shut the <deleted> up.

[rethaier]

Some western ways like capitalism and consumerism are a ticket to hell for most people. The capitalists are building goods that do not last and the consumers are constantly replacing them therefore keeping the consumers in debt and making the capitalists richer.

[Wat dee]

Looking what is happening in the west, they are absolutely right. If you are middle class or lower you are &lt;deleted&gt;.

[Benmart]

Some western ways like capitalism and consumerism are a ticket to hell for most people. The capitalists are building goods that do not last and the consumers are constantly replacing them therefore keeping the consumers in debt and making the capitalists richer.

Freedom to practice capitalism, consumerism and any other "ism" is preferred by this reader. The other option is being told what "ism" to abide by.

"Up to You" as they say in these parts.

[A1Str8]

The communists messed their pants. Change is taking place nonetheless so there's no need to struggle.

[SheungWan]

(1) Wasn't Marxism-Leninism, on which Maoism is founded, arise in Parisian cafes?

As anybody on the hard left can tell you, they were perfectly normal law-abiding liberals until they made the fatal mistake of mixing an Expresso with a packet of Gauloises in a Parisian cafe while reading Sartre on a weekend trip and then they were forever more on the road to hell.

[hawker9000]

Some western ways like capitalism and consumerism are a ticket to hell for most people. The capitalists are building goods that do not last and the consumers are constantly replacing them therefore keeping the consumers in debt and making the capitalists richer.

What total B$. And drivel like this is a logical basis for preferring autocracy (thugocracy actually)? My house is over 25 yrs old. Two cars over 10, and an SUV almost 20! 'Built this PC over 3 years ago, and haven't had to replace any of its components yet. 'Got a laptop still running Vista. 'Did get rid of a pair of pants a month ago after the stitching started disintegrating; they were made in China...

[granuaile]

Agree with those commenting that aspects of the West, including the relatively unfettered capitalism and growing gap between the wealthy (who control the US Congress, such as the Koch brothers) and the consumerism (something I am guilty of but don't consider a good thing). Friends just visited from China, and consumerism is rampant there, my friend left with designer wallet for a friend's father, and Lacoste polo shirts.... Me I just ask for Mongolian vodka when she comes again (she brought me some and I just tried it, liked it). I don't go for iPhones or name brands, but I too am guilty of consumerism. But I think it is a bad thing, as well as unfettered capitalism. So I agree with at least some of this attitude from China, but I think they need to walk the talk and take some steps back from capitalism there....

[hawker9000]

'Not a fan of "consumerism", eh? So I guess you'd prefer to have what some government elite bureaucrat says you can have.

A simplistic point of view, but sadly one shared by many who won't know what they had until they've lost it...

[Mr Somtam]

The Chinese party elite is materialistic and consumeristic to the bone! Walk the walk first, then talk the talk to others.

[willyumiii]

Some western ways like capitalism and consumerism are a ticket to hell for most people. The capitalists are building goods that do not last and the consumers are constantly replacing them therefore keeping the consumers in debt and making the capitalists richer.

No, no, no!

Capitalist are buying cheaply made Chinese goods that do not last to resale in the west and the consumers are constantly replacing them.

Can you say "Walmart"?

I knew you could.

[Publicus]

Several things are going on here obviously but let's look at some of the foremost particulars.

Xi and the Party know the large middle class, which is about where the US middle class was circa 1950s-1965, want accountability of their government, and that the word accountability is spelled d-e-m-o-c-r-a-c-y. Enough PRChinese are intrigued about democracy to cause high anxiety for the CCP. Consequently, censorship of internet is worse with each passing month, and any critiques or criticisms in the public space is immediately cut off at the knees with more severe penalties than anyone had imagined.

Western liberal values of free speech and liberty are more severely denounced and made to be severely consequential to anyone who may express some or any interest or curiosity, nevermind support of them. US television programs popular to enjoy in the privacy of internet streaming have been cut off by the corps of CCP Great Firewall of China censors.

Hong Kong are the enemy because the demonstrations there are (supposedly) controlled by the United States. With the pro-independence Democratic Revolutionary Party in Taiwan poised to sweep national elections next year, the CCP is preparing the mainland population for renewed sharp antagonisms after a period of a Beijing lap dog leadership on the island, since 2008. Beijing is scrambling over the new alliance between the anti-CCP Sunflower Revolution in Taiwan that seized the parliament last year and the Umbrella Revolution in HKG that is gaining increasingly broad popular sympathy and support. .

The mainland economy is steadily shrinking and sliding downward, sinking into deflation, while several credit bubbles hang over the PRC as the property and housing bubble has already begun to burst. Xi needs tighter control of the population, as if it weren't tightly controlled already.

When a crunch besets the PRC whether it is a political movement such as the environment, or a severe moment of deterioration of the economy and financial sector, Xi will play the nationalism card which is well and strongly developed in the PRC by the CCP due to daily indoctrination in schools and in mass media.

The CCP teaches in the schools and consistently in mass media in a variety of ways that Japan is the natural and historical enemy of China and that there is no peaceful solution to their differences. I would not want to be Japanese in the PRChina when the CCP government invents a reason to go around bashing Japanese on the head and in their pocketbook by trashing their businesses and corporations. This happened in 2010 over disputed islands but that horror will very likely pale in comparison to what is coming (think cultural revolution as Xi is the new Mao).

While the CCP teaches each day in a variety of ways that the United States is the real and evil enemy, and that a severe clash is inevitable, it also teaches that individual Americans in the PRC are very helpful to business and needed to continue developing the PRChina, so it is crucial to the survival of China that each PRChinese not believe anything Americans say..not a word of it.

Xi is the strongest CCP leader since Mao and the CCP believes that under Xi's leadership it can withstand the undercurrents of modernity that are shifting the political and economic tectonics after 5000 years of Chinese authoritarianism and autocracy.

[Mr Somtam]

And Prayut is making friends with them, Fear the future.

[SaamBaht]

Sounds like the whining of a loser.

I'll take my small bits of liberty over large doses of collectivism any day.