China's Approach to the US-ROK Alliance

While China had often opposed the US-Japan alliance, it rarely criticized the US-South Korean alliance, noted Robert Sutter from Georgetown University.

In a draft paper titled China's Approach to the US-ROK Alliance - Background, Status, Outlook (Oct 2006), Sutter noted that the muted criticism was due to the delicate situation on the Korean Peninsula, arguing that if the US alliance with South Korea is disrupted over North Korea, China's development and stability would in turn be adversely affected.

Even though Sutter argued that China's management of relations with Japan "represents arguably the most significant failure in Chinese diplomacy" in recent years, Chinese leaders had shown great skills in managing very difficult and often contradictory imperatives coming from both North and South Korea. China was also able to strengthen its position in Pyongyang, and markedly improving its relations with Seoul. And all these were done in a way that does not challenge US leadership in Korean affairs as well as the US-ROK alliance.

The net result, Sutter noted, was a marked increase in China's relations with South Korea, and continued China's relations with North Korea "closer than any other power." And again, all that without negatively affecting Beijing's relations with the US.

So much so that by the early 2000s, China enjoyed a much more positive image than the US among South Korean elites and public opinion. Seoul welcomed the improved ties with Beijing as a means to diversify South Korea's foreign policy options, reduce dependency on the US alliance (though many still rightly argue that relations with China or any other foreign policy options provided no substitute for the US-ROK alliance), and secure South Korean interests on the Korean Peninsula. Indeed, China's willingness to cooperate with South Korea in the common deliberations of APEC and ARF also strengthened China-South Korean relations.

The Asian economic crisis of 1997 also prompted stronger regional cooperation efforts led by South Korea and China under the ASEAN Plus Three rubric. Furthermore, 2004 was said to have marked a high point of pro-China fever in South Korea, a period that coincided with widespread friction in the US-ROK alliance. South Korean leaders at that time publicly sought a role as regional "balancer" between the United States and Japan on one side, and China on the other. China officials naturally supported South Korea's position.

A year earlier in 2003, Chinese and Korean presidents Hu Jintao and Roh Moo-hyun upgraded bilateral relations to a "comprehensive cooperative partnership." Among other things, Seoul promised to assist in developing China's western region, and both sides pledged to expand military exchanges and enhance transparency in military policies.

"It was broadly held among South Korean and US observers in Seoul that one of the main reasons South Korea was reluctant to agree to allow US forces in South Korea to be deployed to other areas was that those forces might be deployed to the Taiwan area in the event of a US-China military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait."

But other thorny Sino-South Korean issues remained, and these include nationalistic concerns over competing Chinese and Korean claims over the scope and importance of the historical Koguryeo kingdom, China's longer term ambitions in North Korea, and the Chinese treatment of North Korean refugees in China and of South Koreans endeavoring to assist them there. Officials also saw serious issues in China-South Korean relations and noted that South Korean opinion was volatile and could turn against China if sensitive issues were to emerge.

In addition, South Korean officials also asserted that the country wanted to avoid a situation where it might have to choose between Washington and Beijing if US-China relations were to take a nosedive. Others noted that China wanted to make use of better relations with South Korea so as to counter perceived US efforts to contain China's growing power and influence in Asian and world affairs. Hence, it is more likely for South Korea to seek cooperation as well as mute frictions with the US, so as to preserve Seoul's independence as China rises in Asia.

Sutter argued that in the long term, China is better off pursuing an incremental effort to improve relations with South Korea without directly challenging the ROK-US alliance.

As for South Korea, even during the high point of anti-US sentiments and pro-China fever in South Korea in 2004, government officials in Seoul continued to privately tell Americans that they believed the "United States remained more important for South Korea than China."

"Without a healthy US-ROK alliance, they judged, China would have less incentive to be so accommodating of South Korean interests and concerns."

Yi Kwang-su's Mujong

Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950) was one of the pioneers of modern Korean literature. When the serialization of Mujong (The Heartless) began in 1917, it was an immediate sensation, and it occupies a prominent place in Korean literature.

Known as an enlightenment and cultural nationalist, Yi sought to achieve Korean national independence through gradual social and cultural reform. He died in 1950 during the Korean War where he was reportedly taken away from his home by the North Korean People's Army, and later died of frostbite and tuberculosis.

Mujong is a story of a love triangle among three youths during the Japanese occupation. Yi Hyong-sik was a young man in his mid-20s and taught English at a middle school in Seoul. Brilliant but also shy and indecisive, he was torn between two women. Kim Son-hyong was from a wealthy Christian family who had just graduated from a modern, Western-style school and was planning on continuing her studies in the United States. Pak Yong-chae was a musically gifted young woman who was raised in a traditionally Confucianistic household. Due to family misfortune, she became a kisaeng (much like the Japanese geisha) but remained devoted to Hyong-sik whom she knew as a child.

Going beyond romantic melodrama, Mujong used these characters to depict Korea's struggles with modern culture and national identity. Written using the Korean alphabet (as opposed to Chinese characters or a mixture of both Korean and Chinese characters) and in a vernacular style, the book criticized the customs of early marriage, concubinage and called for the abolition of prostitution. Yi also took to task the passivity of those who submitted to the dictates of customs. He also mourned the loss of youth to early marriage - an institution described in the story as mujong hada, or heartless.

The title Mujong means to be without emotion, without love, unfeeling, uncaring, lacking in compassion, and of course heartless, which in this case could also be interpreted as sexual repression.

Korean Business Practices?

In a translated article published in 世界经理人文摘 (Chief Executive China, Jan 2000), writer Anne Marie Sabath outlined the cultural differences when operating in different countries.

In the case of Korea, Sabath pointed to the three following "must-dos" so as to ensure "effective business communication."

1. When conducting negotiations, avoid excessive hand and facial gestures. Do not seem overly excited, as doing so is deemed inappropriate.

2. When replying to questions, please be concise and direct. Be succinct and avoid lengthy replies.

3. When arranging for discussions with Koreans, it is essential to take into consideration breaks for Koreans to smoke. Smoking is very common. Bearing this in mind will solicit their goodwill.

Should I break into hysterical laughter, or not? But then, it is indeed true that smoking at the workplace is more common in Korea than say, the US.

In The Absence of Sun by Helie Lee

According to Helie Lee in her book In The Absence of Sun (Harmony Books, 2002), Korean newly-weds in the old days do not smile for photographs.

"It had to do with the old wives' tale that warned against the bride and groom from smiling on their wedding day lest their firstborn child be a girl."

Actually the Chinese in the old days also do not smile on their wedding day. I think it was mainly due to the solemnity of the occasion. And besides, for most brides, marriage was supposed to be a sad occasion since they were supposed to leave their families for good to become members of new and unfamiliar households.

The book was one of the earliest Korean-related books I had read and what struck me most was Lee's courage in reuniting three generations of her family, the sad tragedy of the continued division of the Korean Peninsula, and her powerful yet contradictory feelings for the guide who helped her execute the grand but often dangerous reunion. Dangerous because of the need to sneak her relatives out of reclusive North Korea.

