Sinobabble

The discourse on feminism in the Nanjing decade isn’t just a simple narrative, it actually takes the form of a debate between two camps. There are those who believe that women were champions of the feminist movement, through their various publications, groups, and activist movements, and those who believe that the women’s movement was essentially co-opted simultaneously by the commercial industry for profit, the government for greater control over society, and the disenfranchised male intelligentsia for their own political gain.

The debate is quite an intriguing one, and is also wrapped up in other social and political developments taking place at the time, such as the development (or lack thereof) of a democratic movement, the launch of Chiang Kai-Shek’s New Life Movement, and the growth in competition in the newspaper and magazine industry.

In this episode we try and get to the bottom of who was in control of the women's movement, and who really decided what the 'new woman' was supposed to look like and how she was supposed to act.

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In March 2018, at a meeting of the 2,980 delegates of the National People’s Congress, a vote was passed to abolish the two-term limit on the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the People’s Republic of China. The ten year limit, which has been in place for almost 30 years, was initially put in place by Deng Xiaoping ostensibly to prevent the building up of a cult of personality that heavily contributed to the tragedies perpetrated under Mao Zedong’s leadership. While the title of President of China has been considered largely ceremonial in the past, and some politicians such as Deng Xiaoping have managed to hold power without such a title, this change to the constitution has been understood to be monumental across the board.

While this change could well be considered a ‘step backwards’ for China’s politics and governance, I don’t think it should be considered so unexpected or even so drastic a move. It could even be considered a return to tradition. In this video I want to look at the following questions: What exactly gave rise to this motion, and why, with only the smallest of resistance, was it passed? How big of a role does Xi’s cult of personality play? And Is Xi really the new emperor of China? To answer these questions, we first need to understand how China has been ruled in the past, and how this pattern of governance has influenced present day China. Let’s put the decision to end Presidential term limits in China in its historical context.

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In this week’s episode we’re returning to the Nanjing decade, the period of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist rule from 1927-1937, to discuss the development of the creative sphere at the time. In this episode we’ll talk about how art, literature, and film evolved and try to understand what the major themes and trends of the period were, as well as trying to determine the extent of political influence on artistic endeavours. It’s going to be a pretty long one, but I think it’s a little less name-and-fact heavy than previous episodes, and focuses more on analysis and style, so hopefully it’s a bit more of an easy listen.

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In this episode, we try and understand the formula used by the CCP to manage and quell the roughly 180,000 local protests that spring up across the territory every year. What does the resolution of the demonstrations in Wukan village in 2011 tell us about the Chinese Communist Party's methods of control and appeasement? Can this model be applied to the situation currently unfolding in Hong Kong?

This is the final episode in the Hong Kong Extradition Protests mini-series. Don't forget to listen to the previous episode if you haven't already in order to understand the full context of the protests!

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In this week's episode I speak to a local Hong Kong protester and a friend from mainland China to gain a wider perspective on the meaning behind the protests and the future of Hong Kong.

This conversation was recorded two weeks ago, so it focuses mainly on the July 1st stroming of the legislative council and the impact that it has had on the movement as a whole. Hopefully in the next episode I can focus a bit more on the more recent developments with a bit more nuance as to how the Chinese Communist Party deals with unrest in general, by comparing the situation in Hong Kong with that of another protest with which I'm quite familiar, that of Wukan.

I will get back to covering the history of China as soon as I can, however I feel that as I live in Hong Kong I am quite well placed to give some  explanation as to what's happening here. Don't forget to listen to the previous episode if you haven't already in order to understand the full context of the protests!

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The protests in Hong Kong escalated on the 1st of July when a small group of protesters broke away from the larger, main protest, and chose to storm the legislative council building on Hong Kong Island. For me, this change in the nature of opposition to the extradition bill brought to mind the following question: do the people who are denouncing the protests have a point?

In the previous episode on the Hong Kong Extradition protests, I gave the historical background to both the protests and the general anti-mainland sentiment that exists in Hong Kong society, and that has arguably been growing as Beijing’s influence continues to grow. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet I highly suggest you do so, as it provides a lot of the context for this episode. I tried to maintain an objective stance and stick to the facts, but even I noticed that there was probably more of a pro-protest lean throughout the podcast, largely due to the sources that I used to help me put it together. 

In this episode, we're turning to the other side of the isle to answer a different set of questions. What does Beijing have to say about the recent Hong Kong Protests? Do mainlanders support the Hong Kong people, or do they think they're ungrateful? What does local support for the amendment bill look like?

