Why is Roland Soong attacking some Beijing professor who has been seized by the police?
Perhaps he does not fully understand that the problem is the regular processing of enumerated, defined crimes with oversight features versus a system allowing political actors to seize those with whom they have conflicts, without oversight. That’s the real issue here.
When you go to the police station and no one tells you anything, then its not a legal system. It doesn’t matter whether the particular individual is a sinner or a saint. Let me say that again: The overall culpability or savorability of the individual should not have any bearing on the individual’s legal rights. The ones held by all people; the ones called natural rights.
There are legal detentions for enumerated, defined crimes. And then there is China Justice today. We will look for improvement where we can, and oh, I do.
Even the prison machines in New York and LA don’t disappear people, at least not yet. By contrast, people disappear in China, at least temporarily, i.e. weeks at a time. (Although at this point I would like to note that I have been planning a post talking about political violence (or murder, as its otherwise known) which will attack the US and the West much more than China. China has been relatively good in that regard, at least. Bodies don’t turn up regularly, and you know how that can be such a bummer.)
Roland is a saint when it comes to the China-sphere. He departs more information to more people than probably anyone, within this niche. It would be wrong to directly criticize such an individual, after all of his sacrifices on our behalf, and on behalf of the world and of knowledge.
But why has Roland Soong found an old article criticizing this professor, and put it out there, alone, to directly refute the (probably false) implications he reads (and probably correctly) in the Western media reports. Do I believe the allegations in the article? Should I trust it? Roland is entering the debate with a document that may or may not be reliable, and I doubt he can vouch for it, although as a practical manner he already has, by putting it out there. And I think that was a mistake.
I do not know how you trust Sina, who it appears in the publisher of the article, to such an extent. There is, frankly, no free press in China, and its rather a joke to claim otherwise.
We live in a society that makes up lies. That is not rhetorical; there are offices with the purpose of making up lies. Roland knows that; hell he freaking exposed that to the entire world. And this great man, who has done so much for so many, has stood tall in the face of all the confusion through the years, from incident to accident and back, in the middle of all of the disinformation.
But this is not right, and not helpful.
Indeed, having digested this for a bit, it is laughable, really funny, that a well-educated individual would be seized by the authorities on the word of some peddlers from wherever. Some country bumpkins went and told the Beijing police about how they were treated so awfully and how their carts were damaged. Heh that is really hilarious; in the real world those cops would tell the migrants to piss off faster than you can say any random three characters that come to mind. Unless one was on life support at the hospital, which still won’t happen because the local ambulances and hospitals won’t want to deal with them.
Man, the more I consider the likelihood of that story being true the more absurd it seems.
*******************
Evan Osnos and his editor made a related, but more subtle, error, some time ago that I noticed, but it wasn’t clear enough to call them on it (I considered it). The fourth paragraph of a very solid post begins:
Xu has never set out to undermine one-party rule; he is enforcing rights guaranteed in the Chinese Constitution.
Xu was not charged at the time, and hence the particulars about his case were not known. This sentence, while powerful and useful, is (intentionally, in all likelihood) misplaced, as it assumes the stance of the authorities. It is as if the relative of the accused said, ‘he didn’t stab the victim’; well, he might have shot the victim, or maybe he had a argument with some street vendors and that is what this is all about. Right.
The real purpose of this sentence was to convey a fairly simple meaning, such as ‘this is a political arrest’ or ‘he isn’t a criminal’, and yet somehow presumes that the problem is that innocent people get seized. The paragraph goes on to make perfectly clear why he has earned such attention from the authorities, i.e. for his political activities.
“I went to the police station, but they refused to tell me anything.” That sentence should make your hair stand on end, regardless of the individual involved. For this is the edge of a chasm from which a society might not return for 2 generations or more.
And Chinese people know that. They remember that.
Now this is all highly pedantic. But the problem is not precisely that innocent people get seized.
The problem is that there is no defined legal process that cannot be warped. The problem is party (political) exceptionalism. The national level wants it, and that opens up the localities to exploit it.
More on this last point soon.