And this bit about chauvinistic male seemed like something that Ab FS would probably agree with. In the words of a Korean man quoted in the book, "in Seoul, I don't have to think obsessively about how a woman is going to feel or react. It's not necessary. She just follows me."

The same male added: "That's why so many couples divorce in America. American men say, "Wow, you look lovely," pull out your chair, open your door. It's all action. That's not our custom. And because I don't do those things for you, you think all Korean men are wild and impolite."

Ab will also understand that the following words by Lee also echoed mine: "I forced myself to keep writing, because it had always been my salvation. It enabled me to divert real breakdowns by transferring troubled, sometimes incoherent thoughts onto paper."

"I wasn't crying for the world outside or anyone else anymore, but for myself, because I, who had always known where I was going, was ultimately lost. What lay in store for me? It was depressing to think that at the halfway point in my life, I was single, childless, and lost. This was not where I had expected to be ... "Now what, God?" I cried surrendering. Slowly from somewhere deep inside a message came to me. It said that if I could withstand this, I might be able to see the thing that I was supposed to see."

Recounting a conversation with her mother, Lee's mother reportedly said: "You're a special lady. You can achieve whatever you want, but I don't want you to miss out on a family of your own. Find someone who'll appreciate you and support your dreams. Then you'll have bigger wings." "What if he doesn't exist?" I asked. A small grin hovered on my mother's lips as if she knew something. "He does. When you meet him you'll know, because he's descended from heaven just for you. Halmoni and I have prayed so much for you. God has a file cabinet full of prayers, so don't worry." Actually, I wasn't worried anymore. I realized that finding a husband was not a priority for me ... I knew better than ever before that everything in my curious life had happened for a reason. And if it took 47 years to find that spectacular someone just for me, I was willing to hold on. I was not going to settle. I would never settle again. He would come to me correctly. No games, no cultural constraints, no empty promises."

North Korean Opposition Movement in 1956

James Person's paper titled "We Need Help From Outside": The North Korean Opposition Movement of 1956" (August 2006, Cold War International History Project Working Paper) shed some interesting light on politics in North Korean during that period.

The paper concluded that the opposition at that time was prepared to vote Kim Il Sung out of power if he failed to admit to his mistakes and make appropriate changes in party democracy and the personality cult. The right to vote him out of power was said to be a democratic right guaranteed in the then recently revised Korean Workers' Party (KWP) charter. Indeed, some semblance of political life seemed to have existed in North Korea prior to the 1956 August Plenum.

The paper also noted that Kim was well aware of his critics' intentions and foiled their attempts. By postponing the start of the Plenum, Kim was able to blackmail and coerce members of the leadership who may have been sympathetic to the opposition.

"Earlier accounts of the August Plenum describe an attempted coup d'etat, perhaps because such rumors serve the purposes of both Kim and his critics. For South Korean intelligence, and later South Korean scholars, rumors of an attempt to overthrow Kim Il Sung may have been welcome because they demonstrated a lack of popular support for the leader. Similarly, within North Korea, the rumors benefited Kim Il Sung since few would question his motives in eliminating such conspirators from the party leadership."

Historical records presented in the paper also indicated that in 1956, the Soviet embassy still played a key role in the affairs of the Korean party. After surviving the attempts by Moscow and Beijing to meddle in internal party matters, Kim redoubled his efforts to limit the influence of foreign communist parties within the KWP. Indeed, the Sino-Soviet rift soon gave him the means to pursue a markedly more autonomous path, "ever vigilant against a renewed threat from his patrons."

For the record, the main factions in North Korea prior to 1956 were: 1) Domestic faction headed by veteran Korean communist Pak Hon-yong, 2) the Soviet faction nominally led by Ho Ka-i but directed from Moscow, 3) the Chinese supported Yan'an faction of Kim Tu-bong and Choe Chang-ik, and 4) the Partisan faction of Kim Il Sung.

All four groups were engaged in "intricate maneuvering" only months after Japan's surrender. Kim Il Sung eventually succeeded in eliminating the intense factional rivalry by purging the rival factions one by one.

The prominence of factionalism is given credence by the dramatic history of internecine bureaucratic factionalism in Choson dynasty Korea where, according to James Palais, "political groupings organized on the basis of personal loyalty irrespective of concrete policy issues." Indeed, the Korean Communist Party (KCP) - founded in 1925 - was dissolved by Comintern in 1928 due to the "ceaseless, unprincipled group struggle of the Korean communists."

North Korean TV Viewers

Bored with North Korean television? Who can blame you?

According to interviews conducted with North Korean defectors in South Korea and North Korean traders and migrant workers in China by Time reporter and Stanford fellow Donald Macintyre, most North Koreans were said to be bored with North Korean television, and were attracted to songs and movies from South Korea, albeit in pirated form.

Indeed, their fascination for South Korean television was inadvertently stoked by the North Korean regime. Because beginning in the 1980s, the North Korean media had begun showing how "bad" people's lives were in the South.

But yet, instead of noticing the decadence of the South, viewers in the North noticed that their southern brethren not only appeared well-dressed, buildings in the South also looked "sturdy."

Also, as one woman remarked, "when we saw demonstrations with South Korean people throwing bottles, we couldn't believe it. We would have kept the bottles!"

North Korean Women

Even at the beginning of the North Korean regime in the mid-1940s, Kim Il Sung made it a priority to "liberate" women by getting them out of the home and into the socialist work force.

That is according to Wilson Center Public Policy scholar Miryang Youn.

North Korea apparently passed a sex equality law in 1946 which gave women full equality, including equal pay. During the Korean War from 1950-53, women worked to keep farms and factories running, while men served on the battlefield.

But after the war, women's rights declined as Kim consolidated his power. The subsequent model for Korean women - to be loyal, obedient and compliant - continued for several decades. However, with the economic breakdown and widespread famine of the 1990s, the role of women changed. During that decade, women - and not men - foraged for food, peddled goods, and provided for the family.

Today, women comprise 70 per cent of the country's workforce, said Youn, who described North Korean women as resilient and integral to society.

Joseph Wu On Cross-Strait Ties

Earlier this week, Taiwan's Representative to the U.S. Joseph Wu spoke at an open event in downtown DC.

Among other things, Wu pointed out that China's Taiwan policy was more effective under President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) than under Jiang Zemin (江泽民) in terms of reaction time. Wu noted that Hu's reactions were swifter, "almost instantaneous, sometimes as quick as 1 to 2 days." Hu was also described as very "hands-on" on Taiwan policy, and demanded quick reactions from government institutions.

Turning to China's invitations to Taiwan's opposition parties to visit the mainland, Wu described such visits as "terrible" as they "ignored the ruling government." The visits had also put the Taiwanese government in "a very difficult spot", and resulted in what he called "a weaker and more severely divided Taiwan."

As for the Memorandum of Understanding signed between China and the World Health Organization in 2005 in which the WHO must seek Beijing's approval for matters involving Taiwan, Wu noted that this was just one of many "vicious attempts by China to squeeze Taiwan out of its international space."

