Roland Boer's Blog, page 41

The tide is turning: studying and working in China

About seven or eight years ago, the foreign students I met in China were almost always studying Sinology. Since then, I have met more and more studying all sorts of subjects. Part of the reason is that the Chinese government keeps adding more levels of scholarships, the latest being the ‘Belt and Road’ scholarships. And part of the reason is that the prospects of employment after graduation have become a whole lot easier for foreign students. More importantly, people are attracted to a a risi...

The real story about the economy of the DPRK

Hedlund has provided an invaluable link to an article in the Asia-Pacific Journal on the myth of the ‘North Korean collapse’. Well worth a careful read, and it backs up my anecdotal impressions when I visited a couple of years ago. Keen to get back and spend more time there.

The DPRK’s reform and opening up

Here’s an interesting little fact: the DPRK’s economy grew by 3.9% last year. Officially, it trades with China, Russia, Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan, India and even … South Korea. Unofficially, it trades in small arms manufacture and a range of other goods sought the world over. In fact, the DPRK’s economy has been steadily improving for the last decade, with a couple of small dips.

How can this happen, when sanctions are supposed to hurt them? They are well-organised, quite used to sancti...

More on the Chinese Marxist approach to human rights

A good article on a presentation by Ma Zhaoxu, head of the Chinese Mission at the UN in Geneva. Apart from pressing the point that human rights requires dialogue and cooperation, he also reiterates two crucial features of a Chinese Marxist approach to human rights (see my earlier post): the importance of sovereignty in dealing with human rights, and the often-neglected human right to economic wellbeing and reduction of poverty.

A further word on sovereignty. In the European tradition, this is...

China’s new Ordinance on Religious Affairs

This one has been on the way for some time. Last week the new Ordinance on Religious Affairs was published, which is to take effect on 1 February 2018. To publicise the new rules, we find Yu Zhengsheng, a senior political advisor, making the following points:

Conflicts and disputes involving ethnic and religious factors should be dealt with in accordance with the law concerned to safeguard social harmony and stability.

We must resolutely resist overseas infiltration via religious means and pr...

Myanmar’s Rohingya issue

This one is more complex than one is led to believe. About 300,000 Rohingya (Muslims mostly) have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh and India. But what is actually going on?

For some corporate media it is ‘ethnic cleansing’, providing stories that retell what journalists have been told by Rohingya individuals – of villages destroyed and people forced to flee. For Modi and the Indian government, the Myanmar government’s account is correct: terrorists are causing distinct problems and the military is...

Clear statements of Chinese position on Korean peninsula

Two overlapping articles in the China Daily outline clearly the main Chinese position in relation to the Korean Peninsula (here and here). Apart from pointing out the uselessness of U.S. threats and sanctions, as well as the reasonableness of the freeze-freeze proposal (freezing US provocations and DPRK nuclear development), the articles also understand the perspective of the DPRK. Further, a simple point is made: the United States is not interested in a settlement. Thus, it is not interested...

Time to study Juche (again)?

An unexpected side-effect of the DPRK’s development of its nuclear self-defence capacities is the need for greater knowledge about the place. As various corporate news operators desperately scour the news sites from the DPRK, they begin to stumble across terms such as Juche. For instance, with the mention on KCNA and Rodong Sinmun (and DPRK Today if you can read Korean) of ‘Juche-oriented thermonuclear weapon with super explosive power made by our own efforts and technology’, you can see them...

China’s ‘toilet revolution’ in its third year

On a related matter, China’s ‘toilet revolution’ seems to be gaining traction in its third year. Launched by Xi Jinping in April, 2017, it initially focused on tourist areas. And given the sheer size of China, this involved a significant amount of cash. There have even been toilet revolution conferences, with the second one held in Beijing earlier this year.

But the program has now expanded to rural areas, where – as I have experienced – a toilet is often a hole in the ground beneath two plan...

More on China’s poverty relief program

These news stories are worth following, concerning China’s ongoing poverty relief program. It is a cornerstone of the preparations for a transition to the ‘moderately prosperous, well-off and peaceful society’ (xiaokang shehui) – in other words, the second stage of socialism. I have mentioned some of these earlier (here, here and here), but the latest appears on Xinhua news, along with a video explanation. More than 700 million lifted out of poverty so far, about 40 million to go by 2021.