North Korea's "Silent Revolution"

Andrei Lankov recently suggested that instead of diplomatic and high-profile measures, the best way to change North Korea is through disseminating information to as many North Koreans as possible.

He argued that measures such as financial sanctions are fairly ineffectual as the main victims are ordinary North Koreans "whose suffering has not hurt the regime historically." For instance, even after 3 to 5 per cent of the population starved to death in the late 1990s, there were no signs of political unrest. "Terrified and isolated, the North Koreans did not rebel; they died quietly."

The Kookmin University academic also argued that the North Korean nuclear issue cannot be resolved in isolation as it is part of the broader North Korean issue that can only be "resolved with a radical transformation of the regime."

"Since outside pressure is ineffective, change will have to come from the North Koreans themselves. The United States and its allies can best help them by exposing them to the very attractive alternatives to their current way of life.” (Changing North Korea An Information Campaign Can Best the Regime, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2009)

Lankov believed that this approach would work given that it was the West's economic prosperity and political freedom that had "irrevocably undermined popular support for communism."

The main premise of the approach would be to weaken the regime's monopoly on information and driving home the point to North Koreans that they are living "in an ocean of suffering" instead of the "island of happiness" which they were conditioned to believe. It also includes propagating information about the affluence of foreign countries, especially South Korea's.

The latter is already happening in the Kaesong Industrial Complex where North Koreans have come into direct contact with their Southern neighbors. "As these North Korean workers get to observe the South Koreans’ dress and possessions and hear their conversations, they become more likely to realize the dishonesty of Pyongyang's propaganda."

"The goal would be to spread knowledge about the modern world to North Korea's common people and lower-level elites, those without a vested interest in perpetuating the brutality of the current system."

Well and good. But I have my doubts when it comes to the actual measures proposed by Lankov.

Lankov suggested that the U.S. government should spearhead initiatives that bring foreigners to North Korea and take North Koreans abroad. These include academic and student exchanges where "away from police surveillance (and close to Internet-equipped computers), they would learn much more about the true workings of the world" and be exposed to truthful information.

Even though Lankov concurred that "only the scions of the North Korean elite" would be allowed in such programs, it is still worth encouraging "as those involved might develop a more independent mindset and share some of their newly acquired knowledge with the less privileged back home."

I am doubtful as it is unlikely that more than just a privileged few will be able to go on such programs. And the small numbers will mean that the programs are not likely to achieve the intended results.

Lankov also suggested smuggling in more foreign DVDs and videos into North Korea, especially those that inform North Koreans about daily social and economic life in South Korea.

Better still, the U.S. should support the production of documentaries "specially tailored to the tastes of the North Korean audience" and which cover issues relating to North Korean contemporary history and reunification. In addition, lighter videos and DVDs "can educate North Koreans about the real world even if their chief purpose is simply to entertain."

I think this might work only if massive amounts of such foreign DVDs get into the Hermit Kingdom. As it is, many South Korean drama serials are already finding their way into North Korea mainly from China, but we are still not witnessing the revolution which Lankov hope would materialize. Or maybe it is already quietly underway and that all it needs is an added push/impetus?

Other measures which Lankov had suggested include digitizing videos and books and putting entire libraries within the reach of North Koreans, and encouraging the spread of computers inside North Korea. "For even without access to the Internet, computers remain a powerful tool of emancipation, thanks to flash drives, DVDs, and the like."

Lankov further argued that Washington has to lead such efforts because South Koreans are "remarkably indifferent to the plight" of their northern cousins.

But he also acknowledged that such an approach will be a hard sell to most Americans.

"It is likely to bring about only barely visible, incremental change – at least until the situation reaches a breaking point, which would be many years away. Granting a scholarship to a farmer's son, promoting the concert tour of a North Korean tenor, and donating funds to a small radio station run by defectors are not glamorous diplomatic initiatives. Nor will they yield the sort of demonstrable, quantifiable results sought by bureaucracies that are accountable to the public."

On North Korea's weapons program, Lankov noted that Pyongyang cannot do away with these programs as this would mean losing both a powerful deterrent and a "time-tested tool of extortion."

"It would also relegate North Korea to being a third-rate country, on a par with Mozambique or Uganda. This is the reason that Pyongyang has rejected South Korea's "Vision 3000" plan, which proposed raising North Korea's per capita GDP (currently estimated at between $500 and $1,700) to $3,000 through a general aid and investment program – on the condition that Pyongyang denuclearize."

China-Russian Relations

Author Dmitri Trenin noted that for the first time in 30 years, China is more powerful and dynamic than Russia, and can "back up its economic and security interests with hefty infusions of cash."

For instance, in recent months, Beijing has offered a $10 billion loan to countries in Central Asia; provided a currency swap to Belarus; and found a billion dollars of aid for Moldova, "double Moscow’s promised sum."

"It is worth remembering that China refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in August 2008, setting an example for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Central Asian members, which then followed its lead, not Russia's."

The director of the Carnegie Moscow Center noted that although Russian-Chinese collaboration is growing, China is emerging as the state driving the bilateral agenda (Russia Reborn, Reimagining Moscow’s Foreign Policy, in Foreign Affairs, November/December 2009).

