Memorial Day.



America. Sacrificio. Libertà.
Anche la nostra. Anche quella di chi non la merita.

Cina e dintorni.



Sembra che la Cina stia diventando oggetto di analisi e discussione anche sui MSM. Ce ne rallegriamo visto che qui abbiamo sempre seguito da vicino le vicende interne di questo paese affascinante e allo stesso tempo spaventoso. Nelle ultime settimane gran parte dell'attenzione internazionale si è concentrata sui rapporti sino-giapponesi alla luce delle manifestazioni anti-Tokyo svoltesi nelle principali città cinesi. Noi ne avevamo parlato, probabilmente primi in Italia, il 10 aprile: grazie e complimenti agli amici di Ideazione per aver intuito che si trattava di un fatto importante e aver anticipato sul tempo quotidiani e riviste di mezzo mondo. Da qui ricominciamo.
C'è nervosismo a Pechino. La preoccupazione che le proteste sponsorizzate dal regime possano sfuggire al controllo e rivelarsi controproducenti si è materializzata al punto che il Partito si è premurato di far sapere a tutti che la linea nel frattempo era cambiata: e così arresti e pubbliche autocritiche hanno rioccupato il posto consueto nel panorama politico cinese. Il 4 maggio è data sensibile nel calendario e il potere costituito non può correre rischi. E' stato però un articolo del Liberation Daily di Shanghai a catturare soprattutto l'attenzione degli osservatori negli ultimi giorni. Con toni che ricordavano il famigerato editoriale del Quotidiano del Popolo all'epoca dei fatti di Tiananmen, il giornale capovolgeva di centottanta gradi la versione ufficiale secondo cui quelle anti-giapponesi erano state manifestazioni spontanee (versione cui nessuno ovviamente può credere) e denunciava obiettivi occulti anti-sistema:

A great many facts have proved that the recent illegal march was a criminal action and not a patriotic event: this is not a spontaneous movement by the people, but there is a conspiracy behind the curtain. At the moment, our important mission is to identify clearly the nature of the struggle, to disclose the truth of the matter, to protect the respect for the law and to stop these criminal actions!

We will not tolerate these criminal activities.We will show no mercy for those who have committed crimes. This way, we will protect the authority of the central government, the dignity of the law, the reputation of the city and the fundamental rights of the masses. Since this matter affects the overall situation, all members of the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League and the broad masses must maintain their clear political minds and perception to unite and act together to defend the law and fight against all these illegal activities. We will stand firmly with the party and the government and we will support and assist the people's judiciary organizations to investigate these illegal acts, punish the criminals, protect social stability and defend the national interests.

Una lotta tra fazioni all'interno del Partito Comunista Cinese o solo la prova di una pessima gestione della furia nazionalista? Difficile sapere esattamente cosa si celi dietro il linguaggio e i contenuti di questo richiamo all'ordine. Il tempo dirà.
Quel che il tempo ha già detto è che la love-story di buona parte della stampa occidentale con Hu Jintao è finita. Philip Pan demolisce definitivamente l'immagine di riformatore dell'onnipotente leader cinese:

More than two years after taking office amid uncertainty about his political views, Chinese President Hu Jintao is emerging as an unyielding leader determined to preserve the Communist Party's monopoly on power and willing to impose new limits on speech and other civil liberties to do it, according to party officials, journalists and analysts.

Hu sealed his reputation after taking control of the military at a meeting of the party's ruling elite in September, a final step in his long climb to power. On the last day of the conclave, in his first major address to the 300-plus member Central Committee as the nation's undisputed new leader, Hu warned that "hostile forces" were trying to undermine the party by "using the banner of political reform to promote Western bourgeois parliamentary democracy, human rights and freedom of the press," according to a person given excerpts of the speech. Hu said China's enemies had not abandoned their "strategic plot to Westernize and split China." He blamed the fall of the Soviet Union on policies of "openness and pluralism" and on the efforts of "international monopoly capital with the United States as its leader." And in blunt language that party veterans said recalled Mao Zedong's destructive Cultural Revolution, he urged the leadership to be alert to the danger of subversive thinking.

Meglio essere un Andropov che un Gorbachev, si dice ancora oggi nei circoli comunisti ortodossi. Ma le dittature non sono solo contro l'uomo, sono anche contro la storia: no hay mañana, Mr. Hu.
Osserva Geremie Barme:

When the new leadership duo of Hu Jintao (party head) and Wen Jiabao (premier of the civilian government) took power in 2003, parts of the international media and even some governments optimistically predicted a political loosening up, a move away from the clumsy authoritarianism of the Jiang Zemin era. However, there is little evidence of any significant changes, or of a government that is capable of or willing to respond to continuing or new crises, or indeed to the exigencies of political and economic uncertainty.

But when a political party that enjoys monopoly power patronises its subjects and frustrates their desire – and circumvents at every turn their right – to be equal participants and citizens in the nation's life, then we are faced with a situation in which a proffered economic superpower appears as a leviathan on the international scene, while at home it struts as a moral and social dwarf.

