Congress Can't 'Fix' the BCS

(From BCS Guru)

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) made a lot of noise earlier this year about reforming the BCS. He even wrote an op-ed in Sports Illustrated. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) went as far as introducing a bill to ban the use of "national championship" by the BCS. Even President Barack Obama (D-World) has promised (or threatened) to "throw his weight around a little bit."



But don't hold your breath. The BCS isn't going anywhere and it's not going to change much.

And that's a good thing in this sense: You do not want the United States government messing with college football.

For those of you who skipped your high school civic classes or didn't care much for polisci in college, here's a quick primer: The U.S. is a federal republic, its government is represented by people from all 50 states, each with its own disparate interest. These representatives don't work for you or me or the United States as a whole, per se. They work for their state, their district and their constituents.

But most of all, they work for themselves to make sure that they get re-elected.

That's why there's all the grandstanding about the BCS when the timing is convenient. When there's nothing going on, it's a cheap way to get some media attention. And since the BCS is about as popular as the Third Reich, it's easy to kick around the BCS and score brownie points.

You do notice, though, that none of these politicians, from Obama on down, offered anything remotely resembling a "solution" to the BCS problem, right?

That's because they don't have one. And they don't know college football well enough to even come up with one.

You do also notice that the people who complain the loudest about the BCS tend to be representing the latest aggrieved party in the BCS saga. Yes, Hatch is all hot because Utah got screwed last year. Barton is pissed because similarly Texas got shut out of the BCS title game (but he went to A&M, so go figure).

In 2007, the loudest critic of the BCS was University of Gerogia president Michael Adams. He was sore because the Bulldogs didn't get their shot at the crystal ball. Guess what? This last offseason you didn't hear a peep from Dr. Adams, presumably because UGA still got its fat BCS check even though its team, ranked No. 1 in the preseason, more or less went in the tank.

So here's a prediction: You won't hear too much from Sen. Hatch next spring - unless BYU becomes the next BCS victim.

When it comes to the BCS, the best you can hope for is that it'll do the right thing not because of government regulation, but because of the market forces. We still live in a nation with an economy that's fueled by capitalistic endeavors (for now, anyway). And make no mistake, college football and the BCS are big business. So at the end, money talks.

Money talked in the 1990s, as Bowl Coalition morphed into Bowl Alliance and then the BCS. It's not a perfect system, but it's at least marginally better than the old bowl regime. The best two championship games of the BCS Era (2002 and 2005) wouldn't have happened without the BCS. There will come a time - maybe in the next 5-10 years - that there will be so much money on the table for the BCS to adopt some sort of a Plus-One or pseudo-playoff system. You can count on that.

What you can't count on is government efficiency, that's why you want it to stay the hell away from college football. The U.S. government is pretty stretched. It's now running the car industry and many of the big banks. Soon, it'll own healthcare, then energy, and before you know it, you and me, too.

Besides, at a time where there is a real fear of inflation, with runaway budget deficits, continuing high unemployment and negative growth in GDP, not to mention nuclear threats from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, why is anybody in government even talking about college football?

That's why we want our congressmen and senators to butt out. To mind their own business. To take care of business. In the case of the BCS, we don't need their help to "fix" it.

Q&A with Frank Ching

(From RealClearWorld)

Frank Ching is a journalist and commentator who was Wall Street Journal's first China Bureau chief when China reopened to the West in 1979. He now writes a weekly column for the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), China Post (Taiwan) and Globe and Mail (Canada). He's the author of three books - Ancestors: 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family (1988 and just re-released this month), China: The Truth About Its Human Rights Record (2008) and The Li Dynasty: Hong Kong Aristocrats (1999). He spoke to RealClearWorld about China, its relationship with the U.S. and its place in the world, by telephone from his home in Hong Kong.

RCW: Are China and the U.S. getting a bit closer?

Ching: There's no question they're forging a closer relationship, especially economically. When Hillary (Clinton) was in Thailand she spoke about how the U.S. has not been very active in the affairs of Asia, missing two out of every three (ASEAN) meetings. I think she understands that now it's in America's best interest in forging a closer relationship with China, particularly with the growing importance of China both economically and politically.

