China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

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Timmy Age 6: Jul 23, 2011; Lobster says "mrow?"; Ramrod XTreme

Apparently now Five Year Plans get theme songs. In English.

:psyduck:

# ? Oct 27, 2015 23:28

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# ? May 21, 2024 14:25

coma: Oct 21, 2010

Fojar38 posted:

Mad is all that they're going to get, since they don't actually have any recourse here short of firing on the US Navy.

I mean I guess that they could build more islands but that's hardly sustainable.

How is that not sustainable? It's what they wanted to do already and the Aleutian sailthrough was probably a way to goad America into doing a sailthrough of their own so they could have a reason to build and shore up more artificial islands

# ? Oct 28, 2015 03:22

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Fojar38 posted:

Mad is all that they're going to get, since they don't actually have any recourse here short of firing on the US Navy.

I mean I guess that they could build more islands but that's hardly sustainable.

They could DDOS some websites I guess..

# ? Oct 28, 2015 03:40

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

coma posted:

How is that not sustainable? It's what they wanted to do already and the Aleutian sailthrough was probably a way to goad America into doing a sailthrough of their own so they could have a reason to build and shore up more artificial islands

Because the Chinese can't build a new island every time the US Navy transits the SCS. New islands are a lot more expensive than ship fuel.

And the Aleutian sailthrough occurred at a time when the Chinese had already built a ton of islands with no apparent justification at all, not sure why you think they'd need "justification" to continue doing what they had already been doing for about a year and a half.

Odds are that it was hoped in Beijing that the US would make a fuss about the Aleutian sailthrough in order to shore up support for China's SCS position, but it didn't because the US didn't make a fuss.

Furthermore the US publicly stated it was considering sailing close to the islands a couple of months prior to the Aleutian sailthrough.

In short you don't seem to actually know much about the SCS dispute.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 03:40

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

Time for the US to start building a chain of artificial islands from Saipan to Shanghai.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 03:40

Rent-A-Cop: Oct 15, 2004; I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

Bloodnose posted:

Time for the US to start building a chain of artificial islands from Saipan to Shanghai.

Foundations for President Trump's Pacific Wall.

China thinks its wall is great? Well America's will be yoog and terrific!

# ? Oct 28, 2015 05:12

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

PLEASE FIRE ON THE US NAVY :qq:

Foreign Policy posted:

An Oct. 27 editorial by state news agency Xinhua also endured netizen derision. It claimed that U.S. actions in the region had caused the �indignation of the Chinese people,� and that �China isn�t afraid of trouble.� The piece attracted thousands of comments on Weibo, the most popular of which almost universally ridiculed authorities for not taking action. �If you weren�t afraid of trouble, then you would fire a guided missile to get rid of [America],� went one popular comment. ��China isn�t afraid of trouble,� that really cracks me up,� wrote another user in a highly up-voted post. �What it fears most is when mighty foreigners stir up trouble.� Another demanded, �Stop boasting and fight!�

Some Chinese people are mad that the PLA isn't willing to shoot guns at America over their dumb islands.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 09:18

oohhboy: Jun 8, 2013; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Well, that is one way to make your own government look remotely reasonable...

# ? Oct 28, 2015 09:26

WarpedNaba: Feb 8, 2012; Being social makes me swell!

I'm not sure if those comments were made in sarcasm or not. I haven't applied the rectal thermometer of rabid fascist neo-nationalism to the bunghole of the Sinosphere in years.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 09:58

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

China is the fascistest neo-nationalistest country so.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 11:46

coma: Oct 21, 2010

Fojar38 posted:

Because the Chinese can't build a new island every time the US Navy transits the SCS. New islands are a lot more expensive than ship fuel.

And the Aleutian sailthrough occurred at a time when the Chinese had already built a ton of islands with no apparent justification at all, not sure why you think they'd need "justification" to continue doing what they had already been doing for about a year and a half.

Odds are that it was hoped in Beijing that the US would make a fuss about the Aleutian sailthrough in order to shore up support for China's SCS position, but it didn't because the US didn't make a fuss.

Furthermore the US publicly stated it was considering sailing close to the islands a couple of months prior to the Aleutian sailthrough.

In short you don't seem to actually know much about the SCS dispute.