In this week's episode we talk about opposition to the protests in Hong Kong. We look at three perspectives: Beijing government, mainland Chinese people, and local Hong Kongers. There is a lot more disagreement than meets the eye, especially if you only read Western or English language news sources. Don't forget to listen to the previous episode if you haven't already in order to understand the full context of the protests!

Al Jazeera video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_SpMS8Mwg  

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On Sunday 9th June 2019 at 2:30pm starting at Victoria Park between the neighbourhoods of Tin Hau and Wan Chai, around 1 million Hong Kong residents took to the streets in possibly the biggest protest the territory had ever seen. They were protesting the implementation of an amendment to the preexisting Fugitive Offenders Ordinance and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Ordinance, known as the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill, but it’s mostly commonly known as the extradition bill for short. They objected to what they saw as an overreach by the mainland Chinese government, a threat to human rights and freedom of speech in Hong Kong, and they demanded that the bill be retracted and the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, step down.

After a silent march of thousands of lawyers opposing the bill took place on the 6th of June,  public outrage finally reached boiling point on sunday 9th June, and after much planning and speculations of a turnout in the 100s of thousands, an all day march down the main roads of the Island saw families, students, old and young turn out to protest the bill.

Why is it that this particular bill has caused such feelings to rise up in the people of Hong Kong, and caused events to escalate to where they are now? Why are people in the international community seeking to protect Hong Kong’s special status, and clamouring to show their solidarity with Hong Kong protesters both online and in person? In truth, the protests over the extradition bill cannot be viewed in isolation, but must be understood within the context of Hong Kong’s relationship with China, and the development of an independent and unique Hong Kong identity that can be traced back to the 1840s. In this episode, I’d like to try and trace the roots of that identity, and try and explain why protests over the extradition bill reflect not only the fears of so many Hong Kong people, but also their determination to fight for what remains of their freedom and independence. To do that we’re first going to go back in time one hundred years or so, to see how Hong Kong became so unique in its identity and character, and how relations with the mainland have been shaped by what happened leading up to 1997.

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A new series in which I introduce some of the themes of modern China scholarship, research, and journalism, and explain these broader themes using a couple of example articles each episode.

In this episode, we look at Chinese government regulation and control of entertainment and leisure using the examples of celebrity culture and prostitution. The two articles I’ve chosen to look at are from completely different sources, but are both really well researched. The first is a research report that was published in the most recent issue of the China Quarterly, which is pretty much the most outstanding China journal out there. It’s titled Truth, Good and Beauty: The Politics of Celebrity in China by Jonathan Sullivan and Séagh Kehoe. The second article was published in the latest issues of the Made in China Journal, which is an open access online quarterly journal, and is titled The Plight of Sex Workers in China: From Criminalisation and Abuse to Activism by Tiantian Zheng.(https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/04/18/the-plight-of-sex-workers-in-china%EF%BB%BF-from-criminalisation-and-abuse-to-activism/)

Both the celebrity entertainment industry and prostitution - organised or otherwise - are viewed by the government as having a huge influence on the social fabric of society. In both these cases, The Chinese government is working  to mitigate the negative effects of the leisure industry on the population through official administrative channels that use a range of means that can sometimes border on coercion. These topics are linked as they both reflect the Chinese government’s moral panic and their way of thinking about and dealing with social influences that originate outside of the government or Communist Party. They both also touch on issues of activism in slightly different ways.

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The Nanjing Decade is the period from 1928 to 1937 that saw Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist rule over a semi-unified China, allowing for the blossoming of new trends in science, literature, art, and culture that were brought to an abrupt halt with the invasion of Japan in 1937.

This episode is the first in a series of episodes on the Nanjing decade, and discusses developments in academia, including natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, medicine and journalism. It gives an overview of the intellectual sphere, looks at government involvement in science and journalism, and highlights key figures in the development of new academic fields in China including Hu Shi, Gu Jiegang, and Fei Xiaotong. We will also talk about the influence of foreign nations on China, particularly Japan, the US, and European nations such as Britain, Germany, and France.

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This episode picks up exactly where we left off in the previous episode, with Chiang Kai-shek battling with the Nationalist left and the communists for control over the revolution to overthrow the warlords and establish a unified Chinese government. This episode covers the period 1927 to 1934, we sees the KMT reunite after splitting with the Communists once and for all, and Chiang Kai-shek develop and obsession with defeating the Communists and erasing them from existence. We also see how the Communist leadership eventually comes round to the idea that the peasants may well be the future of the revolution, but unfortunately this realisation comes too late for the fledgling movement, which is forced to flee its base after being surrounded by Chiang, launching the Long March to their new base in the Northwest of China.

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