[Note: Soon after the first post Roland posted a second time with more links and perhaps a fuller or more objective picture of this professor. However, and even though I do make a big point about the veracity of this Sina article and it's presentation in this post, the core issue I arrive at here is that the focus should be on the nature and timing, or more generally, the legality of the arrest and detention of the individual, rather than about his character, and hence I feel the piece stands up, despite these minor problems.
Pretty horrible people have their civil rights violated. And we should work that this outcome does not occur regularly, believe it or not, so that you will not have your character attacked while the police illegally arrest and detain you.]
In the case of this Beijing professor, Roland Soong posted many articles which showed the professor in a positive light, and only one article which attacked him. I don’t see how Soong’s including this one article from the government’s side is “entering the debate” or “attacking” this professor. Soong’s blog puts up translations of all kinds of reports and they often directly contradict one another. This is not entering the debate. This is presenting the debate that is already going on. Moreover, he introduced the government-mouthpiece article with “And now, for your edification . . . ,” which is clearly tongue-in-cheek and shows that Soong himself doesn’t take the article seriously. Perhaps you misread “for your edification” as being sincere? I’m a native speaker of English and every time I’ve read “for your edification” it’s been obvious to me that the author was being sarcastic.
Hello Henry:
Thank you for your comment. Glad to have your input.
When I went to the page, there was precisely one article linked to provide background on the professor, which of course was the link attacking the professor that I then linked to in my piece. (This is still intact as the first post by Roland on the subject.) Further, there was no evidence at that time that Roland planned to provide more links, and another complete post, later.
I posted this perhaps two days later, and in doing so went back to the same page. I noticed at that time that Roland had added additional links, but as my post was written, I did not change anything, nor did I review those links. If you can answer my question for you below, you will see why changing my post was unnecessary.
I do not for a second doubt Roland’s intentions or his goals. The man seeks truth; there is no higher compliment I could give to anyone. I hope my post is quite clear on this point.
If I feel someone is dishonest I have no qualms about attacking them mercilessly. This is not such a case by any means.
Now, to get down to brass tacks, Henry, can you see how your comment is immaterial to my main point? Can you see how all the background on the professor is also similarly immaterial?
And, having done a quick review of the page, I find that Roland Soong is indeed attacking this professor, without a shadow of a doubt, Henry. These are Roland’s words from the very end of his first post on the topic, which I mention in my first comment:
This is Roland’s opinion that he is sharing with us. And its irrelevant to the real issue at hand, and indeed is highly unhelpful, as I assert in the post.
And, as if to make the excellence of his nature beyond reproach, Roland has provided a link to this very post.
I stand by all the statements made above. Law school teaches you to ignore the emotional. The position or character of the individual is of no moment to the actual issue and actual problem at hand.
I stand corrected, as I didn’t initially notice that Soong posted his own comments after the articles. However, I also think it’s important to remember that Soong is a media scholar. Thus, he focuses on how the media is viewed and what symbolic effect it is having. His point is to say that the Western media loses credibility with Chinese people when it reports on China based on hasty assumptions. These hasty assumptions consistently reflect the usual Western stereotypes about China. The Western media might gain the respect of Chinese people if its reports coincided more with the daily reality of actual Chinese people. That is not to say that the Western media should refrain from criticizing the Chinese government when called for. However, it should also show the complexity of each situation and present all credible evidence from both sides.
There indeed seems to be a lot of evidence that Ding Xiaoping has greatly exaggerated his own credentials. Moreover, most of the Western media articles about Ding Xiaoping imply that he was arrested for political reasons and don’t even mention his altercation with the street vendors. While politics may very well play a role in this, it is not certain that this is the main cause, so it is unfair for those articles to completely ignore the other events which led to his arrest.
Speaking hypothetically now, even if the Western media reports were spot-on, I think that Soong is more interested in how Chinese people will perceive these reports, since it is primarily up to Chinese people to change their own country. If these reports only stir up nationalism then that is quite interesting because it shows the limits of Western reporting in foreign countries as a force for positive change in those countries. The Western media may indeed be “fighting the good fight” but what are the concrete effects of their reports? And to what extent should the concrete effects dictate the nature of the reports? And what effect would more balanced Western reporting of China have on China? These are important questions for anyone who cares about China’s future.