"no apparent justification at all" "In short you don't seem to actually know much about the SCS dispute" lol

# ? Oct 28, 2015 14:51

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Bloodnose posted:

China is the fascistest neo-nationalistest country so.

china is basically the worst aspects of 19th Century nationalism, Soviet-style rogue state-ness, and general East Asian shittiness wrapped up into one noxious package

# ? Oct 28, 2015 15:15

Ceciltron: Jan 11, 2007; Text BEEP to 43527 for the dancing robot!; Pillbug

icantfindaname posted:

china is basically the worst aspects of 19th Century nationalism, Soviet-style rogue state-ness, and general East Asian shittiness wrapped up into one noxious package

Not really wrapped so much as excreted onto the sidewalk in a hideous pile for someone else to clean up.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 15:51

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

sincx fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Mar 23, 2021

# ? Oct 28, 2015 17:50

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Bloodnose posted:

PLEASE FIRE ON THE US NAVY

Some Chinese people are mad that the PLA isn't willing to shoot guns at America over their dumb islands.

lol they've completely backed themselves into a corner.

Their propaganda machine put so much emphasis on the SCS that when their bluff is called they have to choose between looking like they aren't protecting ~Chinese sovereignty~ or starting a war they can't win with the most powerful country in the world.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 18:42

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

sincx posted:

One argument against mainland China democracy is that if China became democratic on Monday, Japan would be nuked Tuesday due to the propaganda-believing war hungry population.

the CCP really isn't doing a very good job at the whole 'not inciting hypernationalist lynchmobs' thing, so the argument that democracy might be worse seems pretty irrelevant

# ? Oct 28, 2015 18:51

Rincewinds: Jul 30, 2014; MEAT IS MEAT

Bloodnose posted:

PLEASE FIRE ON THE US NAVY

Some Chinese people are mad that the PLA isn't willing to shoot guns at America over their dumb islands.

I remember someone telling me to be grateful that China was not democratic, as an emergent China would be like USA v.2, with the Chinese public egging on their politicians to right every slight China suffered the last two hundred years. I however doubt that democratic politicians are more prone to stupid ideas than authoritarian ones.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 21:06

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Rincewinds posted:

I remember someone telling me to be grateful that China was not democratic, as an emergent China would be like USA v.2, with the Chinese public egging on their politicians to right every slight China suffered the last two hundred years. I however doubt that democratic politicians are more prone to stupid ideas than authoritarian ones.

I also think that it's overestimating how many Chinese care about foreign affairs at all, also overestimating how many Chinese buy into the "century of humiliation" narrative.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 21:19

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

Rincewinds posted:

I remember someone telling me to be grateful that China was not democratic, as an emergent China would be like USA v.2, with the Chinese public egging on their politicians to right every slight China suffered the last two hundred years. I however doubt that democratic politicians are more prone to stupid ideas than authoritarian ones.

Have you forgotten about the Iraq War?

# ? Oct 28, 2015 21:23

Rincewinds: Jul 30, 2014; MEAT IS MEAT

Darkman Fanpage posted:

Have you forgotten about the Iraq War?

I thought USA was a republic, not a democracy? :v:

# ? Oct 28, 2015 21:57

V for Vegas: Sep 1, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Good article in FP by James Palmer on AWW.

Ai Weiwei Doesn�t Need Anyone to Give Him Legos

quote:

The noted Chinese artist and perennial dissident Ai Weiwei recently announced that Lego, a Denmark-based company, had refused his request to purchase more than a million of the tiny toy bricks for an Australian display of his work Trace, a collaborative endeavor with U.K.-based human rights group Amnesty International, that depicts political prisoners around the world in Lego portraits. Ai hit Twitter to rouse his 295,000-plus followers to rally against �censorship� and send him bricks, from which he says he�ll now make a new work.

Ai has termed the move not only �censorship,� but also �discrimination� from the toymaker. But Lego is following a long-standing, if arguably misguided, �no politics� policy that�s applied in the past to everything from a U.K. government campaign against Scottish independence to depictions of U.S. Supreme Court justices. The bricks are easily available through third-party orders.

Yet having stirred up the hornet�s nest, Ai then went on to wink at the buzzing swarm, retweeting a number of people, including me, who called out his marketing skills or, less circumspect, called bullshit on his claims of censorship. Ai has turned a minor inconvenience into a brilliant publicity stunt.

