Why Snow Matters Politically in China

     The blizzards and associated transportation breakdowns in China of the past couple of weeks have started to raise political questions.  Indeed, any time a prime minister feels he has to publicly apologize for the weather - or the way in which public services failed to handle bad weather - it is occasion for political analysis.

     Howard French, in an IHT article, does a good job in getting things started.  His key point is that the snow disaster reveals certain weaknesses in the PRC political system:

The real scandal of China's weather emergency is that it had been going on for weeks, largely uncovered and not treated as an emergency for most of that time. That is because the heavy snows that have been accumulating in central China were falling on places far out of the spotlight.

There is an inclination in autocratic political cultures to think that allowing the press to report freely would constitute subversion and destabilize the government. On the contrary, elections and the freedom to criticize are important not just because they help keep politicians honest, but because they serve as escape valves for pressures that could become dangerous otherwise.

     Peter Ford, at the CSM, also finds a good quote:

"The Chinese economy is not a real market economy, nor a real command economy, so government controls are not very effective," says Xu Guangjian, an economist at People's University in Beijing.

     Taken together, these points remind us that the PRC has an overly centralized political system with insufficient public accountability and a not-yet-fully-marketized transitional economy - and these structural factors will, from time to time, manifest in large-scale public works failure.

     We could, of course, make the comparison to the US, with its different political and economic conditions, and remember that these sorts of failures can happen in any system, as Hurricane Katrina demonstrated.

     But there is reason to believe that the political stakes of such problems are higher now in China than they are in the US.  And that is because of the changing nature of political legitimacy in the PRC.

    In the Maoist period, or even the early reform period, when Marxism and socialism were still the foundation of state legitimacy, the Party could rally people together to "struggle against the snow."  I witnessed this back in 1984 when large snow storms hit Nanjing and people came out in force to contribute to the collective effort to clear the streets.  Perhaps more importantly, the New Year's holiday was less important to state legitimation then than it is now.  Under Maoism, family ties were clearly subordinated to the state, and everyone was supposed to sacrifice and pull together for the glories of socialist construction. 

     All of this has changed.  These days, no one really buys the Marxist narrative that an authoritarian "dictatorship of the proletariat" is necessary for the advancement of the historic mission of socialism, and that "scientific socialism" should define personal identity and social relationships.  Since the 1990s the Party has embraced a neo-traditionalist legitimating myth: the CCP is now the heir of China's historical greatness and traditional notions of social responsibility and propriety should define personal ethics and public action.  Confucianism has made a comeback and vies with capitalistic individualism for social relevance.  Old Marxists are few and far between.

     Chinese New Year's thus takes on more political significance.  It is a time for performing and reinventing tradition.  People want to go home, back to the village, to reinvigorate family ties.  There is a deep sense of history in all of this: it is what Chinese people have done from time immemorium, or so many now believe.  If the government, therefore, screws up and makes it impossible for people to do the right thing on Spring Festival, then that is a big, big problem.  It is failing not only in terms of modern standards of public transportation and infrastructure but also in terms of traditional duty and ritual.

     We could push it a bit further - though I do so with a bit of trepidation.   Traditionally, when natural disasters occurred, it could be taken as a sign that the current regime had lost the "Mandate of Heaven."   When natural disaster is combined with insufficient government response, political legitimacy is doubly called into question - Heaven is signaling its displeasure and the Emperor is not getting the job done.  Chinese people of a certain age might remember the horrible Tangshan earthquake of 1976 as a precursor to the death of Mao and, ultimately, the fall of Maoism. 

      This year's snow disaster is not nearly as bad as the Tangshan earthquake, and perhaps its political effects will be limited. 

     But the legitimacy question remains.  If the government cannot deliver on popular expectations of continually improving standards of living, and if claims of China's historical greatness start to ring hollow because millions of people are stuck in train stations instead of enacting the proper New Year's rituals, and if fat and happy bureaucrats are seen as corrupt and aloof, then the legitimacy of the one-party rule could be undermined.   

     That's why Wen Jiabao, who presents himself as a modern-day Mencian leader was faster to apologize than George W. Bush.