Such vicious attempts even extended to "harmless events" such as international firefighters conferences, medical seminars, and even the Miss Universe pageant. In the latter case, Taiwan's representative had to wear sashes displaying the words "Chinese Taipei", and one representative was said to have cried when told to do so. Probably a drama queen, anyway.

Wu contended that given the various manipulations from China, the 2002 declaration by President Chen Shui-bian (陈水扁) that there is one country on each side of the straits (一边一国) was actually provoked by Beijing.

Citing mainland Chinese journalists in Taiwan, Wu also added that Taiwan would lose its attractiveness to the Chinese - much like Hong Kong - if the island became a part of China.

As for Taiwan's dollar diplomacy - i.e., paying money to impoverished countries to recognize Taiwan diplomatically - Wu claimed that the contracts signed with countries in question had specific time frames and purposes, and were depended largely on the needs of the countries. This was supposedly in sharp contrast with China who issued grand promises as well as provided large amounts of money.

Finally, Wu noted that China had not - and hence should - differentiate between culture and politics. As example, Wu pointed out that even Chen Shui-bian himself had not denied his Fujian (福建) ancestry. And this is perhaps something that China should focus on.

NKIDP and North Korea's Nuclear History

The North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) was launched by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars's History and Public Policy Program and supported by the Korea Foundation and other donors.

In cooperation with the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul and an international network of researchers, the NKIDP provides access to original and translated archival documents on North Korea, and among other things, publishes a working paper series, as well as holds conferences and workshops both at the Wilson Center and throughout Asia.

One such working paper was by scholar Balasz Szalontai and Sergey Radchenko who utilized Russian and Hungarian archival materials to chronicle North Korean efforts to acquire nuclear technology. Such efforts were said to have begun in the 1950s with North and South Korea each vying for an edge in its nuclear research.

As Szalontai wrote: "From the 1950s on, both superpowers found it politically useful to give nuclear technology to their Third World allies in order to demonstrate their technological superiority and political generosity."

The documents also revealed that in the early 1960s, as North Korea was constructing its nuclear reactors, it became inspired by the model of nuclear self-reliance exhibited by China and the various nuclear power plants then emerging in Eastern Europe. And despite Moscow's distrust of Pyongyang following the Sino-Soviet split, documents also revealed that Soviet participation in North Korea's nuclear program only intensified.

As NKIDP coordinator James Person (my ex-classmate - hi James!) pointed out, Chinese archives revealed North Korea's "profound sense of mistrust and betrayal toward allies and foes alike. The harsh lesson learned after Soviet and Chinese interventions in internal North Korean party affairs, outright Soviet distrust of Pyongyang (which Moscow perceived as Beijing's proxy) during the Sino-Soviet split, and the Soviet refusal to provide Pyongyang with nuclear technology, have probably led the North Koreans to believe only they can guarantee their own security."

Samguk Yusa

Samguk Sagi (三国史记, History of the Three Kingdoms) was compiled by Kim Pu-sik (1075-1151), a high official of the Koryo court, as the officially sanctioned history of Korea.

According to Tae-Hung Ha, it has the faults of most official chronicles, "forcing events into a framework pleasing to the government and omitting all matters thought to be embarrassing or indecorous."

Following Samguk Sagi was Samguk Yusa (三国遗事), which was compiled by Ilyon (1206-1289), a national priest from the Koryo period. Born in Kyongju, the capital of Silla, in 1206, he entered the order of Buddhist monks when he was still a child, and was given the religious name Ilyon. He passed the national examinations for monks with the highest distinction at the age of 22, and thereafter devoted himself to teaching and studying while residing at various temples at different times. As a diligent author, he had a stone monument erected in his honor after his death. The monument listed his works, but Samguk Yusa was not on the list. This gave rise to the view that the book was printed only after his death.

As Ha pointed out, one of the chief values of this book is that it includes a great deal of material omitted by the official history, "so that through it we can gain an understanding of the beliefs and practices of the people of ancient times, if somewhat distorted by the author's Buddhist point of view."

The value of the book was not so much historical in the strict sense of a chronicle of events as it is an account of the beliefs and folklore of medieval Korea. Though containing a mixture of factual history and legendary material, the book also captured "the wonderful laughter, and the solid, earthy humor of Korea."

Ha added: "Ilyon was no doubt a pious Buddhist, but he was no prude for all that, and he sets down the old tales as he heard them."

The title of the book is described as somewhat of a misnomer, for it is not really an account of the histories of the three ancient kingdoms of Korea. Rather, it is concerned primarily with only one of them, Silla, which at times conquered the other two with the help of China. Moreover, it covers the period during which Silla ruled the peninsula till its fall to the Koryo dynasty in 935.

The book was written at a time when Korea was dominated by Mongols, who at that time ruled all China and central Asia. Like all such books of its time, Samguk Yusa was written in literary Chinese.

Interestingly, when China was unified under the Sui dynasty in 589, its rulers began to subdue what they saw as "barbarians" on China's borders. This led to a series of attacks on Koguryo, which were successfully resisted, and was said to be one of the causes of the fall of the Sui dynasty in 618.

American Journalists and China

Another book to be donated to the public library - Kishore Mahbubani's Can Asians Think? (Times, 1998), which must undoubtedly be Prof JR Mo's favorite book at one time.

Of interest to this blog was the author's assertion that several American journalists were "blatantly dishonest" during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

"They would lunch with a student on a "hunger strike" before reporting on his "hunger." They were not all bystanders reporting on an event; several advised the students how to behave. None stayed to deal with the consequences that the students had to face."

The author noted that the biggest indication of how American journalists are affected by US interest in their portrayal of China is to compare their reporting of China in the early 1970s and the early 1990s.

"When Nixon landed in China in 1972, the US media had a virtual love-fest with a regime that had just killed millions in the Cultural Revolution. Yet, in the 1990s a much more benign regime that has liberated millions from poverty and indignity and promises to launch them on the road to development is treated as a pariah regime."

Without going into the purported hypocrisy of the Americans, one thing that immediately comes to mind is how little the Cultural Revolution was understood in the US in the early 70s as compared to the 1990s where scores of writing pertaining to that period became available. If the Americans had known then what they knew later, would it still have made a difference in their "virtual love-fest"? Maybe yes, maybe no. But we'd never know.

China's One Child Policy

Has China's one-child policy been successful? Not so, according to Wang Feng's 2005 article titled Can China Afford Its One-Child Policy?

Not only had the policy led to a downward spiralling birth rate, a growing number of elderly with inadequate family support, a widening gender imbalance, it had also resulted in increased female infant and child mortality rates, and the collapse of a credible government birth reporting system.

So much so that China had been singled out as the country "that has become old before it has become rich."