RCW: Is climate change a big deal for China?

Ching: It's a big deal for the world, and China recognizes it's a big deal as well. I think Chinese officials are more receptive now to talk about climate change than they were maybe even 10 years ago. China would argue that the West - the U.S. and western Europe - has been emitting greenhouse gases for a couple hundred years and that China on a per capita basis is only emitting about a quarter of the U.S.'s output. But I think China does have a genuine interest in trying to develop its industries to be more energy efficient. I don't think China is going to be a problem for America on this front. I expect climate change will be a major topic of discussion between China and the U.S., and it's their hope to have an agreement in Copenhagen (at the UN Climate Change Conference in December 2009).

RCW: Does China want the climate change talk to distract from other issues, such as human rights?

Ching: When China was first approached on climate change, they were taken aback and they were a little suspicious. But I think they came around when Hillary went to China a few months ago and stated that she was not going to talk about human rights. (The) human rights (situation) will improve when the Chinese people decide to do something about it, and not as a result of outside pressure - the U.S. now accepts this and it also knows it's not in a position to put much pressure on China about it.

RCW: Is China also forging a better relationship with Japan?

Ching: They're better than from '01-'05 when (PM Junichiro) Koizumi went to the Yasukuni Shrine every year. None of the prime ministers have done that since, though while (Taro) Aso hasn't been to the shrine, he's sent an offering - and the Chinese don't like even that. Japan has had a succession of weak leaders since Koizumi, and in their election at the end of this month, most likely LDP will be out of power. The Chinese have taken a more pragmatic approach with Japan. (Chinese PM) Wen (Jiabao) has said that China accepts Japan's apology (on the invasion and occupation of China during WWII) and unless Japan reopens the issue, China is ready to move on. I don't believe the new Japanese government will be provocative towards Beijing.

RCW: Is reunification on the horizon for China and Taiwan?

Ching: Obviously things have changed a lot since Ma Ying-jeou (became president in May 2008). Ma won't talk about reunification even if he wins a second term, but he's open to reaching a peace agreement in his second term. China would sign a peace agreement if there's something in there for an eventual peaceful return of Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party realizes Ma is very different from Chen (Shiu-bian, Ma's predecessor), and they very much want to see Ma re-elected, so they're not going to do anything to jeopardize that. China knows not to weaken Ma, in fact they realize they need to do what they can to help Ma. For instance, Taiwan was admitted to the (World Health Assembly) as an observer (in May 2009), with China's blessing. If that hadn't happened, that would've been very bad for Ma. In 1999, after Taiwan's big earthquake, China held the ridiculous position that nobody in the world could send assistance to Taiwan without China's permission. They know better than doing anything like that now.

RCW: Has China's approach to the Taiwan issue changed fundamentally?

Ching: There's definite improvement, because unlike Jiang (Zemin, former Chinese president), who was keen on getting a timetable for reunification, Hu (Jintao) is taking a different approach - he wants to make sure Taiwan does not move any further away. So instead of talking about reunification, China passed a secession law in 2005, basically assuming that there's one China, and as long as the status quo is maintained, everything can be negotiated. That helps to lower the tensions.

RCW: Is China playing its cards right with Tibet and Xinjiang?

Ching: I don't think they're handling it well. The moment any unrest takes place, they blame it on outsiders. I think there's a way that people in Xinjiang and Tibet could be happy to identify themselves with the country, but China just won't admit any mistakes in their dealings with ethnic minorities. They always blame any problems on somebody outside, that's just really stupid. When Mao was alive, there was this slogan of "Long Live the Great, Glorious and Correct Communist Party." And while they occasionally will make "corrections" to atrocities committed in the past, they rarely admit any mistakes, which in this situation just breeds lingering resentment.

RCW: Is the Chinese regime fearful of the technological revolution, particularly in view of what happened in Iran?