Comments

[An angry chinese]

No international assistance from any countries...That's not your responsibility, I understand. However, at this crucial moment, all you fxxking idiots do is criticizing and analyzing...mostly on very superficial and foolish basis...

WTF is humanitarian, human rights, which you promoted everyday? Did you ever see your ugly faces before this snow storm? A perfect mirror!

[Larry]

Wen felt that he had to apologize probably because his government caused the storm. A modern scientific explanation to that would be the weather altering experiments China has been conducting, and publicly announcing that there will be good weather for the Olympic Games because of that effort.

The other reason is ancient. Chines believe that bad governance cause natural disaster, a sign of displeasure from heaven. And too many natural disasters means that the government has lost the mandate of heaven.

[David Martin]

The episode reminds me of "leaves on the tracks" and "the wrong kind of snow" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_wrong_kind_of_snow in Britain. Except the weather emergency is obviously a far more serious matter.

I wonder about the consequences when the inevitable severe hurricane makes a mess of southeastern Florida.

[zoomzan]

A traditional analysis would be that while snow is usually an auspicious sign, an excess of snow points to over-materialist, over-consumerist social conditions.

[isha]

Sam:

With all due respect...

Wen is working non-stop from the very beginning and Hu is underground in the coal mines with the miners. I don't think your imperial president could do that.

Another comparison:When national guard entering New Orleans, they are fully armed and ready to shoot while the people there were kiling each other and police officiers joined the looting. I am still waiting to hear reports of Chinese military and police brutality.

Oh,you cursed Chinese press control! Oh, you Heavenly damned Hu-Weng's fake apology, " real scandle" according the sage Howard French is that Western press are covering up for the autocratic Chinese regime and dare not to report the truth: that after the storm stranded half a million Chinese on the road ,people are tired of all these delays, lies and lies and more lies. BLOOD is running on the snow ( which is in itself, according to the sage and sages who can read the Chinese fortune in their green tea leaves or Yiqing, that brutal Chinese regime has lost the mandate of heaven, and long suffering Chinese people is starting a long waited rebellion in the scale of Taipei's heavenly Kingdom or at least the glorious 1989, the year that Chinese regime should have collapsed!). Blood on Snow, how romantics!!! Where is the free press of the New York Times? Where is CNN? Where is Larry King alive? Why are they covering up for the Commies? Where is these goddess and guardian of TRUTH and only Truth and nothing but the Truth!!! Maybe Google's map or National Intelligence's GPS imaging can help us to discover that Chinese are already killing each other like this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=new+orlean+storm+shooting

Since the empire's intelligence community can discover WMD in Iraq, of course they can prove with no doubt, as the first commentators are already clearly pointed out, that these crazy autocrats, these Hus and Wens, are experimenting weather manipulation weapons on their own people, by intentionally destory Chinese economy. Even worse, they are distroying millions of millions of Chinese humble dream of returning home to see their family in the Spring Festival with these damned WMD!!!
"Heaven's mandate my ..." They should be destoryed and hanged like that dog Saddam, their fellow dictator!!! Why shouldn't these undemocratic dictators have the same fate???!!! Life is so unfair.

Let's write a petition letter to our beloved and benevolent
Emperor the second, the Savior of the world through Jesus Christ,that he should immediate move his ever-victorious army (don't bother, National Guard men and women from Lousiana would suffice ) to move to Beijing and Beijing residents will naturally,rationally, logically wave stars and stripes to welcome the democratic liberators from their low life autocrats. Long Live Democracy!! Down with Hu-Weng!!! Hang them in Beijing's!!!! BTW, I will vote for Wang Dang, to be the next Chinese president.

[Sam]

Isha,
Not sure what the point is in all of that. I take it you think my comments (I will not speak for Larry or other whose view are their own, not mine)are too critical of Wen. I am not an apologist for Bush or American power, as a fuller reading of this blog will attest. So, I'm happy to accept critiques of the disaster of hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. But, granting all of that, there remains the question: what is the political effect of the snow emergency in China? Nothing? Or are "foreigners" not allowed to ask and analyze?