Henry:
Hello again, no worries on the issue above. I, also, did not initially notice that part going right after Ding, (which once upon a time would have been highly unusual for Soong, but now these days is not terribly surprising), as it is at the bottom of that long post, including the magazine article.
You make some interesting points, while I believe missing or at least failing to acknowledge the critical legal issues here. But, let me follow your points:
His point is to say that the Western media loses credibility with Chinese people when it reports on China based on hasty assumptions. The Western media might gain the respect of Chinese people if its reports coincided more with the daily reality of actual Chinese people.
The Western media sucks big time, and I don’t even know what we can do about it any more other than keep screaming about how most of them are blathering no-nothings or idiotic navel-gazers. As a group, they are lazy in their work, we see that time and time again. NYTs will quote a commenter on some site in China somewhere as evidence of the themes in their pieces (because the themes make the pieces easier to finish).
More generally, the dominant ideology in the West is crumbling, and this is why the old complaints about why China’s system is less perfect or less efficient or what have you are becoming rather hollow. For years the West had a simple rule called exceptionalism, which meant that what they did was ignored, while what other nations did was the most hugest problem ever in the history of the universe.
This is where Chomsky is so important, to show us how the Contras could operate with such savagery using US dollars while everyone back in the States got to feel great about themselves. I well remember the self-congratulations all through the 80s and 90s, while we spread torture throughout Latin and South America. And I am well-versed in the other story, the one involving arms and war and deep, deep corruption throughout society.
There indeed seems to be a lot of evidence that Ding Xiaoping has greatly exaggerated his own credentials. Moreover, most of the Western media articles about Ding Xiaoping imply that he was arrested for political reasons and don’t even mention his altercation with the street vendors.
Give me 2 k US and I will have multiple complaints about an attack with a chair filed against a single person by the end of the week. With photos of the wound and multiple witnesses who all are ready and willing to tell the story. And every complainant will be straight from the countryside.
The information is a red herring, and it acts to excuse (possibly) another example of China justice gone wild and to avoid unfortunate truths. It is, literally, to bless the arrest as ok because of the bad character of the professor.
I think that Soong is more interested in how Chinese people will perceive these reports.
So he finds an old article and posts it on his English weblog? I am not sure, was this unearthed and linked to from another site first? That would make a difference in regards to this point of yours.
The Western media may indeed be “fighting the good fight” but what are the concrete effects of their reports?
The Western media is unmoored and is not fighting any good fight. But Roland, to combat the lousy Western press, has seemingly backed into the arms of the state controlled Chinese media (and I watch my adjectives carefully, this is the correct adjective), where everyone is afraid because there are no clear rules and anyone can be sent off to jail at any time.
There is a reason that Soong once kept himself strictly objective, without inserting himself into debates. Bright-line rules often are the best way to ensure critical goals are met. Once he lets his own feeling bleed in, the reliability of his work is slowly degraded. This is effectively a slippery-slope argument, and i am afraid recently Roland has gone some distance down this wrong path.
What I believe Roland has to remember is that he cannot know which part of the China media is legitimate and which is junk, because the political interests just wield too much power over the industry.
Look, you are holding a puppet by its strings. I have seen you, in the past, pull those strings to get the puppet to move. Perhaps, just suppose, I have also seen that puppet move independently at another time. But that does not matter. You are holding the strings, and the puppet is moving. I cannot trust that the puppet is moving independently. Once you show me that you can wield that power, I no longer can trust that you are not doing so.
As for this underlying case of the professor, I really don’t have any idea. It is, theoretically, possible that this is all about some peddlers, but that is pretty far-fetched. Its also possible that this is straight politics. Its also possible that there are real charges here, but the political nature of the individual then meant the government feels the need to deal with otherwise normal charges in a political way.
Its also possible that a noted dissident will be denied things like business licenses or otherwise hindered in some way. And it is definitely possible that 20 years of always being worried that the shadow police are about to descend on you might just make you a little bit idiosyncratic.
“More generally, the dominant ideology in the West is crumbling,…”
You know, ranting like this, while offering absolutely no support for your statements, makes you look like an idiot. Are you?
Some advice—please re-read what you have written before posting here, edit carefully, and do your best to produce coherent prose. Our readers will appreciate it.
