The China Track 与中国接轨

Spring Break in China

I'm leading a delegation of IU professors, Indiana business executives, and local journalists on a trip to Hangzhou and Shanghai during Spring Break. We leave in a few hours. We'll land at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, then take a two-hour bus ride to Hangzhou. There we'll participate in a conference hosted by Zhejiang University, IU's strategic partner in China. Because Indiana and Zhejiang are both along the coast, it's natural they are sister state-provinces. :)

Following the conference, we'll visit with the Zhejiang government, a TV station, and tour several companies, including Alibaba and Geely. We'll then make our way to Shanghai, with a few more visits, including to Crown Biosciences, founded by former IU professor and Eli Lilly researcher, Faming Zhang. We'll also tour Shanghai General Motors, Cummins Fleetguard, and the LCD/flat panel manufacturer Tianma.

While I'm thrilled to be traveling with my colleagues and three terrific entrepreneurs -- Mat Orrego of Cornerstone Information Systems, Matthew Neff of University Health Management and CHV Capital, and Ben Shobert of Teleos -- I'm particularly excited about the two journalists coming with us, Chris Fyall of the Bloomington Herald-Times and Greg Andrews of the Indianapolis Business Journal. The Midwest media covers China some, but not to the extent it needs to. So our center created a program to help Indiana journalists better understand China and figure out how to report on the country in a way that is relevant to their audience. Chris and Greg are visiting China for the very first time. I've visited so often that it's easy to lose the thrill of the trip. Not this time. To make things even more exciting, Greg is Greg Lattimore Andrews. His great uncle was Owen Lattimore, one of the West's first  China specialists. Owen and Greg's grandmother, Eleanor, lived in Shanghai from 1904 to 1920. One scholar we are meeting translated Owen Lattimore's memoirs. Now if we could only find where the Lattimores lived, that would be so, so cool.

I'll write more in this space as the trip progresses. But you can also follow us through the blog, "IU Takes You to China" (印大华夏行). Its author is George Vlahakis, a manager in IU's Office of University Communications. This is also George's first trip, and I'm excited to see China through his eyes.

(Full disclosure: Faming Zhang, Mat Orrego, and Ben Shobert are on the advisory board of the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business, which I direct.)

 

Pssh, China Has a Civil Society

Apparently the Communist Party's Propaganda Department has issued an order banning domestic media from using the term "civil society" in their reporting. David Bandurski, writing for the China Media Project, shows that this order is being obeyed by the most official of official media, such as People's Daily, but is not by more independent outlets, such as the 21st Century Economic Herald. Scholars are also still using the term in academic papers.

One interesting aspect of this apparent ban is that it has focused on only one of the three different ways one can say civil society in Chinese, "gongmin shehui" (公民社会). Gongmin shehui could be translated as "citizen" society or, better, civic society. It refers to those members of society who are publicly engaged, often in the political process itself. But there are two other ways to say civil society in Chinese that haven't been banned. "Shimin shehui" (市民社会) literally means "urbanite society" (I'm sure there is a better translation that escapes me right now), and is most consistent with the notion of civil society being the product of capitalists and urban dwellers to create horizontal social ties and cooperative organizations to protect their interests, either against competitors or the state. Think industry associations, chambers of commerce, etc. Finally there is "minjian shehui" (民间社会), which most literally translates as "civilian society," that is, members of society collaborating with each other to form all types of organizations that are independent of state control. This would include anything from industry bodies to non-governmental organizations (NGO's) aimed to help those HIV or other marginalized groups.

If the reports are correct, this is a glass half-empty/half-full story. Propaganda officials are most worried about groups that are inherently politically oriented -- no duh -- but they are less concerned about business-related groups and other types of NGO's geared to address practical problems. If so, this effort at word control would actually imply some progress in terms of being more accommodating to the wide swath of NGO's that are the least politically threatening. Originally, it seemed the Party's view was that any group, even marble clubs and qigong groups, could potentially be threatening; but perhaps now there is a greater willingness to differentiate amongst organizations.

Reading between the lines more, this may mean China is getting ready to move on adopting new regulations related to at least industry associations and perhaps even to a broader group of NGO's. Now in the works for several years, a new set of regulations would be quite welcome and most likely represent a significant improvement over the current regulatory environment.

We'll just have to see whether the word games now being played are part of a larger policy shift, and if so, in which direction.