THE FUTURE

of train travel?

Looks pretty cool to me.

SAME OLD STORY?

A fascinating article in the Atlantic Monthly by NYT reporter, photographer, and sometimes China-watcher Howard French.

There is plenty worth reading and considering, but one of the things that jumped out at me is how the PRC and the Chinese people are, in many ways, behaving just as we might expect imperialists to behave, complete with calls for settlers:

“Chongqing is well experienced in agricultural mass production, while in Africa there is plenty of land but food production is unsatisfactory…Chongqing’s labour exports have just started, but they will take off once we convince the farmers to become landlords abroad”--Li Ruogu, head of China’s Export-Import Bank in the South China Morning Post:

and condescension toward the natives:

“’If you gave this land to Chinese people to work it, this place would be rich overnight,’ said one Chinese woman immigrant, a middle-aged trader in southern Congo: ‘They’re too lazy, these Africans’”

Given the main argument of my recent book, I am not terribly surprised to find the Chinese acting like imperialists. I should hasten to make what should be the obvious point that China is far from unique or exceptional in this regard.

Of course, from the perspective of Africa, whether the imperialists are Chinese or Western doesn't really matter all that much. A Congolese lawyer sums it up nicely:

“’The problem is not who is the latest buyer of our commodities,’ he replied. ‘The problem is to determine what is Africa’s place in the future of the global economy, and up to now, we have seen very little that is new. China is taking the place of the West: they take our raw materials and they sell finished goods to the world…What Africans are getting in exchange, whether it is roads or schools or finished goods, doesn’t really matter. We remain under the same old schema: our cobalt goes off to China in the form of dusty ore and returns here in the form of expensive batteries”

FASCINATING

Photo essay on areas in China where Mao is still revered.

Below is a brewery in Nanjie, a village that re-collectivized when the rest of China was moving to the market and which makes a living largely from tourists (mostly Chinese) who come to see the quaint place where the Chairman still reigns supreme. Another collection of photos in Nanjie can be seen here.




While the poster in this "Mao Hotel" clearly declares that Mao is/was but a man and not a god, one can't help but wonder whether we're seeing the first stages of a Guandi (or Guan Yu)-like deification here.

UH OH

Those who have been watching the sinking of the ROK naval vessel Cheonan and its aftermath suspected this was coming, but now official government organs are concluding that the ship was likely sunk by a North Korean torpedo. The political pressure for some kind of response is likely to be fairly strong.

THE USES OF THE DEAD

At dinner following one of the days of the aforementioned conference, the discussion somehow turned to the practice of embalming and displaying the remains of rulers in the 20th century. Though there are certainly older precedents (Buddhist monks etc.) of keeping and acknowledging relics or remains of the departed, the practice of preserving and displaying the entire bodies of political leaders appears to have begun with Lenin. Others, Stalin (for a time at least), Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and, of course, the Eternal President of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung, have followed suit (Kim's mausoleum even appears on North Korean currency).

I didn't know (or had forgotten) that Ferdinand Marcos had similar designs. Now, he's back in the news. Plus ca change...

GLOBALIZATION

I am in the Vancouver Airport awaiting a return flight from what has been a very interesting and stimulating conference on (East) Asian international relations (1400-1800). I may relay some of my thoughts/conclusions about the conference a bit later.

But for now, a delightful parting anecdote:

The taxi driver who took me to the airport has lived in Vancouver for a couple of decades but is originally from India (Punjab) and still speaks with a thick Punjabi accent. What did we talk about on the drive to the airport? The Utah Jazz, with heavy emphasis on Stockton and Malone and how close they came to a championship against the Chicago Bulls in the late 1990s. He clearly has taken the defeat harder than I have.

What a fascinating, interconnected, globalized world we live in!

STATUE DONE

In case anyone was wondering, the mammoth North Korea-produced statue in Senegal is now complete:

Senegal on Saturday unveiled a colossal statue during a lavish ceremony amid reports of criticism over the monument's construction at a time when the western African nation is struggling financially.

The 164-foot structure -- about a foot taller than the Statue of Liberty -- shows the figures of a man, a woman and a child, arms outstretched, facing the Atlantic Ocean.

President Abdoulaye Wade says the statue, which he designed, is a monument to Africa's renaissance. Critics say the opulent copper structure is merely the product of the president's own self-indulgent vision and poor governance.