China is one of Russia's leading trading partners and a fast-growing market that could also become a major source of capital investment for Russia. Hence, Moscow "has no alternative but to seek friendly and cooperative relations with Beijing."

"A key challenge for Russia's foreign policy will be to learn to live alongside a China that is strong, dynamic, assertive, and increasingly advanced."

Isn't that quite a difficult pill to swallow, given that just a few decades ago the Russians (or rather the Soviets) were imparting ideological and technological knowhow to their Chinese counterparts?

In the article, Trenin said that it will be difficult for Russia to adopt a new role "after 500 years as an empire, 70 years as an ideological warrior, and over 40 years during the Cold War as a military superpower." He added that Russia needs to pursue a foreign policy "that serves its needs, not its nostalgia." Ouch.

Sha Zukang and Taiwan

I can certainly relate to the following account by Bill Emmott, having witnessed a similar outburst at a press conference by Sha Zukang (pictured) in Beijing several years ago.

Recalling a meeting with the senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official in charge of arms control negotiation in 2001, Emmott said that the meeting was initially calm and cordial. Sha was described as a confident man so fluent in English that he could "banter with ease."

But when the subject of Taiwan arose, Sha "used a different sort of language."

"He banged his fist hard on the coffee table next to him. It was a theatrical gesture, and it had the desired effect of making me jump. He then raised his voice and shouted: "I want you to know that I am prepared to die, personally, to ensure the return of Taiwan to the motherland!" (Rivals – How the Power Struggles Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Penguin Books, 2008, 2009).

Emmott's point was that Taiwan is not just a technical issue for China but a "highly emotive one." Bingo.

Tokyo War Crimes Trial

So Japan has apologized time and again for its past aggression and occupation of Korea, but Korea is hardly convinced. As former South Korean foreign minister and ambassador to the United States once put it – the problem is, "we do not believe that your apologies are sincere."

As Bill Emmott noted, Dr Han is right insofar as the apologies have been voiced by conservative LDP politicians. But even though Japan should shoulder much of the blame, Emmott countered that America should also be held responsible.

"At the heart of the problem lies the event that took place over 31 months from May 1946 until November 1948: the Tokyo war crimes trial (pictured). The lack of sincerity in many Japanese apologies is related directly to the injustice of that trial." (Rivals – How the Power Struggles Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Penguin Books, 2008, 2009).

"If you read accounts of the trial now, it is hard not to feel ashamed of the way the Americans and their allies conducted the whole event."

General Charles Willoughby who was head of intelligence occupations for the leader of the American occupation described the trial as "the worst hypocrisy in recorded history."

Another American serviceman, Brigadier-General Elliott R. Thorpe who had been involved in deciding who should be put on trial, dismissed the Tokyo tribunal as "mumbo-jumbo", adding that "they made up the rules after the game was over."

George Kennan, the State Department official who later became famous as the conceptualizer of the policy of containment of the Soviet Union described the trials as "profoundly misconceived from the start."

As Emmott noted, "the central charge laid against the 28 defendants, under the special charter of the Tokyo trial, was that of committing "crimes against peace, namely the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a declared or undeclared war of aggression." In other words, using military force as an instrument of national policy. Might any other country, just possibly, ever have behaved like that before, or since?"

As MIT historian John Dower put it, it was "a white man's tribunal” which presented Japan's aggression as "a criminal act without provocation, without parallel and almost entirely without context."

SEPA and Protecting China's Environment

China is supposed to be serious about tackling its environment but the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA) - tasked with setting standards and overseeing enforcement - is said to possess neither the power nor the resources to do so.

SEPA only had 300 full-time professionals, according to Elizabeth Economy, an expert on China's environment at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, plus a similar number spread across the country. In contrast, America's Environmental Protection Agency has 9,000 staff in Washington D.C. alone. (Bill Emmott, Rivals – How the Power Struggles Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Penguin Books, 2008, 2009).

SEPA also had no legal authority to force factories that violate pollution controls to close or reform. Authority for pollution and conservation was divided among many different ministries, as well as being delegated to local governments.

Given its large size, China has several local Environmental Protection Bureaus that were supposed to enforce environmental standards in every province and large city. But SEPA was said to have no direct authority over these EPBs.

"They report not to SEPA itself but to their local governors and mayors. And the essence of China's environmental problem is that those governors and mayors do not have an interest in, or much incentive for, enforcing the country’s environmental laws. Their interest is in economic growth."

Even though the central government has attempted to link the performance of local officials to environmental protection, there had been no agreement on how this should be done and what green criteria to use.

Pan Yue, the vice-minister of SEPA, was said to have devoted three years of research to producing a set of "green GDP" accounts, which would have been used as the basis for officials' job evaluations.

But his efforts failed and it emerged in 2007 that it had been dropped. The reason was not a technical one; it was political. His efforts were too controversial. Many provinces objected.

As Emmott noted, SEPA was "an island of environmental awareness in a sea of disregard." It could not achieve much unless the Chinese leadership made "up their minds to support it, and build a consensus that the environment has to be turned into a priority, equal to that of economic growth rather than subservient to it."