And that�s the problem with Ai. Most Chinese dissidents don�t get to do publicity stunts, especially ones mainly aimed at winning support for an exhibition in another country. They might stage dramatic protests to try and draw attention to a local cause, at considerable risk for themselves. But they�re not sustaining a career through it. �If he wasn�t a dissident,� a wry Chinese friend noted, �then who would go to his exhibitions?�

That�s unfair to Ai, arguably one of the few great creators to come out of the rush for Chinese art. But it�s a widespread perception in China, where Ai�s role as perpetual quote-generator for Western media and artistic provocateur has ended up making him a semi-licensed jester rather than an actual threat. Chinese state media is far more comfortable covering Ai than any other resister not because he�s dangerous, but because he�s useful.

And for the Western media, Ai has become a misleading archetype of dissent in China. There are dozens of stories on Ai every year in outlets ranging from Smithsonian magazine to Germany�s most popular weekly Die Zeit (My all-time favorite: �Arrested Chinese blackjack guru Ai Weiwei also an artist and dissident.�) He�s become the global face of resistance to Beijing, far better known than even imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. (I should note my personal and professional stakes on both sides of this. I copy-edit for the English edition of the nationalist and Party-backed Global Times, whose editorials have often gone after Ai Weiwei or his supporters. Then again, many of my friends are Western reporters who have covered Ai favorably; some are close to him personally. Not to mention that he sweetly signed my birthday card last year when asked.)

Ai has numerous virtues. He�s brave, he�s smart, he�s funny, he makes interesting art (and lousy heavy metal), and he supports the right causes. At personal risk, he�s chosen to stay in Beijing when he could have made a permanent home abroad long ago. By doing so, he has kept skin in the game rather than fading into irrelevance abroad.

He�s the most internationally famous example of a small group of celebrities, such as boyish rally car racer and online writer Han Han, who emerged during the relatively liberal years under former Chinese President Hu Jintao and whose reputation depended in part on their ability to court dissent while not overstepping the invisible and ever-shifting line between tolerated complaint and so-called �subversion� of state power. Ai has been able to be far more outspoken than most, protected by the legacy of his late father, a noted poet and supporter of the ruling Communist Party who was politically persecuted before being later �rehabilitated.� While the others, like Han, have been almost entirely cowed into silence in the shift to harsher policies under current Chinese President Xi Jinping, Ai�s still able to keep talking.

Ai fits the Western image of what a dissident is, based largely on the West�s fuzzy memory of Soviet bloc figures like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or V�clav Havel; an intelligent, all-purpose opponent of the state who�s also a talented artist. The same went for Liu Xiaobo, where the coverage of his Nobel Peace Prize strongly emphasized his work as a poet and essayist as an integral part of his dissidence.

But even in Soviet Russia, where writers enjoyed a particularly powerful cultural status, that was a misleading image. Far more resisters were miners, mothers, or ministers than artists of any stripe. Dissidents are often saintly figures, and, like the saints, that means they�re also often slightly mad. It takes an unusual type of personality to have the courage to keep going through the joblessness, harassment, beatings, slander, and threats that constitute the daily lot of people who openly resist the system in China.

Resisting the state also often needs an ideological or religious fuel that doesn�t fit neatly with Western liberalism, whether it�s a sincere belief in Communism or the fervor of evangelical Christianity. Solzhenitsyn�s fans in the West found it shocking when the post-Soviet figure turned out to be a Russian nationalist and something of an anti-Semite, but it came from the same steely conviction that fueled his work. Ai, on the other hand, is easy for Westerners to digest because his views hew closely to their own.

And Ai�s impishly rebellious image allows those who support him an easy thrill. When he literally gives the middle finger to Beijing, it�s exciting, especially for those who have to deal with the thick haze of everyday bullshit that permeates life in China. Playing along gives others the buzz of being rebels; backing Ai is the equivalent of wearing a death metal band�s T-shirt to high school. And with Chinese media strangled by increasing restrictions and Western reporters hamstrung, he�s also one of the only stories left in town. In a country where reporting means nervous, anonymous sources and official demands to fax questions that will then be ignored for months, Ai is one of the few people who gives good copy.

In sharp contrast to Ai, most resistance to state power in China falls into three categories: local, quiet, or imprisoned. There�s lots of localized or specific protest, whether about potentially hazardous paraxylene plants, unemployment, or religious persecution. There�s lots of quiet dissent, whether from academic economists questioning development policies or the steady work of journalists trying to do what they can to write the truth.