Ching: This is a serious problem for the regime, though the government has developed a very sophisticated way of controlling the flow of information, censoring the media and manipulating public opinion. For example, Hu's son was involved in a corruption case in Namibia, and immediately the propaganda department put out instructions not to allow anything related to the case to flow to the Internet. Never mind that Namibia merely wants to question him, he's not s suspect but might provide important information. But the Chinese government just wants to shut it down. China has cutting edge technology on this, and other regimes, such as Iran, are learning from them. It's interesting to note that during Iran's protests, the opposition, people who were in support of Khatami and Rafsanjani were shouting "death to China" whereas the pro-Ahmadinejad side is shouting "death to America."

RCW: What is the biggest challenge facing the Chinese regime?

Ching: They really are not facing an existential threat. There are thousands of protests every year, but they're not organized. The regime would be concerned if they weren't scattered all over the country. Most people think the central government is OK. They don't love it, but they tolerate it. Most of the petitioning is against the local governments, and the local governments tend to try to catch the people, arrest them and silence them at the local level. So the central government doesn't really see the threats, nothing serious anyway. They feel they're in charge.

RCW: How is Hu Jintao performing as China's president?

Ching: Hu is unflappable. He doesn't betray any emotions. It seems to me on the whole, he's doing a good job. He's handled foreign relations and the financial crisis fairly well. When he first took over, there were hopes that he would turn out to be a liberal and somebody who would liberalize China, but that's not happening - not with his record of stifling sentiment for elections and cracking down on human rights lawyers - he's not a liberal. The big difference in the CCP between the times of Deng Xiaoping and now is that Deng was a strongman; he was the paramount leader, even if his only title was the honorary chairman of the Chinese Bridge Association. That's no longer the case. Hu may be No. 1 in China, but institutions are now more important than when Deng was around. There are now term limits. You expect a change of leadership after every 10 years. When Jiang stepped down (in March 2003) that was the first time in CCP history that the leadership changed hands, even though somebody didn't die.

RCW: You're a journalist with quite a history covering China. Tell us more.

Ching: I've been in journalism all my life. I was a reporter with the New York Times and then the Wall Street Journal, opening their first bureau there in 1979 after China's normalization (of relations with the U.S.). I took a few years off to write a book, research my ancestors, and it really was a book on Chinese history from the Song Dynasty to the present, using my family as the vehicle. Now I write three columns a week and I teach a class on China's international relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Q&A with Gordon Chang

(From RealClearWorld)

Gordon Chang is a columnist for Forbes and author of The Coming Collapse of China (2001) and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World (2006). He spoke with RealClearWorld about the escalating tensions with these two countries on the forefront of America's foreign policy agenda.

RCW: What are the long-term consequences of China's ethnic crisis?

Chang: The important aspect of the Xinjiang riots is that it shows the Communist Party doesn't have the ability to sustain their current policies with respect to China's minorities. We saw that last year when Tibet exploded in violence in March, and it's the same dynamic today. Their policy is unsustainable, abhorrent and terrible, but it also undermines the regime in that it has to divert so many needed resources to deal with these problems.

We have to remember that China remains a regime with Leninist pretensions. It's no longer a Maoist totalitarian state, but an authoritarian one. In the absence of the rule of law, it seeks to control too much. It's always worrying about its legitimacy, so even in good times it's creating enemies for itself. It's not just that the nature of the Chinese state has changed, but it's changed because the policies of the Communist Party have changed. This is the ultimate paradox.

RCW: In The Coming Collapse of China, you predicted its destruction would come from an economic meltdown. How well is China handling the financial crisis?

Chang: The weakness of the Chinese economy is that it's export-dominated, which accounts for 38-42 percent of its GDP. With developed countries not being able to purchase Chinese goods at the rate that they had been in the past, you'll see a continued decline in the Chinese economy. In essence, the Chinese leaders can do everything right and yet they still don't control their own destiny. And that's a problem you see in all the export-dependent economies, such as Russia, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Germany.

China has decided to try its own stimulus program in which they are trading short-term growth for long-term decline. Whereas when China opened up in December 1978, they grew their economy by developing a private sector. Now they're going in the opposite direction: renationalizing industries, choking off China's engine of growth and creating bad loans. They're going down the wrong path.