Meanwhile, SEPA officials were said to have been experimenting with other ways to exert pressure: by exploiting public pressure, for example, through NGOs and public hearings; by using its limited power to refuse approval for new industrial projects in order to press local governments to close dirty old ones first; and by using banks to exert pressure through putting green conditions on their loans.

But all of these efforts were said to be “tentative and ineffective” until the leadership “really takes hold of the issue.”

More on China's Soft Power

China's growing soft power has not always obtained the effect that Beijing had intended, and had at times even led to bouts of resentment.

First, there is the perception that China is acting "rapaciously" for instance in Nigeria where militants in the Niger Delta have warned Chinese investors that they will be "treated as thieves" robbing Nigerians of their valuable oil resources – a charge the militants previously laid against Western companies. (Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World, Yale University Press, 2007)

In the Nigerian commercial capital of Lagos (pictured), police had reportedly expelled Chinese migrants from local markets because of complaints that Chinese goods were undercutting local products.

In Zambia, the populist politician Michael Sata rallied support among the poor by claiming that Chinese imports were undercutting Zambian products, while Zambian companies cannot export any finished goods to China.

In Thailand, Thai farmers faced difficulties selling their products to China, even as Chinese agricultural products flooded into Thailand.

In Brazil, several anti-dumping clauses and safeguards against categories of Chinese exports were filed against China.

In Ecuador, the government passed laws to limit Chinese investment, and potential competition from China was said to be a reason why Central American nations signed a 2005 free trade agreement with the United States, since it was believed that this might encourage some garment companies to keep production in the hemisphere rather than switching to China.

Then there is also China's export of its environmental problems.

China was reportedly keen to fund (or may have already funded?) a massive Burmese dam without undertaking environmental studies, while China's Export-Import Bank was said to have decline to sign environmental guidelines commonly adopted by credit providers from Western nations.

In northern Laos, a consultant with the Asian Development Bank noted that Chinese firms tasked to build part of the country's new highway simply refused to produce any environmental impact assessment.

As for the Mekong River which China had build dams and "blasted" parts of the river, scientists estimate that fish catches in part of the river have fallen by half, while the giant Mekong catfish, a monstrous creature that can top 600 pounds, may soon become extinct.

"Whole stretches of the Mekong, which must support a growing human population that could double within thirty years, are becoming too dry for farming."

And then there's China's purported lack of transparency and good governance in its aid, infrastructure and business dealings with recipient countries. "In other words, how Chinese companies act at home reflects how they may act overseas."

In Cambodia, local activists accuse both the Cambodian government and Wuzhishan, a Chinese state-linked firm, of forcing hundreds of villagers off their land in a province known as Mondulkiri.

Critics argued that Wuzhishan sprayed the area, which included ancestral burial areas, with dangerous herbicides. "The government and the company have disregarded the well-being, culture, and livelihoods of the … indigenous people," said the United Nations' special representative for human rights in Cambodia.

In the Central African Republic, China provided key assistance to the regime in 2003 following a coup. This had reportedly allowed the regime to tighten its rule, and could lead "average citizens in Africa, and in other regions, to question whether Beijing really is a power that does not interfere in nations’ affairs."

"After all, if China uses its influence to support elites in countries like the Central African Republic or Cambodia, to the detriment of average people, it is very clearly interfering."

But thankfully, and perhaps to China's credit, it has come to the realization that Chinese support for authoritarian regimes can create instability for China in the long run.

For instance in Burma, the junta's "backward, erratic rule" had not only created the drug and HIV crises that threaten China, but also endangered Chinese businessmen who were never certain when the political situation will turn violent.

"Fearful of Burma's instability, Chinese officials have not only cracked down on gambling and drugs in the China-Burma frontier but also pushed for political reform inside Burma … Even more surprising, Beijing has allowed Burma's human rights crisis to be placed on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council, a momentous decision for a country skeptical of allowing the United Nations to meddle in other nations' affairs."

More pertinently, the Burma example is said to be a case whereby China can increasingly use its soft power to improve stability in places where the United States has little influence. Having Chinese and the Americans prod these countries means that countries like Burma and North Korea cannot simply write off foreign pressure as "merely an American initiative."

"China is especially likely to use its influence when Beijing fears that instability in another nation could spill over into China, either by spreading drugs and disease (Burma), or by causing massive refugee flows (North Korea), or by exacerbating terrorism (Central Asia) – and when those countries do not possess significant amount of oil, gas, or other resources."

As Kurlantzick noted, in the long run, China's relations with countries like Sudan could come back to haunt Beijing. If countries like Sudan or Zimbabwe ever made the transition to freer governments, China could face a "sizable backlash" for its past support of authoritarian rulers, just as the United States faced left-leaning governments in Latin America resentful of past U.S. backing for conservative Latin dictators. This is also said to be one reason why Chinese officials have begun cultivating contacts with opposition activists in countries like Burma.

"Don't you think that if Burma became a democracy all the leaders might remember who helped keep them in jail before?" asked one Burma activist. "There could be an immediate popular backlash against all the Chinese businesses and officials in Burma."

China’s Soft Power in Southeast Asia

China's charm offensive in Southeast Asia had clearly altered the internal dynamics and external interactions of many of these countries.