And, especially as Xi�s new order tightens the noose around the throat of China�s civil society, there are a lot of people in prison. Ai�s outspoken, international, and continuing resistance lies way outside these unfortunate norms, and the fact that it�s been able to keep going makes it thrilling. Ai himself has often tried to point supporters toward other critics of the system who lack his ability to carve out a safe zone. Rather than following up on these, though, the media keeps circling back to the endlessly colorful Ai himself.

But Ai�s role also inadvertently helps prop up support for the system, because he feeds into many Chinese people�s long-standing beliefs about dissidents. I�ve heard, many times, that dissidents are just looking to make trouble, that their goal is adoration from the West, not change in China, that they�re publicity hounds and self-seekers. Most of this is justification by people who are doing well under the system themselves, feel uncomfortable with those who challenge it, and so invent excuses as to why the persecution is the dissidents� own fault. And when it comes to the majority of detractors, it�s nonsense. But when that mud gets thrown at Ai, some of it sticks. He is in fact well off, feted by the foreign media, and praised as much for his dissidence than his art. He does win attention, fame, and funding from the West for his statements.

Nobody who stands outside of the bubble of Chinese propaganda can doubt the real costs Ai has paid. He�s been harassed, followed, spied upon, had his passport confiscated (and recently returned), and at one point was detained for several months, where he sustained permanent damage to his health from a blow and was forced to watch video of another dissident being tortured.

But in all its darkness, that�s far better treatment than anyone else in China would get for opposing the party-state at such volume for so long. And so, ironically, party supporters end up pointing to Ai as an example of China�s ability to tolerate dissident voices, not suppress them. A clear, bleak cycle has thus formed: Ai says or does something, whether it�s putting a finger up to the authorities or throwing them a bone. The Western media then makes a story (or twelve) out of it. And state media responds with vitriolic criticism or, if something resembling praise is incoming, an occasional pat on the head. Everybody gets what they need, and nothing changes.

# ? Oct 28, 2015 22:18

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Does AWW have any bad opinions on the level of Solzhenitsyn? Just out of curiosity

# ? Oct 28, 2015 23:36

Ceciltron: Jan 11, 2007; Text BEEP to 43527 for the dancing robot!; Pillbug

James Palmer posted:

(I should note my personal and professional stakes on both sides of this. I copy-edit for the English edition of the nationalist and Party-backed Global Times, whose editorials have often gone after Ai Weiwei or his supporters. Then again, many of my friends are Western reporters who have covered Ai favorably; some are close to him personally. Not to mention that he sweetly signed my birthday card last year when asked.)

# ? Oct 29, 2015 00:26

V for Vegas: Sep 1, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I think Palmer along with Matthew Sheehan and Chris Beam are the best English writers in China at the moment. But just weird that Palmer works for the Global Times.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 00:42

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

It also sounds like he massively overestimates Chinese awareness of Ai Weiwei. I'm not sure if that article is deliberately unclear or just poorly written when it makes it sound like the Chinese press talks about him a lot, but they don't. His stuff about coverage of Ai Weiwei is all reference to the international press. He gets no attention inside China. The overwhelming majority of Chinese have no idea who he is, even before he became an internationally famous artist, you can ask people "who designed the Bird's Nest?" And they won't know. You can ask them "have you ever heard of the poet and architect Ai Weiwei? He designed the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Olympics." Maybe you'll get a "yeah I think so," but more likely to get a shrug.

Ai Weiwei is cool and good and this Palmer guy is being a jerk who has read too much Global Times.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 02:06

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

I read it as him saying that the reason Ai Weiwei is still kicking up trouble is because the CCP lets him because, as you said, Chinese people don't care, and that the foreign media should do a better job of looking at real activism in China.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 03:57

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

A friend of mine worked in an art Gallery in Shanghai and is heavily involved in the Chinese art scene. Lots of local exhibits just don't deal with him and only the big name with galleries and connections show his work. Galleries in Shanghai get harassed enough from accidentally triggering SARFT or whatever bureau. According to her, subversive anti authoritarian art work has its merits but is relegated to the back burner.

Like communist kitsch, political themed art has been around for ages but it is just another avenue to expression in the art world - sometimes the works themselves are just too derivative.

According to her, the frequent state intrusions is just seen as an accepted annoyance like a power outage or something. Being angry at CCP is like being angry with your cable/internet provider :ohdear:

Most local artists accept the restrictions placed upon them and just try to work around things and create their own break through piece of work.