“Red herring” is “something that draws attention away from the central issue.” Well, the central issue of Roland’s post isn’t for a second the justice system of China. If he wants to make that a issue he wouldn’t post on Ding Xiaoping,,because there are thousands more typical and mor interesting cases on that. Actually there ARE interesting cases like that on his blog. I wonder who is really red herring here.
“Once he lets his own feeling bleed in, the reliability of his work is slowly degraded.”…Well, there is this Max Webber saying that you can methodologically value-free, but you cannot be valueless. And what’s Roland’s ‘value’? Though he keeps strictly from letting it in his posts, it’s not hard to guess, at least for me.
Is Roland not aware that Chinese justice system is a shit? Should he be taught a lesson on LAW that “the overall culpability or savorability of the individual should not have any bearing on the individual’s legal rights”? I don’t think so. Because he is not talking the holy LAW here. Aren’t there some other interesting topics that deserve a talk?
I don’t know why you dismissed Sina.com as an unreliable source merely on the grounds that it’s in china. It simply acts like any other news source except for anything that’s politically sensitive, where, exposing Ding as a charlatan is not.
Zardoz:
Piss off home, wanker. ‘Our’ readers will appreciate it.
Alex:
What, then, is the point of Roland’s post? He links to the story of the protests, and then links to the hit piece on Ding. What, pray tell, is the point of the post if not to vilify Ding and cast doubt on the intelligence and sanity of the student protesters?
Lex:
You presume to know which Sina articles have been dictated by political actors and which are not. I am sorry, I do not believe you can assume that. As I say in my comment above, once I know the government holds the strings and has made the puppet move before, I no longer can believe that the puppet moved by itself.
I am sorry, but if the government wants to treat the media like their external propaganda department, then they do not get to point to the objective reporting of the media.
You can’t degrade the honesty of the organization and then still champion its objectivity.
What is the point of Roland’s post? Well, I suggest you reread Henry’s second post. Especially the first several sentences: “Soong is a media scholar. Thus, he focuses on how the media is viewed and what symbolic effect it is having. His point is to say that the Western media loses credibility with Chinese people when it reports on China based on hasty assumptions.”
One can make the point that western media make a wrong story about Ding based on Ding’s ‘real character’ while acknowledge that ‘character’ should not interfere with legal process without contradicting oneself.
“once I know the government holds the strings and has made the puppet move before, I no longer can believe that the puppet moved by itself.”
Well, you are aware the theory that all commercial media is not free from ‘money’, right? So how can you trust any media if basically everyone of them is or has potential to be puppet of money?
Alex:
Now that I have more time, let me first go back to a couple points in your first comment, and then I will talk about your second comment.
First of all, I do not know why Soong chose to write about Ding. He decided to post about the news of the arrest and protest and decided to provide some background about Ding (it turns out the link was first used by NYT, not Soong). Again, that background distracts from the real issue, i.e. whether the arrest was for political purposes. Was it or not? Well, now the water is nice and muddy isn’t it, as we debate whether Ding is a good or bad person. Which is not debating whether he was arrested for political reasons rather than in the normal process of law.
Shall anyone deny that Beijing has in fact rounded up a lot of people recently? The C 08 people, the human rights lawyers, and anyone else who is deemed ‘a danger’. Is this context not relevant to this story? Is the opinion of the students (that Ding has been arrested for political reasons) not relevant?
Yes, the Western media seems to paint Ding in a particular light, that may well not be true. But attacking Ding’s character, (which Soong most certainly did) is not the appropriate response. How about maintaining objectivity and creating a post with a number of links to different articles about Ding, and mildly point out that the Western spin might not fit well with the picture of Ding that can be gleaned from a number of sources?
[I note that Soong works hard and clearly works fast. He doesn't seem to have time to over-analyze events, and just reacts, which of course creates the chance of perhaps making a mistake while providing us with more information and analysis. This, however, cannot excuse his personal attacks on Ding, when I daresay Soong has zero personal knowledge about the Ding.]
In addition, you state that:
And what’s Roland’s ‘value’? Though he keeps strictly from letting it in his posts, it’s not hard to guess, at least for me.
It seems that you are asserting that Roland keeps his opinions out of his posts. In general, for a long time, that was true. It is not now, and as I mentioned in a comment above, in this post Roland tells us directly what he thinks: Roland thinks Ding is the best-known charlatan in China.