For instance in East Timor, China had funded the construction of the East Timor foreign ministry (pictured), paid for the Timor government to open a new embassy in Beijing, and sponsored training programs.

Chinese official had also emphasized both nations' history of socialism given that many Timorese leaders had begun their guerilla careers as Marxists. China was the first country with which independent Timor established diplomatic relations.

But as Joshua Kurlantzick noted, "the savvy Timorese leadership saw in Beijing an opportunity to use China for its own ends, allow Timor to avoid becoming dependent on either of its two giant neighbors, Indonesia or Australia." (Charm Offensive How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World, Yale University Press, 2007)

Kurlantzick added that even though some former independence fighters seem concerned about Timor "cozying up to China," Beijing appeared genuinely popular in Dili. Across the half-island, people praised China’s influence, and many young Timorese were eager to study Chinese.

"Educated middle-class Timorese who knew anything about the PRC knew that China had once been poor, like Timor, but somehow had become fabulously wealthy."

But in Cambodia, things seemed less benign, and even took on a somewhat ominous twist.

As Kurlantzick pointed out, China had refused to join the Mekong River Commission, the main organization monitoring the river, and continued "blasting and damning its sections of the waterway." Scientists said this had the effect of drying up Cambodia's Tonle Sap, the biggest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia which is fed by the Mekong and provides the major protein source in Cambodia.

But every time Cambodians complain privately to the Chinese about the Mekong River, the Chinese reportedly offers promises of aid, and pledged to uphold environmental standards.

"Beijing's aid goes far in poor countries like Cambodia. As a result ... Hun Sen had publicly declared that Chinese dams would pose "no problems" and instructed his diplomats not to make any complains about the Mekong."

As for Singapore, Kurlantzick described the island-state as "one of the Southeast Asian nations more skeptical of China’s charm offensive." (Ah-ha!)

One Singaporean diplomat reportedly said that Chinese diplomats he had dealt with had "become increasingly sure and proud of their status, and disdainful of Southeast Asian nations." This diplomat added that as the Chinese diplomats abandon their style of listening to every nation’s concerns, "they will lose some of their appeal."

China's growing diplomatic assertiveness had even suggested to some Singaporean officials that China's charm is merely a façade, and a reason why the island state had boosted defense cooperation with the United States in recent years.

As for Southeast Asia as a whole, ASEAN diplomats say consensus at ASEAN meetings had often been delayed as member nations tried to "analyze how Beijing will react to any decision." Not only do ASEAN countries take into consideration what the Chinese think, they are also "trying to figure out what China wants ahead of time."

But in certain cases it is not even a matter of "figuring out ahead what China wants" but plainly doing China's bidding. In 2001, Dennis Blair, then commander of American forces in the Pacific proposed to create an informal regional security organization. But many Asian nations "vetoed the idea, in part because China quietly applied pressure on them to reject it."

Similarly, after Chinese angry protests surrounding then Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's visit to Taiwan, the island state reportedly promised that it would not support Taiwan in a war if Taiwan provoked the conflict by making moves towards independence.

Kurlantzick predicted that in time to come, China could prod countries like the Philippines or Thailand, "which are already using China as a hedge, to downgrade their close relations with the United States, or could push countries like Singapore to stop providing basing rights for America."

China's Charm Offensive

China's charm offensive may not be as charming as it sounds, or so according to Joshua Kurlantzick.

In his book Charm Offensive How China’s Soft Power Is Transform-ing the World (Yale University Press, 2007), Kurlantzick suggested that as a developing country China could "overplay its hand, making promises to other nations that it cannot fulfill."

China's diplomatic style of signing many agreements during foreign visits by its top leaders may have earned it "considerable initial goodwill and positive media coverage", but often the agreements are merely letters of intent.

"In Latin America and Asia, when officials from local boards of trade and investment follow up, they sometimes find that Chinese officials had laid no groundwork to put these letters into practice. Indeed, after Chinese leaders make promises of new aid during visits overseas, Beijing sometimes fails to follow through with the cash."

Even though China's aid does not always match that of other major powers, Kurlantzick said that Beijing has tried to make the most of the goodwill it receives.

For instance, after the tsunami in December 2004, China offered $95 million in assistance, said to be one of its biggest-ever pledges of humanitarian aid, but still far less than Japan's assistance or U.S. aid, which approached $1 billion.

"But because China is a new donor, Beijing seemed to win almost as much media coverage in Asia for its tsunami relief as did the United States and Japan. This has become a trend: China generates goodwill from its assistance partly because countries have become used to receiving money from Japan and America for decades, and China is a new donor."

But surely the novelty would have worn off by now. Indeed, during the recent Haiti earthquake, China’s assistance had probably generated goodwill but not to the same extent as it used to be, especially given the perception that China's rescue team seemed more interested initially in rescuing Chinese aid workers buried in the rubble.

Kurlantzick also pointed out that since governments worldwide "had little experience with a powerful China ... they can believe that China, unlike other major powers, will impose no conditions on other countries or pressure other nations to do what Beijing wants. They can believe that China's rise will truly be an uncomplicated "win-win", an opportunity but not a threat."