Oh and then there's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHL-0N07rxo

Whoops, someone already linked it.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 04:31

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

Speaking of breaking international treaties, found this on vox

http://www.vox.com/cards/war-on-drugs-marijuana-cocaine-heroin-meth/war-on-drugs-international-treaties

So what kind of international treaties are constantly broken without people giving a drat? International geo politics is too depressing for me. Everyone government is always having some double standards. All the progress on freedom, expression, civil rights gets rough shod by the status quo and the dirty side of the establishment.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 04:36

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

Basically anything that has anything to do with the UN.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 08:58

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

quote:

China�s ruling Communist Party will lift its more than three-decade-old one-child policy as President Xi Jinping rolled out his blueprint to manage the economy�s shift to slower, more balanced growth.

The party�s decision-making Central Committee approved plans to allow all couples in China to have two children, the official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday at the end of a four-day party gathering in Beijing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/china-abandons-three-decade-old-one-child-policy-to-lift-growth

# ? Oct 29, 2015 11:46

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

The one child policy nowadays is not really strictly enforced

1. If the first born is a female, you can have another child
2. If both parents come from a single child household they can have two kids
3. Live in the rural country side where officials don't really go after you
4. Be one of the other ethnic minority and have as many kids as you want
5. Marry someone without a hukou - A hong konger, or a foreigner

With the rising cost of living and being stuck in the middle income trap, the city folks are not too keen on having more than 1 kid.

The economist had a heart breaking article about left behind kids - children of migrant families who are under the care of grand parents or living under the radar. Basically, kids get hosed up without spending much quality time with their parents. The number of left behind kids in China is near half the population of children and equals the number of kids in USA

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21674712-children-bear-disproportionate-share-hidden-cost-chinas-growth-little-match-children

quote:

TOWARDS the end of �Jude the Obscure�, Thomas Hardy�s final novel, comes one of the most harrowing scenes in English literature. Jude, an itinerant labourer struggling to feed his family, returns home to find his eldest son has hanged himself and his younger siblings from the coat hook on the back of the door. A note says �Done because we are too menny.�

In June this year China suffered a real-life variant of this terrible scene. In a rural part of Bijie township in Guizhou province, in south-west China, a brother and three sisters, the oldest 13, the youngest five, died by drinking pesticide. They had been living alone after their mother had disappeared and their father had migrated for work. The 13-year-old boy left a note saying, �It is time for me to go�death has been my dream for years.�

Three years before that, also in Bijie, five street children died of carbon-monoxide poisoning after they had clambered into a roadside dumpster and lit charcoal to keep themselves warm. Chinese social media drew parallels with the little match girl in Hans Christian Andersen�s story of that name: afraid to return home because she has not sold any matches, she freezes to death in the winter night, burning match after match because the light reminds her of her grandmother. It is a well known tale in China because it is taught in primary schools as an example of the uncaring nature of early capitalism.

Over the past generation, about 270m Chinese labourers have left their villages to look for work in cities. It is the biggest voluntary migration ever. Many of those workers have children; most do not take them along. The Chinese call these youngsters liushou ertong, or �left-behind children�. According to the All-China Women�s Federation, an official body, and UNICEF, the UN organisation for children, there were 61m children below the age of 17 left behind in rural areas in 2010. In several of China�s largest provinces, including Sichuan and Jiangsu, more than half of all rural children have been left behind (see map). In effect, some villages consist only of children and grandparents. This is a blight on the formative years of tens of millions of people. Alongside the expulsion of millions of peasants from the land they have farmed and the degradation of the country�s soil, water and air, this leaving behind is one of the three biggest costs of China�s unprecedented and transformative industrialisation.

Just over half of the 61m counted in 2010 were living with one parent while the other spouse was away working; 29m had been left in the care of others. Mostly the carers were grandparents, but about 6m were being looked after by more distant relatives or by the state (that number includes orphans and children with disabilities who have been abandoned). There were 2m children who, like the little match children of Bijie, had been left just to fend for themselves.

Not all parents who up sticks to look for work leave their kids behind: in the 2010 figures 36m children had gone to live with their migrating families in cities. But this has its own problems; very few of these children can go to a state school or see a state doctor at subsidised prices in their new homes. Moreover, their hard-working parents often cannot look after the children. Without grandparents or a state school to keep an eye on them, such migrant children can be just as neglected as those left behind in the country.