As Wang pointed out, in the 1990s alone, the budget allocated to birth control programs increased 3.6 times - from 1.34 billion yuan in 1990 to 4.82 billion yuan in 1998 - an increase that is said to be faster than economic construction or national defense. By the 1990s, population control had become so complex and multi-faceted, "where further modifications at local levels continued to produce numerous categories of exception, such that the policy's complexity had come to resemble that of the U.S. tax code."

Indeed, the wide range of concessions extended over the years meant that an estimated 37 per cent of the population are currently exempted from the one-child policy. The effect of the various policies had resulted in a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.47 - well below the 2.1 needed to keep the population at a stable level.

Wang argued that a policy more consistent with the wishes of the population would be easier to implement and drastically reduce organizational costs. It would also cut down the critical and increasing clamor for change from international human rights groups, as well as increase China's moral standing within the global community.

As Nicholas Eberstadt noted, it is unlikely that a gradual departure from the one-child policy over the next decade will lead to uncontrollable population growth. He argued in his article China's One-Child Mistake (2007) that like people elsewhere, the Chinese are rational people who seek to improve their circumstances, "not heedless beasts who procreate without thoughts of the future."

In Richard Jackson and Neil Howe's The Graying of the Middle Kingdom: The Demographics and Economics of Retirement Policy in China (2004), the shortage of brides had resulted in a growing market in foreign brides from North Korea and Vietnam, and a growing traffic in kidnapped ones.

North Korea? I guess this makes better sense in northeast China where large groups of ethnic Korean Chinese reside.

Jackson and Howe also added that historically, gender imbalance had played a role in igniting social unrest, for instance during the mid-1800s Nien Rebellion, where bands of surplus bachelors "turned to brigandage and insurrection."

And what happened to the countless fetuses that were aborted? According to Lucinda Richards Controlling China's Baby Boom (1996), some were, at least in the mid-90s, consumed by those (mainly women) who wanted to preserve their complexion. In the words of a fetuses-eater, "they are wasted if we do not eat them ... making soup is best." But an international furor in 1996 forced Hong Kong to ban the profitable trade in fetuses imported from China for use in traditional remedies and health foods.

If only Mao Zedong had known, he would perhaps turn in his grave! After all, he was the one who dismissed the Malthusian fear of runaway population growth as "bourgeois propaganda." Mao also maintained that people was the most precious resource because "every stomach comes with two hands attached."

Analysis of the 17th Party Congress

Brookings Institution's Cheng Li delivered an interesting analysis earlier this week on the recent 17th Communist Party Congress.

Among other things, Li pointed to the emergence and co-existence of two powerful coalitions - the populists versus the elitists.

The former is largely the tuanpai (团派), or the base of Hu Jintao (胡锦涛), and comprise mainly of party functionalists, new left intellectuals, rural leaders, and provincial leaders.

The latter consists of princelings, the Shanghai Gang, entrepreneurs, returnees, and urban leaders from coastal regions.

As Li observed, the "One Party Two Coalitions" are made up of two different political and geographical regions. The two would not just fight for power, but also jostle for control of different bases, priorities and political initiatives. But since both sides are said to complement each other in terms of skills and expertise, there is expected to be both confrontation and cooperation.

Li also gave a breakdown of the percentage of new faces who emerged at the 17th Party Congress.

Among the 371-member - 204 full, and 167 alternate - Central Committee, 62.5% were newly co-opted. In the 25-member Politburo, 40% were newcomers. As for the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, 44.4% were first-time entrants.

Turning to the their age groups, 42.6% were born in the 1940s, 49.9% in the 1950s, and 6.7% in the 1960s.

There was also a marked decline in the proportion of technocrats in the Politburo - from 75% in the last Politburo to 40% in the current one. For instance, both Xi Jinping (习近平, pictured) and Li Keqiang (李克强) were legally trained, while Wang Yang (汪洋), Wang Qishan (王岐山) and Bo Xilai (薄熙来) studied management, history and journalism respectively.

As for the percentage of Politburo members with provincial backgrounds, the numbers had increased steadily over the last few congresses. From 50% to 59.1%, and then from 66.7% to 76%.

And even though the proportion of those from the military remained constant, over two-thirds are new faces.

As for entrepreneurs, they doubled from 9 to 18, and include First Auto's Zhu Yanfeng, Sinopec's Su Shulin, Shanghai Bao Steel's Xu Lejiang, and Haier's Zhang Ruimin (张瑞敏).

Many in the Politburo (49%) also had experience as mishus (or secretaries to former or current leaders). These include Ling Jihua who used to work for Hu Jintao, and Lou Jiwei (楼继伟) who used to work for Zhu Rongji (朱镕基).

There has also been an increase in the number of tuanpai and princelings in the new Central Commitee - from 50 to 56.

Composition and Characteristics of Tuanpai:

Members include Hu Jintao, Li Keqiang, Wang Zhaoguo (王兆国), Liu Yunshan (刘云山), Wang Yang, Liu Yandong (刘延东), Li Yuanchao (李源潮) and WLQ.

They represent party organization, propaganda, a united front, law and party discipline and provincial leadership. They embrace social cohesion, a harmonious society, more balanced regional development, a "green" GDP, and paying more attention to vulnerable groups such as farmers, elderly, and the poor.

Composition and Characteristics of Princelings:

Members include Xi Jinping, Zhou Yongkang (周永康), YZS, Wang Qishan, and Bo Xilai.

They represent economic development, foreign trade and finance, foreign affairs, education, science and technology, and public security. They embrace economic efficiency, a coastal development strategy, and rapid GDP growth. They also represent the middle class and entrepreneurs, and are less concerned about environmental and social dislocations.

As Li pointed out, the current dual succession policy model is a departure from the past, and is a reflection of both Hu Jintao's preference and restraints.

Turning to the two apparent heirs to Hu, Li noted that Xi Jinping is seen as first among equals. Xi had experience in running three advanced coastal regions, and is popular among local and foreign business communities. Xi also has military ties, a celebrity wife - popular singer Peng Liyuan (彭丽媛) - and is said to be good at self-promotion and political campaigns. But Xi's weaknesses include being a princeling, his helicopter rise to power, the fact that he had received the fewest votes during the 15th Congress, a worker-peasant-soldier past, a lack of a solid political network, a lack of leadership experience in the inner provinces, and even his PhD which was apparently attained on a part-time basis. The latter, coupled with his worker-peasant-soldier background rendered him almost illiterate in the eyes of some Chinese.

Issues close to the heart of Xi include promoting the private sector, supporting market liberalizations, high GDP, and China's integration into the world economy.

As for Li Keqiang, he has the longest tenure in the Party's Central Committee, and his ties with Hu Jintao goes back a quarter of a century. Li is expected to inherit a large and fairly cohesive political network. He has strong credentials in running two important provinces - Henan (河南) and Liaoning (辽宁) - though he seemed to have a string of bad luck when AIDS became rampant in Henan and large scale accidents occured in Liaoning during his tenures. Apart from his low-profile personality, Li is also seen as a carbon copy of Hu, and is described as lacking the boldness to make tough decisions. He also does not have strong credentials in foreign trade.