But as Kurlantzick categorically put it, "that honeymoon period will end." In fact, there are indications that even though China does not make as many demands as the United States, it has "skillfully used soft power to influence nations to act according to Beijing’s wishes."

For instance, China has warned in 2006 that it might cut off diplomatic ties with Zambia if voters there picked an opposition candidate known for protesting China's poor labor policies. China is one of the largest investors in Zambia especially in the local copper industry, and one of the biggest sources of aid. Though the remarks "sent shockwaves" through the local media, Beijing eventually got the result it wanted.

Characteristics of Hu Jintao’s Leadership

In his book, David Shambaugh outlined a few pertinent character-istics of Hu Jintao's leadership.

For a start, Hu had not cultivated a web of patron-client ties and "did not seem eager to supplant Jiang’s (Zemin) network. Even if he had, he was substantially outnumbered."

With a more consensual and coalition-building style, Hu was described as "smart not to try and challenge straight-on a dominant leadership faction, but rather to bid his time and work progressively to increase his own influence and insert his own people into positions of power."

"After the twin congresses in 2002-3, those promoted to positions in central party apparatus who did have ties to Hu came from diverse backgrounds but had careers that had intersected with Hu's – rather than having been affiliated with Hu in faction-like relationships over time." (China's Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation, Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008)

Those in this group include Premier Wen Jiabao as he and Hu worked together in Gansu. It also included Secretariat member and head of CCP Propaganda Department Liu Yunshan who had ties to Hu dating to their tenures as provincial party secretaries. From 1987 to 1991, Liu was the secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee, while Hu served in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Both Liu and Hu also had ties to former CCP general secretary and Youth League chief Hu Yaobang.

At the provincial level however, there were many officials who shared ties with Hu through CYL or the Communist Youth League. These included Li Keqiang (former Liaoning party secretary), Zhang Baoshun (former Shanxi party secretary) and Li Yuanchao (former Jiangsu party secretary), all of whom served under Hu when he was CYL secretary from 1982 to 1984. CCP United Front Work Department head Liu Yandong, minister of civil affairs Li Xueju and minister of supervision Li Zhilun also overlapped in the CYL during Hu's tenure.

After the 16th Party Congress and 10th National People’s Congress, Jiang finally relinquished leadership, even though his network of Shanghai and other allies remained largely in place. Even so, Hu had not done much to promote individuals associated with his past.

"Rather, his favored strategy has been to push his populist policy agenda forward and thereby attempt to co-opt Jiang's clients and other officials to it – thus forging a broad coalition that is much more issue based than personality or faction based."

"What Hu has astutely done is to set items on the national agenda and then launch a political campaign in support of each component. In each case, he has turned to different key officials to implement the campaigns, thereby "testing" their loyalty and in effect co-opting them into compliance."

He first did this with Jiang stalwart and Politburo Standing Committee member Zeng Qinghong who was put in charge of drafting and implementing the program to improve the "party’s ruling capacity" (zhizheng nengli) after the Fourth Plenum in September 2004.

He also did it with Organization Department director He Guoqiang during the "party's advanced nature" campaign in 2005 and 2006.

He again did it with Wen and others in the State Council when he "succeeded in smuggling his Socialist Harmonious Society theory and the Scientific Development Concept" into the 11th Five-Year program in 2005.

"These were all very astute moves by a politician playing a weaker hand."

China leadership specialist Cheng Li who was cited in the book argued that Hu had been able to forge an unprecedented "bipartisanship" between the two dominant policy coalitions – the Jiang Zemin/Zeng Qinghong coalition and the Hu Jintao/Wen Jiabao coalition.

"Rather than pushing alternative competing policy agendas (and thus aggravating factional cleavages), the genius of Hu's approach has been to generate and shift the policy agenda toward three components that have proven very popular inside and outside the party."

These components are: 1) More balanced regional economic development, 2) increased concern for social justice and social harmony, and 3) greater party and state transparency and institutionalization.

Even though the days of factional politics and strongman rule seemed to be a thing of the past, Shambaugh noted that the party's history of "winner takes all" and "tiger eat tiger elite factional politics cannot be quickly dismissed." These factional differences may simply be "submerged and suppressed and could quickly reappear under conditions of a serious crisis or emergency."

Even so, Shambaugh concluded that the multiple elements of party institutionalization and party building had already played a role in weakening factional ties.

"The CCP leaders today seem to have adopted the dictum that they must hang together or they will hang separately."

CCP and Confucianism

As a aficionado of Confucian-ism, thanks to Prof Hahm Chaihark, it is interesting to me, just as it is interesting to Prof David Shambaugh that several of the criteria used in cadre appraisals in China used terminology reminiscent of the Confucian personnel system of imperial times.

These include de (morality), neng (capability), qin (diligence), ji (achievement), and lian (uncorrupt).

"The overall goal, according to many official documents, is to create a cadre corps composed of talented people (rencai), another Confucian concept." (China's Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation, Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008)

The adoption of the new appraisal methods and criteria after 2002 was said to be in response to the need to "rectify inefficient party committees but also to open up the evaluation process."