A damaged generation
On top of that there were about 9m left behind in one city when one or both parents had moved to another. Add it all up and, in 2010, 106m children�s lives were being profoundly disrupted by their parents� restless search for jobs. For comparison, the total number of children in the United States is 73m. And the proportion of these children who were left behind, rather than migrating with their parents, grew a great deal in the late 2000s (see chart 1).

The experience of those left with one parent while the other is away working is perhaps not so different from that of the children of single parents in the West. But a study by a non-governmental organisation, called the Road to School Project, reckons that 10m left-behind children do not see their parents even once a year and 3m have not had a phone call for a year. About a third of left-behind kids see their parents only once or twice a year, typically on Chinese New Year.

Though any child may be left behind, there are some patterns. The youngest children are the most likely to be left, and girls are slightly more likely to be left than boys. This preference for taking boys along means that in cities the preponderance of boys over girls that has been produced by sex-selective abortions is exaggerated further. Anecdotal evidence suggests that an unusual number of left-behind children have siblings. One reason for this is that China�s one-child policy has been implemented less strictly in the countryside, and so more rural families have two children to leave behind.

It is not yet possible to say whether the phenomenal level of leaving behind found in the late 2000s persists. There is some evidence that with the slowdown in the economy migrant labourers are starting to drift back to their villages. But even if the trend has slowed, the dislocation still represents a third blow to the traditional Chinese family. First came the one-child-policy. Then the enormously distorted sex ratio. Now a mass abandonment.

Being left behind damages children in many ways. In Cangxi county, Sichuan province, in south-west China, the local education authority (as part of a study) gave eight- and nine-year-old left-behind children video cameras and taught them to film their lives. Sun Xiaobing, who is eight years old, is in the charge of her grandparents, but she is left alone for days on end. She shares her lunch with a stray dog to attract its companionship. Her two days of video consist almost entirely of her conversations with farm animals; she has no one else. Wang Kanjun�s film is about his little sister. The five-year-old girl spends most of her time at home playing with the phone; she is waiting for her mother to call.

Most left-behind children are lonely. Many live in rural boarding schools far from their villages because, in an attempt to improve educational standards in the countryside, the government shut many village schools down in favour of bigger institutions. About 60% of children in the new boarding schools have been left behind. A non-governmental organisation, Growing Home, surveyed them this year and found that they were more introverted than their peers and more vulnerable to being bullied; they also had �significantly higher states of anxiety and depression� than their peers. Many say they do not remember what their parents look like. A few say that they no longer want to see their parents.

In 2010 researchers at the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai studied over 600 children in 12 villages in Shandong province, in the north-east, half left behind and half not. The difference in the physical condition of the children was minor. But the difference in their school performance was substantial and so was the emotional and social damage to them, as measured by a standard questionnaire (see chart 2). �The psychological effect on left behind children is huge,� argues Tong Xiao, the director of the China Institute of Children and Adolescents. �The kids will have big issues with communications. Their mental state and their development might suffer.�

Being brought up by grandparents is a common experience worldwide, and by no means necessarily harmful. But China�s rapid development does make it more of a problem now than it was in the past. Unlike their parents, the left-behind children�s grandparents are often illiterate; their schooling can suffer accordingly. According to the All-China Women�s Federation, a quarter of the grandmothers who are looking after small children never attended school. Most of the rest had only primary education. In one school in Sichuan visited by Save the Children, an international charity, an 11-year-old girl spent most of the lesson caring for her infant sister. As the visitors started to leave, though, she ran up and begged them to look at her homework: she seemed torn between being in loco parentis and a normal 11-year-old.

There are few studies of the health of left-behind children. But given that they account for almost half of all rural children, rural health indicators are a proxy. These are worrying: 12% of rural children under five in China are stunted (ie, are short for their age)�four times as many as in urban areas; 13% of rural children under five are anaemic, compared with 10% for urban children.

Little father time bomb
Breastfeeding rates in China are low; only two in seven Chinese children are exclusively breastfed at six months, compared with half in South-East Asia and two-thirds in Bangladesh. Part of the explanation must be that so many infants are brought up by grandparents. International studies show that breastfeeding during a child�s first 1,000 days has lifetime benefits. Children who are not breastfed or get poor food early on do worse at school, are more likely to suffer from serious diseases and have worse job prospects.