Issues close to Li's heart include increasing employment and job opportunities, reduce income disparity, offer more affordable housing, and establishing a Northeast Asia free trade zone.

Turning to the likely successors for the Communist Party School, Li envisaged that it would either be Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang or Li Yuanchao.

In conclusion, Li noted that the time is ripe for the CCP to establish a more institutionalized checks and balance system within the party leadership. But he also warned of a succession crisis if Hu and the CCP cannot ride the two horses - or manage the two coalitions - at the same time.

Long Live China's Authoritarian Regime?

In Dali Yang's book Remaking the Chinese Leviathan (Stanford University Press, 2004), the author focused on a series of recent incremental administrative and legal reforms undertaken by the Chinese bureaucracy.

These include the enactment of the Administrative Litigation Law, strengthening "letters and visits" as a mechanism for redressing abuses of government authority, proliferation of "e-government" Internet websites and business-friendly government service centers, increased use of public hearings, and permitting expanded citizen input into policy deliberations.

Yang argued that these measures helped improve the efficiency, transparency and accountability of the state. The initiatives also "help bridged the gap between elite and masses, and go some way toward curbing rampant corruption." Yang even went one step ahead to suggest that in the long run, "an efficient and well-governed administration will be indispensable if and and when elite politics do make a democratic transition."

But as Richard Baum noted in his article The Limits of Consultative Leninism (June 2006), Yang's optimism may be difficult to square with the rapidly frequency and intensity of reported incidents of organized social protest over the past several years.

And while analyst Minxin Pei agreed with Yang that narrowing the state-society gap was the key to improving governmental performance, Pei argued that China is locked in a "trapped transition." In this transition, new socio-economic elites, having been successfully co-opted by the party-state to become willing partners in a corrupt system of "crony capitalism," have little interest in altering the political status-quo.

As Baum argued: "In the short-term, consultative Leninism - bolstered by robust economic growth - has arguably extended the life span of China's authoritarian regime."

In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs suggested that authoritarian governments can add substantially to their longevity by combining economic liberalization and the effective provision of administrative goods with tight restrictions on political liberties, press freedom, and unrestricted Internet access.

Drawing data from over 150 countries between 1970 and 1999, the two authors concluded that by combining the carrots and sticks, "competent authoritarian governments" can delay the onset of democratization for up to a full decade, or even longer.

As Baum concluded: "If their calculations are correct, China's unreconstructed Leninists may already be living on borrowed time."

Internet Revolution in China?

It is not realistic to expect the Internet to change China, and one should not over estimate the role of the Internet in transforming the country.

So said Zhou Yongming in his June 2006 article titled Understanding Chinese Internet Politics.

Zhou noted that the seemingly "obsessive attention" to Internet in China stemmed from our high expectations of it.

But the Internet in China should be seen as a promising new technology, and that efforts to control it "are an integral part of Chinese media control mechanisms - which in turn are part of the current political system." Therefore, only by changing the entire political system can the Internet be used freely.

Zhou also reasoned that the same technology can be used by different parties in different ways to achieve diverse goals.

"The Internet can thus be used by the Chinese people to enlarge their space of political participation, but it can also be adopted by the Chinese state to consolidate its power."

As Zhou illustrated in his recent book, the telegraph, the newest information technology 100 years ago, was used by the Chinese government to conduct a nationwide mobilization against American goods to protect the Chinese exclusion treaty.

Zhou's studies on websites of fans of the military had also indicated that the Internet had been used by the Chinese to conduct online nationalist and anti-democratic mobilization. Hence. the democratizing function of the Internet is only "one of many possibilities of that medium."

Does Shi Huang Ti Pay Taxes?

China's problem of exaggerating or even lying about production and other economic figures had taken on a new twist.

According to Chinese writer Liu Tao (刘涛) in his article 节目外的话 (or "Beyond the Programme", in 空谈 (Empty Talk or Airwave Talk, Zhongguo Guangbo Dianshi Publishing Press, 2000), the taxation bureau in Mengcheng, Anhui (安徽省蒙城县) had consistently exceeded its collection target.

But upon investigation, it was revealed that among the names that appeared on taxpayers' list were those dead and alive. They include:

秦始皇- Shih Huang-Ti

刘邦 - Liu Bang

叶利钦- Boris Yeltin

克林顿 - Bill Clinton

Even names of top Chinese leaders were used, and in the same order according to their rankings and hierarchies in the government!

Just One Of Many Contradictions in China

China is full of contradictions, that much is certain. One instance can be found in an account by Chinese writer Liu Aimin (刘爱民).

Liu was an investigative reporter with Chinese Central Television (CCTV). One assignment that he was tasked with was to uncover the theft, slaughter and sale of endangered birds in Jiangxi province (江西省). But he certainly uncovered more than what he had bargained for.

To begin with, the protection of endangered birds fell under the purview of the province's Wild Life Protection Department. But since the local police were in the position of arresting those who had engaged in the trading of endangered birds, these endangered birds sometimes fell into the hands of the police.

And to make a quick buck, the police would usually "negotiate" with the Wild Life Department to surrender these endangered birds to the Department for "a couple of hundred bucks" per bird. If the money was not handed over, the birds would not be surrendered.

In his article 人与鸟 (or Man and Bird) in 空谈 (Empty Talk or Airwave Talk, Zhongguo Guangbo Dianshi Publishing Press, 2000), Liu outlined his dilemma in whether or not he should pursue and expose the local police for their shady dealings.

As Liu put it, even though what the local police had done should not be encouraged, what they had done was still fundamentally different from the criminal act of hunting down and killing endangered birds.

"What the police had done was to make a quick buck for themselves in the midst of carrying out their duties. And if they were exposed for what they had done, and they no longer get a quick buck, will they still bother to actively pursue those criminals who trade and slaughter birds?"

You know, it is sad when people involved in maintaining law and order need to have extra "incentives" to do what they were tasked to do in the first place!

On a slightly happier ending, Liu said he eventually did not "expose" the local police on national television. Rather, what he did was to tip-off the provincial police department. After the tip-off, a few more endangered birds were reportedly surrendered by the local police to the Wild Life Department without any monetary "compensation."

White Cranes in China

Since this blog is named after a crane, or poems that had to do with cranes, it would be appropriate to look into the lives of these magnificent creatures.

According to Chinese writer Liu Aimin (刘爱民), most white cranes lay their eggs in Siberia, and a single birth usually yields up to two eggs. After the two baby cranes were hatched, the parents would force the two to compete so that only the stronger one will survive. This may sound cruel, but is said to be the reason for the species' survival. Indeed, white cranes can live up to 65 years old.

The reason for ensuring that the fittest survive is also a real and practical one. Four months after the baby cranes were born, they'd have to fly away for the winter, usually in China's Fanyang Lake (鷭阳湖).

Among wild animals, white cranes are considered a a rare breed. In Japan and Russia, scientists were usually able to spot three or five white cranes clustered together. So much so that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had even declared white cranes an endangered species.