Such a process was deemed to be too secretive, carried out by too narrow a circle of party committee evaluators who are often susceptible to payoffs, using non-standardized, meritocratic criteria, and having no input from colleagues or from the general public.

Pictured is a poster during the Cultural Revolution urging the proletariat to "undertake the battle of criticizing Lin Piao and Confucius to the very end"!

Hu Jintao Shifting the Emphasis of the Three Represents

David Shambaugh noted that unlike former Chinese president Jiang Zemin's emphasis on recruiting members of the "advanced productive forces" (in other words, entrepreneurs) into the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Jintao had shifted the emphasis of the Three Represents to the third "represent": or the interests of the vast majority of the people.

This, according to Shambaugh, was "politically very astute." (China's Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation, Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008)

"It not only indicated Hu's (and Premier Wen Jiabao's) appreciation of the widening and alarming gap in social stratifications in China today, but also reflects their appreciation of the rising resentment in the interior of the country toward those in the coastal regions and major cities who have benefited most from the last decade’s economic reforms – precisely the constituency catered to by Jiang."

In many speeches by Hu and Wen, it is clear that both have shifted priority away from Jiang's coastal constituency toward the interior, though admittedly an actual shift in resources "have been less apparent."

By embracing the "third represent", Hu has "adroitly changed the emphasis of the Three Represents campaign without jettisoning it. This tactical ploy is emblematic of Hu’s savvy leadership style."

Besides this shift of emphasis from the third represent, Hu also began to stress the need for "scientific development" and the "scientific development concept (kexue fazhan guan)."

Shifting the discourse on the Three Represents is clearly a way for Hu to leave a personal imprint and possibly entrench his political legacy.

Interestingly, the originator of the Three Represents Theory Liu Ji proposed that democracy shall first be achieved within the CCP before extending to the rest of the population.

As Shambaugh noted, this sort of reasoning is a long-standing Chinese view dating back to Sun Yat-sen, based on concepts of tutelage and the elitist idea that the Chinese masses are not "ready" for democracy. Echoes of this reasoning are also heard in Yu Keping's notion of "incremental democracy." Yu is the deputy director of the Central Committee’s Compilation and Translation Bureau and is a close adviser to Hu on political reform.

China, NGOs and Color Revolutions

The following can perhaps serve as a partial or indirect explanation as to why non-government organiza-tions (NGOs) – especially foreign, and even local? - in China are kept under a tight leash.

As David Shambaugh wrote, many Chinese analysts had emphasized the role played by NGOs in "fomenting" the color revolutions in Central Asia (pictured, Rose Revolution in Georgia). Many have also noted the activities and influence of the Soros Foundation, Eurasia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Freedom House, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, Carter Center, and other NGOs. (China’s Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation, Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008)

These organizations are said to “disseminate propaganda about democracy and freedom, so as to foster pro-Western political forces and train the backbones for anti-government activities," as well as to "take advantage of their experiences from subversive activities abroad to provide local anti-government forces with a package of political guidance from formulation of policies to schemes of specific action plans … All that the NGOs have done have played a crucial role in both the start and final success of the Color Revolutions."

Chinese analysts also felt that NGOs do not act on their own but are closely linked to various U.S. government agencies, including, allegedly, U.S. intelligence agencies.

As Qi Zhi of the China Institute of International Strategic Studies noted, "an important part of CIA espionage training is how to make use of NGOs, and indeed some of them have served as the Trojan horses planted in other countries by the CIA."

Shambaugh noted that China's reaction to the color revolutions was one of "alarm, fear, even paranoia." Even simple reporting about the color revolutions in the Chinese media "carried certain risks."

In the wake of the color revolutions, the Chinese government begun scrutinizing foreign NGOs operating in China – both as a result of their role in the color revolutions in Central Asia, and also because Russian President Vladimir Putin warned President Hu Jintao at a 2005 Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting about their subversive impact.

"If you don’t get a grip on them (NGOs), you too will have a color revolution!" Putin was said to have warned Hu.

And to tie in with the overall point made by Shambaugh in his book about how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had atrophied yet adapted, the effect that the color revolutions had on the CCP was said to be similar to that of the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"The events in Central Asia only seemed to renew earlier fears and reinforce the CCP mindset that the U.S. strategy of "peaceful evolution" was alive and well."

China and DPRK

Despite the public proclamations of friendship and solidarity, it is clear that relations between China and North Korea are not all well and rosy.

First is the state of secrecy surrounding their relations.

As David Shambaugh noted, although China’s North Korea watchers “no doubt know more about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea than any other country, they tend not to commit their views to print.” (China’s Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation, Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008)

"A scouring of the literature reveals very little beyond superficial descriptions of North Korea and China-North Korea relations. Even studies by the CCP International Department, which has more extensive interactions with Pyongyang than any other organizations in China, contain no analysis of North Korea, although they do contain an interesting description of party-to-party exchanges between the two sides over half a century."

North Korea is also said to be a "proscribed" topic to write about, even in internal (neibu) publications. The only insights to be gleaned are a few analyses of North Korea's economic reform, which are said to have begun in 2001 with the establishment of some special economic zones and the acceptance of some foreign investment, the abolition of the ration system for certain controlled commodities, some price reform, and the permitting of some small-scale free markets.