[isha]

Sam:

The style of my last post is for the effect of humor. If you think it is of bad taste, I am sorry about it.

Of course there would be political effect of this snow emergency and of course a lot of could be improved in terms of snow emergency management. Of course it is within everybody's right to ask, analyze, criticize and give suggestions, be he or she "foreigner" or not. My point is that the one-sidedness of the Western media and commentators in covering this emergency has been beyond reasonableness so far.

I follow Howard French's report on China very closely and I respect your striving to be even handedness in covering China. But “Mandate of Heaven" is too heavy stuff to digest. First, sloppiness in managing this large scale crisis doesn’t make Chinese government lose its “Mandate of Heaven". No government on the surface of this earth, be it U.S. Canada, Europe is beyond reproach and nobody in the West even suggested that these government should lose the right to rule and rebellion should ensure. As a researcher of China, you know better than me that losing “mandate of heaven" means rebellion, revolution and the losing of millions of lives. I humbly suggest that your can go to the Chinese internets, both within and outside China and find out the general attitude of the Chinese people toward Wen. A lot of curses and blames, mostly to the local governments, but there are more suggestions, encouragements and appreciations for the efforts of Wen, the police, and especially, the Chinese army, who are setting up food camps around the country to feed the hungry people. The small amount of death toll can testify the scale of the national mobilization. As a 60 years old man, Went is working non-stop, often people in desperation face to face. Can you find one equivalent figure in the whole United States or Western Europe countries such a public official in dealing such kind of emergencies? If so, please provide me with his name and I will do some research.

2008 is a difficult time for China and Wen has warned the country even before this instance. High inflation, especially food and energy, add a lot of pressure for the nation. (But China don't control the world market for oil, do they? So, can Chinese people blame Hu and Wen not sending Chinese troops to secure the oil and gas? ) As for food, Wen ( or ex-Premier Zhu to be more exactly, for buying into the WTO deal) is sure to be blame for not preparing for the staged commodity market manipulation ( from Chicago ) and over dependent on the international market. And the Olympics game (which China shouldn’t have bothered to apply in the first place) opens China for the international pressure which is hostile to China. Taiwan will choose 2008 to challenge China's legitimacy over Taiwan.

Now I digress, let’s go back to the Mandate of Heaven, the legitimacy for the Chinese regime. Here is my observation: Rather than weakening Hu-Weng’s legitimacy, all over China people can see with their own eyes that the leaders are doing their best and all the sectors of society has been mobilized, be it military and police force. Since it is a national disaster and cross provincial line, it is strengthening the central government’s ability to control and coordinate. The internal rivalries between provinces will loosen and people are regaining a national sense of community. Again, you can see some bloggers who were usually very critical of the government are writing encouraging posts.

Another effect on the Chinese political system is that this disaster will be a national wake up call for setting up national relief and resource reserves.

PRC governments’ legitimacy lies on its ability to guarantee national territorial integrity against any international intervention. Chinese government’s legitimacy will definitely face serious challenges if they dare not face down the Taiwan breakaway and foreign intervention. Losing the Mandate of Heaven will happen if anybody in Beijing dares to lose Taiwan, which is over anything else, the result of Japanese imperial invasion in the Manchu dynasty.

[Sam]

Isha,
Sorry I did not catch your humorous intentions of the last comment - I guess I don't know your personality well enough to see what you were up to there .
Your point that the crisis could work to shore up regime legitimacy is well taken. Wen is obviously working hard to bring that about. We can watch as events unfold to see if, indeed, that will be the dominant trend.
On the Mandate of Heaven, I did suggest some trepidation in raising it. But, even so, I think, in a modern context, it need not imply bloody revolution. It could simply suggest a subtler erosion of regime support. Perhaps that will not happen in this case. But where else can people in the PRC go with complaints against the government? There is little possibility of effecting a change in leadership, at least from outside the highest reaches of party power. In the case of hurricane Katrina, Bush's popularity definitely declined, and has stayed down, as a result. It contributed to his losing the Mandate of Heaven. But Americans know that his time is limited (01-20-09!!) and he will soon enough be consigned to the dustbin of history. So anger toward him is deflected toward possibilities for his replacement. That cannot happen in the PRC. Which is why I suggested that the effects of the snow emergency on regime legitimacy might be greater there. Not bloody rebellion, but neither resignation that the leader will soon be gone.
Maybe that is wrong. We'll see.

