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CHINA: Book Release Stirs Resentment
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING, Apr 21 (IPS) - At first it was nothing out of the ordinary. A book intriguingly titled ‘China Is Not Happy’ was expected to generate a buzz because it claimed to detail the world’s most populous nation and aspiring superpower’s resentment of foreign abuses.
But, the book appears to have struck a cord with Chinese readers on a level
that it was perhaps not intended to. In a surprising twist, the volume - which
set out to arouse national indignation at foreign powers’ treatment of China -
has burst open the Chinese people’s grievances with their own government.
Waves of commentary have filtered out of cyberspace and into the pages of
some state-sanctioned media.
"Outwardly this is a book about patriotism," said commentator Chang Ping in
the liberal Southern Weekend newspaper. "The problem is that it does not
help China solve its problems by revealing them. On the opposite, it wants
China to succeed by hating other countries and by castigating Chinese people
that like other countries."
But, "Indeed, how can Chinese people be happy?" asked Chang. "Their
children drink poisoned milk and get kidney stones; husbands go
underground to dig coal and get buried there; petitioners who line up to
complain are sent to mental hospitals. Meanwhile, even the cigarettes smoked
by public officials cost a fortune."
Among the book’s defendants are some who are perceived as proponents of
government views. Veteran journalist Xiong Lei - who after retiring from the
official Xinhua News Agency now works as a council member for the China
Society for Human Rights Studies - argued that the book could be seen as an
expression of China’s dissatisfaction with the current unfair world order.
"People certainly have the right to be unhappy with such inequity," she wrote
in the official China Daily. "It is understandable too, that some people
demand reform of the existing political and economic systems of our global
village."
"The book ‘China Is Not Happy’ is only valuable for its title," contends Song
Shinan, a blogger based in Sichuan province where last year a devastating
earthquake buried thousands of children in the debris of shoddily built
school buildings. "All the 340,000 words in the book should be removed and
replaced with only these five characters printed on the cover... These five
characters will inevitably resonate with the absolute majority of the Chinese
population."
The list of unhappy people provided by Song reads like an almanac of China’s
social groups. They include children trafficked for slave labour, prisoners
killed in detention from torture, migrant workers deprived of jobs, college
students left unemployed, intellectuals accused of crimes because of their
speech, and "all those Chinese people who quietly cry at night because they
have been humiliated or injured." Yes, China is unhappy, he concludes.
The communist party, which has held power since 1949 faces a swell of
popular discontent over rampant corruption, income disparity and its failure
to prevent children’s deaths in last year’s Sichuan earthquake, and the
scandalous cover up of contaminated infant milk formula that has poisoned
over 300,000 babies.
Oct. 1 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of communist China. Jun. 4
brings the 20th anniversary of pro-democracy students’ demonstrations in
Tiananmen Square and their violent suppression.
The inward criticism of China’s problems generated by the book was perhaps
not the foremost result the book’s authors had hoped for. Although they do
vent their ire at targets at home, the authors’ biggest scorn however is
reserved for the outside world’s unfair treatment of China.
A collection of loosely linked essays, ‘China Is Not Happy’ takes off from
where a 1996 runaway nationalist bestseller ‘China Can Say No’ left off. Both
are written by a group of intellectuals and academics that describe
themselves as speakers for the emboldened Chinese public – daring to
criticise and demand from its government.
While the first book was written as an outburst of anger against the West in
the aftermath of the NATO bombing of China’s embassy in Yugoslavia, the
second one is released as a reflection on the problems encountered by China
in its year of Olympic triumph.
The book contends that protests that marred Beijing’s Olympics last year
testify to a continuing foreign disdain for China while the foreign "ghosts"
behind the riots in Tibetan capital Lhasa in March 2008 show the extent of
the country’s "strategic encirclement by the Western world."
Liu Yang, one of the authors, argues that China "must not let the United
States kidnap the world" and rebukes Chinese reformers for "blindly following
the American model" instead of blazing China’s own path.
"These foreign slaves have not only transformed Chinese economy into an
American appendage, they have themselves become American dependents,"
he writes.
Another one of the writers, Song Qiang, advocates that China should "hold up
its sword" as this is the only way to build a strong nation. China should
bravely protect international security as a way of clearing a path towards
becoming a superpower, Song said.
The binding element of the book is a brand of disgruntled nationalism,
preaching that Beijing should start wielding its clout abroad more forcefully
and reject any kinds of intellectual soul-searching that distracts it from
achieving the "big goal" of becoming a superpower.
Unhappy or not, the book’s authors are certainly not displeased with its sales
record. Already in its eighth edition since release in mid-March, ‘China Is Not Happy’ is reported to have sold about half a million copies. (END/2009)
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