Then there is the "disdain, despair and frustration" that China harbors for North Korea.

China often deplored "the sycophantic cult of personality surrounding the Kim dynasty" and is critical of North Korea's family political dynasty, the Stalinist state security, the command economy, the impoverishment of the population, the use of scarce resources for military purposes, the regime’s mass mobilization techniques, and its "autarkic paranoia" about the world beyond its borders.

Some China watchers even went so far as to draw explicit parallels to Maoist China particularly during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They argued that North Korea's only viable option to "avoid national suicide" was to emulate China's reformist example.

To this end, the CCP International Department and other organs have brought a number North Korean delegations involving bureaucrats, managers, economists and officials to China to receive briefings and view China's economic reforms first hand.

Such a form of "economic reform diplomacy" has also involved North Korean leader Kim Jong Il who had made four such visits to China between 2000 and 2006. During the visits, he was taken to China's Silicon Valley in Zhongguancun, agricultural research institutes, the Shanghai skyline, the Three Gorges Dam, the bustling seaport of Yantian in Guangdong, the five-star White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou, and the export-processing Zhuhai and Shenzhen Special Economic Zones.

Qiao Shi's 1989 East European Visit

A riveting account of Qiao Shi's (pictured, be-spectacled) visit to East Europe in 1989 and the rever-berations felt in Beijing thereafter can be found in David Shambaugh’s book China’s Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation (Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008).

Shambaugh wrote that the Chinese media was silent about the events sweeping East Germany in 1989 as well as the Hungarian renunciation of communist rule on 7th October.

In order to examine the situation closer and urge the remaining communist governments in Eastern Europe to “hold the line”, China dispatched Politburo Standing Committee member and internal security/intelligence czar Qiao to assess the situation in Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.

Qiao never made it to Prague because two days into his trip to Bulgaria, the Czech government voted to end the Communist Party’s guaranteed monopoly on power.

"Thereafter, a prolonged period of significant strain emerged in relations between Prague and Beijing as the new Czech government under dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel embraced the causes of Tibetan and Taiwanese independence and became an ardent critic of the CCP.”

However, the centerpiece of Qiao’s trip was said to be Romania. There, he attended the 14th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, and met with the Romanian leader Nicolai Ceausescu, said to be “a longtime and stalwart supporter of the CCP.”

Ceausescu reassured Qiao that sometimes “the party and government of a socialist country must take measures to suppress counterrevolutionary rebellion.”

"Within three weeks, Ceausescu would try to heed his own advice, as demonstrators laid siege of the provincial city of Timisora … On Christmas evening, Romanian (and international) television showed the bloody bodies of Ceausescu and his wife Elena lying in the white snow, having been executed by military forces following a coup d’etat.”

"The image, broadcast around the world on CNN, must have shaken the Chinese leaders to their core,” Shambaugh wrote, though on the surface, “they tried to roll with the punch and adapt to the new circumstances."

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declared the event as an internal matter for Romania and that "China respects the Romanian people’s choice", while President Yang Shangkun and Premier Li Peng sent a telegram of congratulations to their new counterparts.

"Such outward protestations belied, however, the internal alarm felt inside the Zhongnanhai (China’s leadership compound) and outside in Beijing. Chinese leaders responded by tightening security around the capital, setting up roadblocks and checkpoints on all the approaches leading into the center of the city. The tension in Beijing was palpable."

It took one full year before Beijing began to interpret the events in Eastern Europe. Even though Chinese analysts "produced a variegated picture of the multiple reasons" for the collapse of the East European regimes, the immediate assessment pinned the blame on Mikhail Gorbachev. The former Soviet leader was said to have intentionally undermined the East European communist party states, and Jiang Zemin even labeled Gorbachev "a traitor like Trotsky."

It was only during the mid-1990s that more interpretations about the events in Eastern Europe surfaced, and mainly revolved around the following four themes.

1. The deterioration of the economy, high levels of debt, and a poor standard of living.
2. Dictatorships, ruling parties divorced from the populace, and a lack of local-level party building
3. Unions that were not a bridge between the party and the working class; and
4. “Peaceful evolution” efforts by western countries.

China's Communist Party - Atrophy and Adaptation

Bought David Shambaugh’s book China’s Communist Party Atrophy and Adaptation (Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2008) in Hong Kong in March 2009 mainly because 1) I could not agree more with the title and 2) Shambaugh was a former professor.

Probably one of the best books that I have read on the CCP. And I am saying this not because of (2).

The central conclusion of Shambaugh's book is that the CCP is adapting fairly (but not entirely) effectively in meeting many of its challenges, has learned the negative lessons of other failed communist party states, and is "proactively attempting to reform and rebuild itself institutionally – thereby sustaining its political legitimacy and power."

But whether the CCP can continue to make the necessary adaptations and enact the necessary reforms is, in Shambaugh’s words "an open question. So far, so good – but this is no guarantee of continued success."

One way the CCP had adapted was by co-opting the entrepreneurial class into the party. Citing an analysis conducted by Bruce Dickson, Shambaugh noted that the co-optation pre-dated Jiang Zemin's 2001 high-profile speech. Apparently, the policy was experimented with at a sub-national level for some time before being adopted as a national policy.