Ross Terrill torna sull'uso strumentale della storia e sulle lezioni che il governo cinese non può permettersi di impartire a nessuno:

China's diplomatic awkwardness in the world is inseparable from its tight political control at home. Apologies, textbooks, uninhabited islands, war memories -- all become painted faces and props in the Beijing opera of the paternalistic Chinese state's cultural and foreign policies. Marxism has mostly lost its hold over Chinese minds. But truth and power emanate from one fount: historically the emperor's court, today the Communist Party. The hold of the Chinese Communist regime over its people depends on belief in the cries and groans of the Beijing opera.

No book of any kind attacking the Communist Party's monopoly of power in China has been published in China in the 56 years of the PRC. Some of the most trenchant books anywhere in the world on Japanese war atrocities have been written, published, and widely read in Japan. Beijing seems to think that because its textbooks jump to government policy, Japan's do too. But they do not. In Japan, unlike in China, there are government-sponsored textbooks as well as independent ones.

Japan is a democracy and China is a dictatorship, and while that continues, the root problem is China's political system. Canberra, Washington, and other democratic capitals should tell Beijing that an open society is necessary for history to be viewed steadily and for international business exchanges to succeed. After former president Jiang Zemin, during a 1998 trip to Japan, gave endless speeches on World War II, the Japanese chief cabinet secretary said in frustration: "Isn't this a finished problem?" But Japan's past transgressions may never be a finished problem while a Leninist-imperial state exists in Beijing.

Sempre sull'argomento, questa lettera pubblicata dal NYT è uno dei documenti politici più significativi e coraggiosi scritti da un cittadino della Repubblica Popolare negli ultimi anni:

When I think of the forced labor in Japanese prison camps, I am reminded of forced labor camps in China, and also of the Chinese miners who lose their lives when forced to re-enter mines that everyone knows are unsafe. Are the rights of China's poor today really so much better protected than those of the wretched "colonized slaves" during the Japanese occupation? There was the Nanking massacre, but was not the murder of unarmed citizens in Beijing 16 years ago also a massacre? Is Japan's clumsy effort to cover up history in its textbooks any worse than the gaping omissions and biased blather in Chinese textbooks?

China and Japan both have blood on their hands, but they have important differences as well. Comfort women and others whom Japan has injured or insulted can sue either Japan's government or its big companies, and they can do this in either Japanese or Chinese courts. Japanese who want to can demonstrate in Tokyo shouting "Down with Japanese militarism!" These things are very different in China. The Chinese government decides on its own whether to give modest compensation to the widows of dead miners. Ordinary workers and farmers are often in the position of issuing appeals to the very people who are oppressing them. Families of Beijing massacre victims to this day have police stationed at their doorways, lest they misbehave. And demonstrators may shout only about approved topics. Before we in China decide we are superior to Japan, we must address our own double standards.

Diffondetela.
Intanto dieci anni a un giornalista per aver rivelato segreti di stato. Il freddo comunicato dell'agenzia di notizie statale.
Se c'è una speranza si chiama Internet: assolutamente da leggere questo rapporto sui meccanismi di controllo della rete

Chinese government is the primary driving force for the development of the Internet in China. The authorities see the Internet is a critical instrument to serve its central agenda: economic development to preserve the power status quo of the Chinese Communist Party. Since the Internet first entered China, the government has used an effective multi-layered strategy to control Internet content and monitor online activities at every level of Internet service and content networks.
There are FOUR main approaches of Chinese state control of the Internet: Technology, Law, Self-Censorship and Propaganda.

e sulle possibilità che, nonostante tutto, il web ha aperto all'interno della società cinese

However, despite all the state censorship measures I have described above, it is also indisputable that the Internet is expanding the freedom of information and expression in China. Although many of these changes are still incremental, they are nevertheless profound. In the long term, when the Internet penetration in Chinese society continue to grow, and in the time when more radical social, political change emerges in Chinese society, the Internet and other digital communication technologies such as mobile phones will definitely play a powerful role, hopefully to facilitate those changes towards a positive direction: a peaceful transition to a more open and democratic China.

Infine uno sguardo alla storica visita del massimo dirigente del Kuomintang a Pechino. Il momento non è casuale e la calorosa accoglienza riservatagli dimostra una volta di più l'intenzione del regime di recitare il ruolo del grande burattinaio sullo scenario asiatico: costituire un fronte comune contro le aspirazioni del Giappone, dividere l'opinione pubblica di Taiwan, dimostrare un'attitudine conciliante e costruttiva per frenare le critiche internazionali seguite all'approvazione dell'anti-secession law. Ma la stretta di mano tra Lien e Hu non è stata digerita troppo bene a Taipei anche se oggi dal governo dell'isola è arrivato un messaggio di segno diverso. Zhongnanhai dovrà scoprire le carte.