Roland does not even try to hide his personal opinion here, but on the other hand, he also does not inform us about why he has come to such an opinion. Is his opinion based purely on the Sina article? Does he have some other personal knowledge about Ding? We don’t know, as we just get a flat (and harsh) opinion without any context.
To finish off your first post, I believe Roland is well-aware of many of the problems of China’s legal structure and systems. He is not a lawyer, and does not generally cover legal matters unless they become media stories.
However, he should definitely refrain from attacking people without personal knowledge of them, and he should understand that the general character or reputation of an individual is not highly relevant when the real problem is illegal arrests and detentions (which might be the case here). The students felt that the arrest was arbitrary, and the police were not able to assure them, and they were protesting as a result. That is the news story. The next step would be to look for information from the government about the arrest, rather than background info to ‘prove’ that Ding is just too greasy or something, and therefore whatever the State does to him is just fine. We needn’t ask whether the government is acting reasonably or in accordance with law, because Ding is just a scumbag. Who cares what charges the police come up with? He is just a bad guy and that is the end of the story.
Now, hopefully I have addressed all your points from the first comment, so let me approach your second comment:
Yes, Western media loses credibility when it reports on China with hasty assumptions, that is certainly true. Actually the Western media has lost a lot of credibility recently for a lot of good reasons. But that doesn’t make the Sina article true, and even the allegations contained in the Sina article do not make a clear case of criminality. In other words, the article is highly prejudicial without being relevant to the question of whether the arrest of Ding was legal or not. But the failings of Western media do not make Chinese media honest or reliable.
Finally, to your issue about commercial media. Its a good point, and a serious problem for the West, although once upon a time the news departments of the media companies were supposed to be kept far away from the commercial side. Legally, one important change that facilitated the rise of these huge media companies was the breakdown of the early barriers on media concentration. When I was young, media companies were much smaller and more limited, and I believe it was illegal for one media entity to own more than one media outlet in an area. I would like to see these restrictions brought back, and I suppose I can go farther and say I wouldn’t mind government intervention to break up these media conglomerates.
The quote of mine you use refers to China government control of media entities. They do tell Sina what to publish and what not to publish; this is not debatable. Again, I feel strongly that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to control the media, that’s fine, its your country. I personally don’t think it is wise, but it is not my decision.
However, once you show me that you are willing to control the media to that extent, to tell them what they can report on and what they must bury, to even possibly directly edit the copy, well why would I ever trust these media entities? How shall I distinguish between the real and fake? Lex thinks that is should be clear but I do not agree, but in fact this case, which might involve a person with a political background (if I can put it that way) involved in a civil or criminal incident, shows how fuzzy that political/non-political line is.
Finally, to be honest, I do not trust any of these entities at all, unless I can verify through other sources. I know a lot about the tricks of the Western media, and know what I can take away and what is crap. Indy media is good, of course, but today there are other sources that do not quite fit the old models. I try to read widely and get a number of views to create a clearer picture. I try my best to understand what is really going on, and that’s all we can do.
It would be nice to have a reliable source that really could be trusted, but we live in highly-unstable times (link omitted), and just have to muddle through. In the US the models are changing, and good writers and analysts are finding they can build audiences. Let’s see where it all goes.
In China, I really feel for media workers. It must be scary sometimes. That pressure has to take a toll, I would think.
Look, I just want a more stable world. All this uncertainty and extra-legal activity is destabilizing.
Great quote in ESWNs post, from the NYT:
Well, that settles everything.
At the Cat’s Eye Forum, there is a famous post entitled “China’s Most Awesome Person: Professor Ding Xiaoping.” This page was first posted on March 5, 2006. This page has several million page views. As of September 24, 2009, it has 1,774 pages of comments with 26,610 individual comments. As such, this is one of the longest running and most celebrated posts in the history of the Chinese Internet. To put it bluntly, Ding Xiaoping is the best known charlatan in mainland China today. When he spoke of his doctorate degrees at American universities, one was with the AEU and the other was with the online correspondence entity known as the Dallas Baptist University which does not even offer a doctorate degree; when he spoke of his doctorate degree at the Chinese Medical Science University, it turned out that no one by the name of Ding Xiaoping had ever received a doctorate there so he said that he had obtained a doctorate while using a pseudonym which he obviously cannot publish at this time … Now it would appear that some western media would like to promote Ding Xiaoping as the latest pro-democracy hero-martyr. When the Chinese netizens read these western media reports, they are keeling over with laughter.