"In fact, this policy had apparently existed in the late 1980s but was suspended in August 1989," Shambaugh wrote.

Co-opting entrepreneurs is said to be new in China but not to other communist parties. Several East European parties, especially those in Hungary and Romania, had earlier adopted such a policy.

"Even Nikita Khrushchev spoke of making the Soviet Communist Party "a party of the whole people." Such an "inclusionist" tactic, to use Kenneth Jowitt's terminology, is politically astute because if such advanced and progressive classes are not included in the party-state, they are likely to form the basis of external opposition to it. Thus, such a move by the CCP is to be interpreted as a preemptive tactic as much as it is an adaptive one."

Good for the CCP I suppose, especially since both Dickson and Kellee Tsai, author of Capitalism Without Democracy came to the similar conclusion that private entrepreneurs and the emerging middle class “are not going to demand regime change.”

Drawing experience from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CCP attempted to be more flexible and adaptable but while doing so, it "finds itself coping with a constant cycle of reform-readjust-reform-readjust, whereby each set of reforms triggers certain consequences (some expected, others unexpected) that in turn cause readjustments and further reforms."

"It is an inexorable dynamic in which the party is simultaneously proactive and reactive, and is only partially in control of its own fate."

More On Religion in South Korea

Still on religion in South Korea.

University of British Columbia academic Don Baker noted that religious diversity in a handful of countries such as Singapore is mainly a consequence of ethnic diversity, whereby particular ethnic groups tend to identify with one particular religion. For instance, Malays in Singapore tend to be Muslims, while Chinese tend to be Buddhists.

But South Korea is religiously diverse despite being ethnically homogenous. As Baker put it, "I know of no other country where Buddhists and Christians are so close in number." (Transformation of Religion in Modern Korea, in Insight into Korea, Herald Media 2007).

Arguing that Koreans had historically been spiritual, Baker noted that Koreans have been religious "for as long as there have been Koreans."

"For millennia, they have prayed to supernatural personalities for assistance, interacted with spiritual beings through rituals, and engaged in chanting (pictured, Korean shaman), meditation, and other techniques intended to help them overcome the limitations of normal human existence by connecting with some superior presence or force."

"Long before the last decade of the 20th century, well over half of the Korean population regularly engaged in religious behavior. Koreans have not become religious only in recent decades. However, the way Koreans are religious has changed."

These changes have mainly been due to the country's encounter with Christianity, such as the introduction of proselytizing by Protestants "on a scale, and with an intensity" that Korea had never seen before.

A Brief History of Religion in South Korea

In the 2005 South Korean census, over half of the population 15 years and above claimed to be either Buddhists or Christians.

Not only did the two religious traditions spread into Korea from elsewhere, Christianity was not even present in Korea a little over two centuries ago but now accounts for about 30 per cent of claimed religious adherence, noted anthropologist James H. Grayson in an article titled Korea's Religious Traditions: Analytical Overview (Insight into Korea, Herald Media 2007).

For those who claim to have no religion, most of them were "participants in the traditional (folk) religious practices of the country". This group of people, according to Grayson, would not consider themselves adherents of any religion because a "religion" is "a visible organization with institutionalized practices, such as an order of Buddhism or a Christian domination."

"That the customary religious practices of the nation are not considered to be a "religion" may reflect the traditional Confucian view that both Buddhist and shamanistic practices are pernicious," Grayson wrote.

Other statistics cited by Grayson suggested that while the growth of both Buddhism and Protestantism had declined in recent decades, there had been an increased in the number of Catholics. The increase came mainly from those who had earlier declared themselves to be non-adherents of any religion.

Giving a broad historical overview of religion in Korea, Grayson noted that the period before the fifth century is the pre-Buddhist era, a period "when the primal religion existed on its own."

This was followed by a second era from the fifth to the 14th centuries where Buddhist art, philosophy and religious practices predominated.

The Joseon (or Chosun) Dynasty (1392 – 1910) "represents the pinnacle of Confucian influence, an era in which attempts were made both to create a model Confucian society and to eradicate Buddhism and other "superstitious" practices." This was done by limiting the number of monks, nuns and temples, as well as 16th century attempts to totally eradicate Buddhism. The move had so incapacitated the religion that it did not recover from the ordeal well into the 20th century.

Catholicism began to make its presence felt as early as the 16th century. But from 1800, Catholics experienced severe persecutions, due mainly to their refusal to participate in jesa (or ancestral) rites, seen by the Confucian establishment as a symbol of filial piety and correctness, and to Catholics as idolatrous.

Protestantism, on the other hand, surfaced in Korea before foreign missionaries arrived in 1884. Its missions comprised mainly of American Methodist and Presbyterian, with an initial focus on institutional work such as schools, clinics and hospitals.

The last century is the post-Confucian era, a time when Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity "has had a tremendous impact on the culture of the day – even contributing to the redevelopment of Buddhism."

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly since this trend can also be observed in other Asian societies, religious adherence and cultural influence are not identical in Korea. For example, someone who identifies himself or herself as a Christian may also be very "Confucian" in his or her outlook.