[isha]

When a Republic maturing into an empire, the special interests groups (money changers and oil barons or certain international power in the current case) would have taken full charge of the government. The admirable virtues of republic, unfortunately, will exit without a whimper. August the Great (and he was a capable and virtuous man, lucky Romans) keep all the institutions of the Roman republic with no substance, but it turned into an empire and I haven’t heard that Roman empire have ever turned back into a republic again. Same thing is happening here. Empire usually don't need to produce anything, therefore there were bread and circus in Rome to keep masses in Rome content while tributary states produce everything and send them to Rome. To keep the tribute keeps on coming, legions have to be stationed all over the world. Money changers made waves and waves of inflations to fleece the economy.Sounds familiar?!

Please kindly prove that my above observation is wrong, Or else my subsequently conclusion make no senses. (Please kindly tell me, if the “citizens” in this country still find their country a democratic and a republic in substance, why majority of the youth don’t bother to vote. The reason is that they are rational. They don’t see how their vote could make a difference in the policy making process… choose between two or three candidates that has been chosen for them by Mr. X hardly make any difference for them, the subject of the empire)

If democracy in this country has already been turned into a form without substance, then why it is still been used to measure other countries. If the fruits ( both the policy and personalities selected from this process ) bear from this tree ( voting process ) has been both bitter and sometimes rotten, then why other countries have to copy the same process in order to gain legitimacy in order to RULE THEIR OWN COUNTRY? Imperialism has never suffered from lacking excuses. But democracy has been an over-used and under-polished one.

Sam, please let me know how I am not making sense.

"That's why Wen Jiabao, who presents himself as a modern-day Mencian leader was faster to apologize than George W. Bush."

Why Bush has more mandate of heaven to rule U.S. than Wen's legitmacy to rule China? The voting in Florida made the difference, of course.

Isha

[Sam]

The sad truth is that Chinese people do not rule themselves. They cannot chose for themselves who will rule them. They accept the rule of the Party, indeed they must accept the rule of the Party, whether it is overseeing dramatic economic growth and social change or whether is it perpetrating one of the worst holocausts of the twentieth century, the Great Leap Forward. They have no choice.
I agree with you that American democracy has had some terrible failures. And I fear that the US is indeed becoming more like the PRC government(i.e. less capacity for the people to govern themselves) than the other way around. But democracy does allow for a process of self-correction, even after failure. We openly discuss and debate the historic failures of racism and corruption. Is the Great Leap taught in Chinese schools? How many Chinese died then at the hands of the Chinese state? We can ridicule any facet of our culture or government. What was Hu Jia's crime exactly?
You are right to be critical of the US, we all need to maintain that criticism, especially now until Bush is gone. I strongly suspect a Democratic administration will take a different approach to the world. I certainly hope so. If is does not we should press against it at much as possible.
But we also have to maintain our legitimate criticisms of the PRC government. Why shouldn't Chinese people freely choose who will govern them? Taiwanese people do.

[isha]