But in the early 1980s, China discovered thousands of white cranes in Fanyang Lake. Many foreign experts initially did not believe China's discovery. They thought that the Chinese had mistaken other species as white cranes.

But when WWF experts visited Fanyang Lake, they were amazed by what they saw. A sea of white cranes appeared before their very eyes - 2,900 of the magnificent creatures!

The experts reportedly exclaimed: "This is the second Great Wall that God had given to China!"

According to an estimate, the number of white cranes in Fanyang Lake made up 98 per cent of the world's population, Liu noted in his article 人与鸟 (or "Man and Bird") in 空谈 (Empty Talk or Airwave Talk, Zhongguo Guangbo Dianshi Publishing Press, 2000).

Actually the experts were really bizarre. God did not actually "give" China the first Great Wall. The Wall was forcibly ditched upon the country. The Wall was also built on the spirits of countless who had perished while building it. Very very different from the "second Great Wall."

Cultural Revolution Madness

In 1966, China's People's Daily issued a new directive about getting rid of the four olds - namely, old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits (旧思想, 旧文化, 旧风俗, 旧习惯).

Apart from using the directive as an excuse to get rid of everything deemed "old", it was also an opportunity for Red Guards to engage in some extreme behavior.

Such as changing the name of the famous chain of Peking duck restaurant from 全聚德 (Quan Ju De) to 北京烤鸭店 (or Peking Roast Duck Shop), from 东安市场 (Eastern Peace Market) to 东风市场 (Eastern Wind Market)，from 协和医院 (United Hospital) to 反帝医院 (Anti-Imperialist Hospital)，and from 长安街 (Eternal Peace Street) to 东方红大街 (The East is Red Street). Even the street in front of the then Soviet embassy was changed to 反修路 (Anti-Revisionist Street).

And in a bid to highlight one's loyalty to Mao Zedong (毛泽东), some even pinned their Mao badges directly onto their chest (re: flesh). Others made the badges bigger, such that some resembled the size of clocks. Mao himself reportedly pleaded with his people to stop producing so many badges, urging them to use the metal to manufacture planes instead.

According to one estimate, Mao's Little Red Book is said to be the book with the largest printed circulation in the world after the bible. The latter was printed over a period of 1,000 years, while the Little Red Book was printed only over two decades. These excerpts and more were contained in the book 大陆运动知多少 (or How Much Do You Know About Mainland Campaigns, Hong Kong Qilin Publishing House, 1998).

Speculation on Cabinet Appointments

Now that the dust has settled somewhat on the recent 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress, pundits have shifted into a different gear of predicting who will be appointed to which cabinet positions in a few months' time.

The speculation right now is that Li Keqiang (李克强), Zhang Dejiang (张德江, pictured), and Wang Qishan (王岐山) are most likely to assume the positions of deputy premiers. They are likely to succeed Huang Ju (黄菊), who had died, as well as Wu Yi (吴仪), and Zeng Peiyan (曾培炎) who are expected to step down.

Specifically, it is predicted that Li will assume the taxation, industry, transportation and social welfare portfolios, while Wang will be in charge of financial matters. Zhang, on the other hand, is likely to take on external trade, quality inspection, and food safety.

As for Xi Jinping (习近平), he is expected to take over Zeng Qinghong's (曾庆红) current duties, including Hong Kong and Macau matters.

Among those appointed to the Politburo, 13 hailed from central bodies, 10 from provincial bodies, and 2 from the People's Liberation Army. Among them, Liaoning governor Li Keqiang and Chongqing Party secretary Wang Yang (汪洋) are the youngest at 52. Wang and Jiangsu Party secretary Li Chaoyuan (李源潮) even jumped two tiers - i.e. without having been elected to the Central Committee of the CCP prior to this year. The only female politburo member is Liu Yandong (刘延东).

Interestingly, for me at least, Zhang Dejiang majored in Korean language at Yanbian University (延边大学). He later graduated from the Economics Department of the Kim Il Sung Comprehensive University.

20th Century Korean History and Literature

In twentieth-century Korean history, there are said to be two periods hard to treat with with absolute objectivity and fairness. One is the period of Japanese imperialism, and the other, the struggle between the Right and the Left, mainly in the post-liberation years.

So said Uchang Kim in his article The Agony of Cultural Construction (Hagen Koo ed. State and Society in Contemporary Korea, Cornell University, 1993).

Memories of those two periods cannot be recalled calmly or be laid to rest, for they involved not only suffering, but also shame and guilt. Memories had also reportedly become troubled dreams filled with trauma and repression.

"The question of collaboration with the Japanese, for instance, had never been faced squarely, but it may be in the process of being forgotten, not only because of the passage of time but also because of its diminishing relevance to the present."

Actually there were attempts to face the question of Japanese collaboration "squarely" since current president Roh Moo-hyun came into power. But that is another story altogether.

Kim also noted that if Korea had witnessed a tremendous upsurge of interest in various aspects of the Korean Communist movement, from the revolutionary poetry of the post-liberation period to the thoughts of Kim Il Sung, it was simply a case of "the return of the repressed."

"This return has been in preparation for quite a while, as the national psyche labored to repossess the whole of the modern history down to the most painful recent past."

Quoting Cho Chongrae, Kim noted that looking at history, there seemed to be validity in saying that the injuries and conflicts of history could not be resolved unless they went through the "filtering process of stories and novels."

"Take the Nazis and Israelis. There had to be innumerable novels, movies and plays before there could be forgiveness, before there could be acceptance. Only after all the tragic facts were brought to light and emotions and feelings were filtered to an equilibrium, there was acceptance ... What we ought to do is to restore tragedies that have been made emotionally uniform and ideologically fixed, for political reasons, and reflect upon them anew. This must be done through literature, not by political slogans or political movements alone."

South Korea's Workers' Literature

According to Hagen Koo, one of the most remarkable features of South Korea's working class movement was the development of a distinct literature produced by factory workers.

Unlike its early European and American counterparts, the new South Korean proletariat was said to be a highly literate population with strong educational aspirations.

"After long hours of hard work and fatigue, many workers sacrificed sleep in order to write about their hardships, anguish, broken dreams, and relationships with fellow workers and superiors."

In his article The State, Minjung, and the Working Class in South Korea (Hagen Koo ed. State and Society in Contemporary Korea, Cornell University, 1993), Koo noted that workers' night schools played an instrumental role in encouraging workers to write essays, poems, and diaries, and small publication houses run by activist students made these writing available to a wider audience, further encouraging workers' literary efforts.

Common concerns expressed in workers' essays included physical hardships, abusive treatment by superiors, longing for their rural homes, and poor health conditions caused by poor work environments.

But probably the most cogent theme running through their works was their concern over status and their perception of society's contemptuous attitude toward factory workers. In the 1960s through the 1970s, factory workers were often called kongsuni (factory girl) or kongdoli (factory boys), insinuating an image of a housemaid or a servant working in a factory environment. The label kongsuni, in particular, had been hurtful to young female workers, many of whom left their rural homes with high aspirations for upward social mobility.