Here is the complete quote. I don’t think the Cat’s Eye Forum portion is irrelevant here.
“Roland tells us directly what he thinks” … “Roland does not even try to hide his personal opinion”
After all it is his blog. He have every right to do so.
Very wise of him not to allow comments otherwise he would have to spend all day entertaining opinionated people like you (and me)
Ben:
Ok, if you feel it is useful.
F:
Heh good one.
Actually, Roland was consistently objective for a long time, and was very careful about maintaining that objectivity. Recently, for whatever reason, that has changed quite a bit.
Had this not been the case, it would be (as I think you imply) not notable that he was giving his opinions.
That was not a personal attack, and that was not Roland’s personal opinion. That was actually a true description of his character, or what majority of Chinese people know him as. There are really shameless people like that in China, where they brag and make ridiculous lie all day and still have followers that think they are wise and knowledgeable. If you actually hang around the Chinese internet sphere long enough, you will see plenty of posts and internet news articles exposing his ridiculous (and sometimes funny) acts of boasting about his academic prestige or his abilities. These are not posts made by the government, since he was never really an activist. These are posts made by normal people. (Well, if you still want to be extremely paranoid, then there is no way that I can convince you, since you can just disregard everything on the internet as well-planned government propaganda, including netizen’s criticism of the government which you can find in almost every forum.)
What should he include? I suppose you think that presenting the mainstream opinion of Chinese people are useless and not important. Yeah, add more pieces from the western media, (which I would not exactly call “free” since they are also completely or partly owned by people from political parties,) that are like the exact same copies from each other, contain no original research and show no new insight about China, except to express obvious speculations from the pre-existing impressions of the journalists and confirm/conform to the pre-existing perception of the public. Yep, since every free western media outlet says it, it must be true. If you need evidence, I will just cite news articles that cites others that cites themselves(the first subject). It’s a big circular loop of verification, so it must be legitimate.
Also, this guy poses zero threat to the government, since he holds zero credibility among the people. The government would want to tone down those real activists/critics, like Ai WeiWei.
Also, yes, the legal system in China is extremely unfair. However, so anyone that can be weakly associated to activists activities should immediately gain legal immunity, if China’s legal system is just? So when a normal person beats a vendor with a stool, he should be arrested, but when a “professor” who may have joined one activists activities in the past but devote most of his time to swindling should not? He was not arrested with no grounds.
Search for his name on the Chinese internet. There is plenty of things about him.
Hey, I am not disagreeing with you necessarily. I do not know this individual from Adam or Eve. His character is not the issue here, let me make that perfectly clear. The charges against him are.
I interviewed Roland Soong in 2005 or 2006 for a local newspaper in Hong Kong. AT the time, Roland Soong’s commentary on his efforts in the blogosphere led to this conclusion, and I paraphrase: The purpose of media should be to include as many sides to a story as possible. In the Chinese and in the “Western” media you typically only see a half impression of what the truth is. The ESWN blog serves the purpose of trying to include the vantage point, and value systems, of the people who are not in control of the media, and that, interestingly, includes a group of people like a Li Ka-shing, or someone of huge power and notoriety, who often don’t use the media to explain their true aims. They are usually reported on, not doing the reporting.
I guess the question I have here in this instance is whose view is Roland Soong trying to air here, other than his own?
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I think that Roland simply crossed over a line inadvertently and kind of kept going. I think he is damn angry at the corrupt Western press, while perhaps getting a little too used to the ‘special characteristics’ of Chinese media and government.
The ‘slippery slope’ argument is important because it attempts to identify particular actions that will inevitably or at least tend to lead to bad outcomes. The line was there, he passed over, but it isn’t well marked, and one doesn’t notice right away.
Over time, as expected of a solid slippery slope example, the problem becomes much clearer.
Anyway I took the discussion up to a new post, but it seems like this is winding down. What’s the latest outrage?