Lastly, left-behind children are vulnerable to sexual and other abuse. Back in Bijie, two more left-behind children were found dead in August. One, a disabled 15-year-old girl, had been repeatedly raped by two of her distant relatives. Fearing discovery they had murdered both her and her 12-year-old brother.

Child abuse is distressingly common anyway. An analysis of 47 studies in Chinese and English this year estimated that over a quarter of Chinese children are physically abused at some point in their lives. The left behind are among the most vulnerable to such abuse, especially those in boarding schools, because any adults who might speak up for them are far away. In May a teacher in one such school in Gansu province in the north-west was executed for abusing 26 primary-school students. In Ningxia province in June, a teacher got life in prison for raping 12 of his pupils, 11 of whom had been left behind.

Those left behind can be perpetrators of crime as well as victims. Earlier this year a prostitution ring was broken up in Macao. The alleged ringleader turned out to be a 16-year-old boy from Chongqing. Juvenile offences are rising in China, which may well in part be because of the increased numbers of left-behind children. Two-thirds of all Chinese juvenile offenders came from rural areas in 2010, up from half in 2000. When they are brought before the law, left-behind or migrant children are much more likely to go to jail than other children because courts are reluctant to grant probation in the absence of a guardian. In Shanghai, the children of migrant labourers get probation in only 15% of cases, compared with 63% of cases involving local juveniles.

Given the harm that being left behind does to children�s health, education and emotional development, it is not hard to imagine that the damage will be felt not just by the left-behind themselves but by society as a whole. The phenomenon is sufficiently recent that there is little compelling evidence of increased criminality, anti-social behaviour and so on. And adding to the burdens of the left-behind by prejudging them to be miscreants would clearly add injustice to injury. But in other countries�South Africa, where apartheid often broke families up, is one example�being left alone has been found to be a risk factor in children turning to crime.

Leaving such broader consequences aside, the decision to leave behind a child is a hard one. Why do so many migrants make it? A survey by the Centre for Child Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility, a consulting firm, put the question to 1,500 workers in the Pearl River Delta in the south and Chongqing in the south-west. Two-thirds said they would not have enough time to look after them while working in the city; half said it was too expensive to bring up children there.

The long established and valued role Chinese grandparents play in bringing up grandchildren doubtless makes the decision easier for many. And if grandparents are the solution, then leaving behind is a necessary corollary. In principle migrants might take along their grandparents rather than leaving behind their children. But the restrictions of the hukou system make that almost impossible. The hukou or household-registration document is a bit like an internal passport, giving people access to various services. When registered in the country, grandparents get a lower pension than urban dwellers�and the money is not enough for them to live in the city.

The hukou system also exacerbates things by making it very hard for children registered in a rural area to get state schooling or health care in the city. Private schools that exploit the opportunity this presents are often crowded, substandard and constantly threatened with closure by city governments. On top of this vital school-leaving exams have to be sat where a child is registered. So even if children accompany their parents to the city, they are almost always sent back again at the age of 14 to prepare for the exam.

Wanted: several million social workers
Millions of parents defy the hukou system; less than a third of those questioned in the Pearl River Delta survey cited it as an issue. The objective problems of city life are harder to ignore. Many migrant labourers work 12 or more hours a day on construction sites or in export-oriented manufacturing companies. They may commute for four hours more; they may live in dormitories with no provision for children, or where children are not allowed. Understandably, most fear that they will not have enough time to look after their kids.

Grandma holds the fort
Zhao Yanjun, who is from Anhui province in eastern China but works in Fujian province most of the year, sums up the problems: �I�m really torn about this. I could go back [to Anhui] but I won�t have the opportunities and connections I have here. If I bring my son and my wife [to Fujian], one of us will have to quit to look after him, or we�ll have to hire a nanny or bring his grandparents here. Any of these choices would be a heavy burden for us.�

Reform of the hukou system�already under way, in a piecemeal fashion�can address some of the problems of the left-behind and those who leave them. But given the underlying factors at work a full response will require China to build a child-welfare system almost from scratch.

China�s government long assumed that the family would look after children�s needs, so no child-welfare system was needed. As recently as 2006, there was no nationally recognised qualification for social workers. To its credit, the government has started to make up for lost time. It has set up a pilot programme to train �child-welfare directors�, otherwise known as barefoot social workers, in five provinces.