In one essay, the writer wrote that kongsunis could not hope to hide their identities.

"They showed it however hard they try to do makeup and dress up nicely. They pay more attention to clothes, hairdo and makeup in order to hide it. People fault us for spending money on appearance without making enough money, but our reason is to take off the label of kongsuni they put on us."

Further Background to Korea's Militant Labor Unions

To add on to an earlier entry explaining the background to Korea's militant unions, the various conditions that had repressed such unions in the early days of the country's industrialization drive should also be pointed out.

These include the high level of unemployment and underemployment in post-war Korea, which in turn meant that workers had little bargaining power, as well as the government's severe repression of unions due to somewhat justified fears of communist infiltration.

According to Hagen Koo in his article The State, Minjung, and the Working Class in South Korea (Hagen Koo ed. State and Society in Contemporary Korea, Cornell University, 1993), labor protests in the 1960s were mainly due to massive layoffs, wage freezes, and delayed payments.

But it was not until 1970 when a shocking event galvanized the Korean labor movement.

On November 13, 1970, a young worker named Chun Tai Il immolated himself in a desperate attempt to publicize the inhumane conditions in garment factories. He was a tailor working in a small garment factory at the Pyungwha Market in the eastern section of Seoul, where many small garment shops were located.

"These garment shops were the archetypal sweatshops of the kind portrayed in Charles Dickens' novels. The majority of workers in this area were teenage women from the countryside; they worked thirteen to fifteen hours a day with only two days off per month. Physical conditions were extremely bleak, with little ventilation, no sunshine in the daylight hours, and little space to move around or even to stand upright because the ceilings were too low. Most of these young workers suffered from chronic stomach problems and other job-related illnesses."

Even though Chun wrote many letters to relevant departments, no one responded to his pleas. He eventually set himself on fire, while shouting "We are not machines!", "Let us rest on Sundays!", and "Abide by the labor standard laws!" Chun died in the hospital emergency room where his last words were reportedly "please do not waste my life."

And indeed, his life was not wasted. His self-immolation became a powerful symbol for the working class movement. His death was also a dramatic prelude that factory workers had become a potentially powerful political force in a rapidly industrializing society.

As Koo noted, Chun's heroic act "portended the arrival of a new era in the Korean labor movement." It was also a wake-up call for intellectuals, students and church leaders in realizing where society's most serious problems laid, and how strategic the labor movement could be for their democratization struggle.

"Student-labor linkages began to develop during this period, as did the labor involvement of activist church groups. Thus economics and politics became closely entwined to shape the character of the working-class activism to come."

Students also played an important role in raising workers' collective consciousness during the 1970s. Especially important were the night schools they set up near factory towns. These schools were initial responses to workers' perceived aspirations for further education. But overtime, the emphasis of such schools shifted to a platform where workers could "articulate their daily work experiences using a new political language", and where they could develop close links with the intellectual communities that were involved in the democratization movement.

Towards the end of the 1970s, in light of the second oil crisis, world recession, as well as Korea's runaway inflation and adverse balance of payments, another landmark incident occured.

In August 1979, several hundred female workers who were employed at a wig factory known as the YH Company staged a demonstration against the plant's closure. Predictably, police and hired thugs used violence to break up the demonstrations. Driven out of their factory, the protesters then took over the headquarters of the opposition political party.

"Thus party politics became accidentally involved in labor activism. The government reacted with repression, which in turn triggered nationwide protests against the Park regime. As the political crisis escalated, the ruling group became split internally, which eventually resulted in the assassination of President Park by his own chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency."

Incidentally, the word minjung (people or the masses) emerged as a powerful term for political struggle and social movement. Minjung implies a broad alliance of "alienated classes", people alienated from power and from the distribution of the fruits of economic growth. The term also conveys a strong nationalistic desire for economic and political independence.

In the early 1980s, after the Kwangju massacre, minjung became firmly established as the dominant anti-hegemonic ideology. It is a broad ideology, touching on economic, political and social realities in society. Economically, it rejects dependent capitalist development and advocates a radical restructuring of the economy in order to achieve distributive justice; politically, it elevates national unification to the position of ultimate goal, and to this end it seeks to repel the anti-communist security ideology and to end U.S. intervention in Korean affairs; socially and culturally, it promotes concepts of national identity and independence. And as a political strategy, minjung activists seek to forge a close alliance among students, industrial workers, and small farmers.

South Korean Chaebols

Still on the same Carter Eckert article The South Korean Bourgeoisie (Hagen Koo ed. State and Society in Contemporary Korea, Cornell University, 1993).

Apparently, the popular term chaebol itself carries the negative connotation of "business clique."

Although more sympathetic critics have called the chaebols a "necessary evil", it has become increasingly common for Korean conglomerates to be referred to as "octopus tentacles" - a reference to their concentrated and expanding power over the South Korean economy.

A particular source of public anger had been the constant speculation of chaebols in real estate. This had reportedly diverted capital from productive resources, and sent the price of land in certain areas of Seoul and other cities to "astronomical levels."

As Eckert wrote: "It has been very difficult for South Korean capitalists to mount a successful defense against public criticism. Perhaps the strongest argument they have been able to muster is that they have tried to return some of their profits to society by using portions of their corporate shareholdings to set up tax-free private social welfare foundations, which, in turn, have used the money to build hospitals and support needy students and scholars ... (but) some critics have charged ... that the foundations permitted "legalized tax evasion by the chaebols."

Perhaps such a skeptical view of chaebols should not come as a surprise. After all, as Eckert pointed out earlier on in the article, the pursuit of personal profit had never been raised to the level of a moral precept in Korea. "And even today the right of private property, though guaranteed by law in South Korea, falls far short of being the sacrosanct tenet it has long been in the West."

This was also coupled by the fact that Confucian scholars during the late Chosun dynasty had been steeped in a neo-Confucian tradition that emphasized communitarian values. Indeed, these scholars were interested in capitalism mainly as a way to "augment the wealth and power of the country to save it from imperialist domination."

"Ideas of Confucianism, nationalism, and capitalism thus all fused in the late nineteenth-century Korean intellectual milieu to produce a moral vision of capitalist activity stressing national needs and goals and denigrating the purely private pursuit of wealth."

To make things worse, chaebols had always been perceived as recipients of a wide range of special privileges and favors from the state. So much so that Korean capitalists had often been described as "state-made men", as they had seldom taken the type of risks often associated with bona fide entrepreneurs.

Furthermore, the close collaboration between chaebols and the government had also eroded the business elite's moral standing in South Korean society. Most chaebols were seen to have, and had indeed supported past authoritarian governments and politics.

As Eckert concluded: "In spite of their great wealth and growing political power, South Korea's capitalist elites have been forced to live and operate in an ethical world that is not of their own making ... even more important in the long-run, perhaps, is the problem that Korean capitalists face in winning the hearts and minds of the people. As this chapter tried to show, a highly critical, even negative, attitude towards the chaebols runs deep in South Korean society and cuts across class and occupational lines."