The sad truth is that Chinese people do not rule themselves.( Are you then suggesting that American people do rule themselves? If your answer is yes, then are your also suggesting that american people are not that innocent, at least in terms of ME?) They cannot chose for themselves who will rule them. They accept the rule of the Party, indeed they must accept the rule of the Party, whether it is overseeing dramatic economic growth and social change or whether is it perpetrating one of the worst holocausts of the twentieth century, the Great Leap Forward. They have no choice. (that fate had been sealed for China, a country bankrupted with foreign invasions, continuous looting for 100 years and civil wars. Through the rapid, even crazy industrization of the 1950s and 1960s,China finally could provide enough means to defend herself from foreign invasion and national independence. Comparing with other third world countries at the same stage, I feel so lucky!! " holocausts" is an industry label to justify Zionism, and it doesn't ring a bell as a Chinese, " massive hunger" would suffice. But we have famine in China even before Mao. With the struggle of a whole generations, China's life expentancy could n't reach 72. Mao is a villian to the West before he made China stands up and be able to defend herself. why not the West call Yetsin the mass murder of russians, after all, in his regime, russia live expectancy declined over years.)
I agree with you that American democracy has had some terrible failures. And I fear that the US is indeed becoming more like the PRC government(i.e. less capacity for the people to govern themselves) than the other way around. But democracy does allow for a process of self-correction, even after failure. We openly discuss and debate the historic failures of racism and corruption. Is the Great Leap taught in Chinese schools? How many Chinese died then at the hands of the Chinese state? We can ridicule any facet of our culture or government. ( so many books about GLF movement in China with different death toll numbers ) What was Hu Jia's crime exactly?
You are right to be critical of the US, we all need to maintain that criticism, especially now until Bush is gone. I strongly suspect a Democratic administration will take a different approach to the world. I certainly hope so. If is does not we should press against it at much as possible.
But we also have to maintain our legitimate criticisms of the PRC government. Why shouldn't Chinese people freely choose who will govern them? Taiwanese people do.

( On Taiwan: divide and conquer and that is how empire was built. use Chinese to kill and rule Chinese has always been a old trick from the book of the brits)

Enjoy your postings. Thanks!
Isha

[isha]

Sam: "We can ridicule any facet of our culture or government. What was Hu Jia's crime exactly?"

Answer:

Sorry for my ignorance, I don't know Hu Jia so I have to rely upon the unreliable wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jia_(activist). If he is aid activist in China, he has my respect and he is actually acting within the law. But then he crossed a line as being a respectable Chinese person (my personal bias):"
Using a Web camera, Mr. Hu participated in a European parliamentary hearing in Brussels in November 2007 about human rights in China. At the hearing he said: “It is ironic that one of the people in charge of organizing the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human rights violations. It is very serious that the official promises are not being kept before the games.”[2].

He is performing a profile as the political pet of the Western power (Every Asian or African countries have their kinds) and has put himself under the protection of a powerful western elites groups even the western state power (European Parliament). To be sincere activitist, ones' audience must be domestic and using international pressure to shame the government, especially using Olympics games as an occasion to do it is shameful.

Anybody remember once famous Feng Lizhi? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Lizhi
The day he putted himself under the protection of U.S. embassy, he lost any political relevancy in the Chinese politics. As to the Wang Dans who testify in the U.S. congress for boycott Chinese goods, even their ex supporters are disgusted by their behaviors.
(Interestingly, many of them are under DDP’s payrolls)

In a society with the so-called “free press", how many people remember or even know of these people?
http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/pplist-alpha.shtml

After Abu Ghraib, I guess it is great time for western intellects to step down from the high horse of moral superiority and seriously look at the mirror and reflect. The marching emperor with no cloth on can look ridiculous after such a long while.

With Respect,

Isha

[Sam]

There is much, much more to the Hu Jia story than that. When you learn more, please let me know this: what law of the PRC has he violated and is the PRC government living up to its own stated procedures for prosecuting criminal conduct? The CCP says that it is striving to create "rule by law," so I am only asking to hold it accountable to its own standards (we're not talking about "democracy" here...). If Abu Grahib has taught us anything, it is that the rule of law must be upheld or the worst abuses can occur. I imagine you hope that the CCP will do better in this regard than the US at Abu Grahib, no?

[isha]

"The CCP says that it is striving to create "rule by law," so I am only asking to hold it accountable to its own standards (we're not talking about "democracy" here...”

I am not speaking for CCP, after all, CCP hasn't been upholding the “rule of law” in many instances and of course, as in many countries, "rule of law" is only an ideal but far from reality. The biggest CCP offenses against "rule of law" is to allow the secessionist exist in the Taiwan province and haven't hold them accountable for their capital offense against the Chinese nation, Chinese constitution.

As for Hu Jia, his legitimacy as a loyal dissident has dissipated the day he used foreign state powers to get what he wants. The rest is irrelevant.