The social workers are a bit like China�s barefoot doctors: villagers trained in a few simple skills to take the social-welfare system into remote villages. Each looks after between 200 and 1,000 children. So far, the results of the pilot projects are promising. In 120 villages more than 10,000 extra children were enrolled in the state medical scheme between the start of the programme, in 2010, and 2012. The share of children who had not been registered under the hukou system and were therefore not eligible for help fell from 5% to 2%. The school drop-out rate fell by roughly the same amount. The government is expanding the pilot programme into three more provinces and twice as many villages.

But this only scratches the surface. Even in its expanded form the programme will reach roughly 250,000 children, less than 0.5% of all rural left-behind children. A response proportionate to the problem would not just see such interventions hugely increased and the hukou system relaxed a great deal more; it would entail more job-creation in areas where migrants can take all their family members.

At its heart, the problem of the left-behind is one of misplaced hopes. Like so many parents, China�s migrants are deferring pleasure now (that of raising their children) for the hope of a better life later (to be bought with the money they earn). One result has been the stunning growth of cities and the income they generate. Another has been a vast disruption of families�and the children left behind are bearing the burden of loss.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 11:55

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

Bloodnose posted:

Basically anything that has anything to do with the UN.

So much for the validity of UN's ICCPR as a fail-safe option for civil rights in Hong Kong :china:

# ? Oct 29, 2015 11:57

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

My wife is 'twins' of her brother, even though he was born a year later. Just bribe the doctor. And yeah, rural area, nobody cares. 天高皇帝远。

# ? Oct 29, 2015 12:05

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

caberham posted:

1. If the first born is a female, you can have another child

I thought this was a rural only thing, or maybe that was just when my friend was born (~1990).

Actually the way I understood it is that if you had a girl, you could keep on trying until you had a boy. So my friend mentioned that she knows a bunch of people with like 3-4 daughters and maybe a son.

computer parts fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Oct 29, 2015

# ? Oct 29, 2015 12:09

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

The policies aren't really enforced much anymore... until they are. If you're unlucky and your local party secretary wants to make a name for himself, he might decide to start enforcing it and that's how you ended up with 9,000 women forcibly sterilized in Puning a few years ago. Or that one lady in Shanxi who was forced to have an abortion and spread the picture of her dead third trimester fetus that she had to stillbirth out of herself all over Weibo.

Sometimes China's a hilarious case of incompetence and street making GBS threads.

Sometimes it's seriously hosed up and we shouldn't forget about the second part.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 13:35

Artificer: Apr 8, 2010; You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

Oh Christ that article on the children. I was raised in a rural area there. I wonder if my life would have been that lovely if my parents werent as successful as they are.

# ? Oct 29, 2015 20:57

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

sincx fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Mar 23, 2021

# ? Oct 29, 2015 22:02

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

Bloodnose posted:

The policies aren't really enforced much anymore... until they are. If you're unlucky and your local party secretary wants to make a name for himself, he might decide to start enforcing it and that's how you ended up with 9,000 women forcibly sterilized in Puning a few years ago. Or that one lady in Shanxi who was forced to have an abortion and spread the picture of her dead third trimester fetus that she had to stillbirth out of herself all over Weibo.

Sometimes China's a hilarious case of incompetence and street making GBS threads.

Sometimes it's seriously hosed up and we shouldn't forget about the second part.

What I meant was the policy itself had loop holes. Nowadays those loops holes don't matter because it's a 2 child policy now I guess.

Force sterilization is still a thing , and families could have 2 kids under certain conditions. Except party members or people who worked in government jobs - 1 kid is the ideal. Speaking of ideals, unmarried sex for teachers is a bad thing and leaves a bad record for public school teachers. And when it comes to family planning, you actually need permission from the state to marry and permission from the state to have a child.

sincx posted:

All smoke, no fire?

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N12T2KD20151029

It's always a false alarm.

# ? Oct 30, 2015 03:29

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

caberham posted:

What I meant was the policy itself had loop holes. Nowadays those loops holes don't matter because it's a 2 child policy now I guess.

Until you have three children and your local Party Secretary decides to be a dick.

# ? Oct 30, 2015 03:34

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# ? May 21, 2024 14:25

point of return: Aug 13, 2011; by exmarx

Darkman Fanpage posted:

Have you forgotten about the Iraq War?

Authoritarian governments have of course never gotten involved in quagmires of foreign wars.

# ? Oct 30, 2015 04:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

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