But despite that, don't most Koreans generally still want to work for chaebols?

Background to South Korea Labor Unions' Militancy

I would be the first to deride South Korea's militant labor unions. But while I agree that their moves had weakened Korea's competitiveness, I am also sympathetic to the historical background which had turned them militant.

After all, it should be remembered that labor unions in Korea have not always been militant. In the decades following the Korean War from 1950-53, unions had been severely repressed. They turned increasingly militant only in light of Korea's democratization wave in the late 1980s.

As Carter Eckert noted in his article The South Korean Bourgeoisie, (Hagen Koo ed. State and Society in Contemporary Korea, Cornell University, 1993), the new atmosphere of free and aggressive unions "raised the possibility of a transition to a more equal and balanced relationship between capital and labor after more than two decades of labor repression, a change that one might argue was not only politically long overdue, but also economically necessary for further development."

Eckert also explained the reasons why Korean capitalists had been, for want of a better word, brutal (or in Eckert's words, inability to "transcend a short-term economic perspective towards the working class") in their treatment of Korean workers. These include structural constraints such as a lack of natural resources, a limited source of indigenous capital, and a weak technological base.

Eckert also noted that since the colonial period, Korean entrepreneurs had "used every means at their disposal", including the use of the police and hired thugs, to ensure that labor costs had remained as low as possible.

Eckert added: "Such unequivocal support from the state decade after decade strengthened many Korean businessmen in the belief that they could treat their workers as they chose with virtual impunity. Thus by the mid-1980s, as South Korea's top chaebols were moving upward on Fortune's list of the world's richest companies, Korean workers were suffering from what many of them regarded as unfairly low pay and from the longest working day in the industrialized world."

Also playing a role in the oppression of workers was the traditional elitist attitudes. Korea had a long history of "oppressive landlordism" that continued even after the country's liberation from Japan. It also had a less well-known but "statistically significant history of institutionalized slavery" that was officially abolished in 1894, but which seemed to have continued to some extent on an informal, private basis in various parts of the country.

And since many of Korea's capitalists were descended from this traditional land or slave-owning class, they had consciously or unconsciously help created an "authoritarian corporate culture in which workers have been regarded by managers with varying degrees of paternalism or disdain, but rarely, if ever, as equals or even junior partners in a common enterprise."

Even businessmen who had taken a strong personal interest in their workers' welfare were unwilling to acknowledge that workers had any kind of right to make demands on the company.

In an example cited by Eckert, in July 1987, in the aftermath of the first wave of labor unrest that swept through the country, a highly successful small-medium exporter expressed his moral outrage that his workers had gone on strike even though he had always treated them well. He had provided his workers with relatively high wages and bonuses, and "a superior work environment complete with showers and other facilities."

"What he could not understand or accept was that the workers themselves might have found his paternalism, however sincere, inadequate to their needs and, more to the point, that they might have felt that they had a legitimate right to voice their grievances. The only explanation he would accept for the strike was that it had been instigated by radical students posing as workers, that is, that the workers had been duped into striking by sophisticated outside agitators."

Chung Yu Jung

More than just the founder and former chairman of Hyundai, the late Chung Yu Jung was also an advocate of the move towards a market economy. Specifically, he felt that decisions ought to be made by private corporate leaders, and not by politicians and bureaucrats.

His advocacy came in light of the phenomenal growth of chaebols - or large conglomerates - in the country. Though these chaebols had contributed massively to South Korea's economic development, there were little genuine respect or affection for these conglomerates. Indeed, public criticism of chaebols were becoming increasingly vocal and severe. Even Chung himself once admitted that the general public tended to think of the country's big businessmen as "criminals."

In 1991, Chung defied the government's anti-chaebol campaign by forming a new political party, the Unification National Party, a move described by Stephen Haggard and Chung-in Moon as "unthinkable under the previous regime." The hastily formed party emerged as the second major opposition party by winning 17 per cent of the votes and 10 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly in the March 1992 general election.

"Chung's party undercut the constituent's base of the ruling party, demonstrating that big business could wield significant political leverage in a democratic context," Haggard and Chung noted in their article The State, Politics, and Economic Development in Postwar South Korea (Hagen Koo ed. State and Society in Contemporary Korea, Cornell University, 1993).

China and the Korean War

Apparently, China took its involvement in the 1950-1953 Korean War as an opportunity to whip up patriotic sentiments.

According to the book 大陆运动知多少 (or How Much Do You Know About Mainland Campaigns, Qilin Publishing Press, Hong Kong, 1998), China mobilized the entire nation into a 抗美援朝 (or "Resist the US and Assist the Koreans") frenzy.

Waves of young people joined the People's Volunteer Army, while countless participated in transportation and other war mobilization efforts. The masses, on the other hand, endeavored to increase production in agriculture and manufacturing.

Groups around the country also drafted patriotic declarations, and famous operatic stars such as Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳, pictured), Ma Lianliang (马连良), and Chang Xiangyu (常香玉) also helped raised funds for the war through their performances.

But in an indication of how corruption was an issue even then, it was reported that among the foodstuff sent to soldiers battling at the frontlines were spoilt canned food, fake medicine, and unsanitary first aid kit. This led to the illness and even death of Chinese troops.

China's Taiyuan

I visited Taiyuan (太原) in 2001 at the height of winter. Apart from the bitingly cold winter, I remember the city for its somewhat lacklustre economy, as well as its extreme pollution.

With a population of 3.08 million, Taiyuan was not considered as impoverished as some of China's interior cities.

According to a 2003 article by Michael Jen-Siu, Taiyuan was typical of Chinese cities after two decades of economic development. It had strong local industries, but was plagued by layoffs, poor re-employment prospects, lawlessness and corruption. On the streets of Taiyuan, shopkeepers doubled as pimps, while unemployed peddled goods such as raisins, yams, and goldfish.

Compared to the national average, Shanxi province (陕西省) - where Taiyuan is the provincial capital - had relatively few schools and just one comprehensive university.

Even though Shanxi held about 70 per cent of China's historical relics, tourism was not as well-develop as one might have imagined. Other than the walled city of Pingyao (平遥), the Buddhist temples at Wutai mountain (五台山) and the Yungang grottoes (云冈石窟) in Datong (大同), most relics were hard to reach or lack the facilities that tourists expect.

Corruption was especially rampant here, where officials accept bribes from small coal mines and factories in exchange for letting them operate, despite safety or pollution problems.

Indeed, pollution was also said to have threatened Taiyuan's anchor industry - coal. Overseas investors were uninterested in investing further in the mines due to the area's excessive levels of pollution. That despite the fact that Taiyuan Iron and Steel - the biggest work unit in town - had reportedly implemented anti-pollution measures.

Despite such measures, the situation in Taiyuan does not seem to have improved. According to a 2007 article, Taiyuan residents were still "held hostage by the soot." Residents reportedly sealed their windows to keep out the dirty air. Parents were warned not to let their toddlers play outside, for fear of being covered in coal dust. And fruits and vegetables must be washed in detergent.