RCW: Will China come to blows with the U.S., either economically or militarily?

Chang: From the economic point of view, the free ride for China is over. China and the U.S. are de-linking because we're buying fewer goods and they're buying less treasury notes. We've basically had a one-way trade policy during the Bush and even Clinton years. But Obama can't continue business as usual, because if he wants another 4-year term, he can't just ignore the labor unions and the rust belt states by not enforcing our trade rights. And by doing that we'll probably trigger protectionist retaliations around the world, and with its economy so dependent on trade, China will be the biggest victim.

As far as the military, I don't foresee a conflict with China, but that's not to say that's never a possibility. At the present time we're giving China a wide berth when it comes to naval maneuvers, and that in itself actually creates more danger because China has become more aggressive. The more likely scenario (for an armed conflict) may come from China's actions against our allies, particularly Japan. Chinese submarines routinely violate Japanese territorial waters. If Japan decides to take a resolute measure and change its posture and engage in a firefight, who knows what's going to happen.

RCW: What about China's ties with Russia, are they on an upswing?

Chang: China and Russia have a very curious relationship. They're closer now than they have been yet they're still deeply antagonistic. Right now, their perceived interests coincide as the two largest authoritarian powers are banding together - that's why a U.S. alliance with India makes much more sense. I can see another bipolar cleavage developing with competition once again between the hardline authoritarian states against the democracies.

RCW: How and when will China collapse?

Chang: I don't know when it's going to happen, but I do think their political system is unsustainable and it will fail soon. The question is, what would happen to China's territories? I think Taiwan will be recognized as an independent state and a vibrant democracy as it already is. The Uighurs and Tibetans might escape the Chinese tent. There will be a lot of complications for the succession government.

RCW: Do we really want China to collapse, or is it perhaps better to deal with the devil you know?

Chang: These days, when people in Washington are calling Beijing, sometimes the phone gets answered and sometimes it doesn't. In the future, there might be nobody at the other end of the phone. You could have one solution, where you have a gradual revolution, with a representative government and a free market system. But on the other hand, you could have a much more hardline state, even worse than today. Or, you could have no state or a weak state, with chaos and turmoil. The Chinese people will eventually get it right, but it could be years, decades or centuries. If you look back in Chinese history, there is little optimism. I don't see a Chinese Gorbachev or a Yeltsin.

That said, the devil we know is not good enough. It's completely unacceptable. The next devil could be worse, but our only goal can't just be stability. We now have a (Chinese) government that's moving in all the wrong directions, a government more hostile, aggressive and assertive. Our relationship is becoming less constructive and it's not something we want to preserve. In some ways, we have encouraged Beijing to be less responsible and responsive. We created perverse policy incentives for them to behave this way.

RCW: How much pull does China have on North Korea?

Chang: China supplies 90% of North Korea's oil and 80% of its consumer goods. It's North Korea's only formal military ally and their only backer in international councils. That gives China a lot of pull. But either they don't exercise that pull by not making requests all the time, or North Korea is defying China. The U.S. needs to change its posture with respect to North Korea - China won't do the right thing because doesn't want to or maybe it can't. Plan B is for us to work with our allies to deal with North Korea rather than with a potential adversary (China).

RCW: What is the endgame for North Korea?

Chang: That's a great question and no one has an answer for that. The only thing we know for sure is that there will be a transition soon. Kim Jong-il is in failing health and he won't last too long. We'll either see his 26-year-old son be his successor or purely as a figurehead. The thing is, Kim Il-sung spent two decades to groom his son to succeed him and Kim Jong-il spent not two years, and maybe just two months on his son.

Unless Kim lives another 10 years - which is doubtful - then his son doesn't have a chance (to actually assume leadership). The real issue is which military faction wins the power struggle, the ones who are favorable to Beijing or the ones who aren't? Kim (Jong-il) spent years purging the China-friendly generals but when he goes, the pro-China faction might reassert itself.

RCW: What are the best- and worst-case scenarios for North Korea?

Chang: The worst case is simple, another war on the Korean Peninsula, maybe even a nuclear one. Remember, North Korea and South Korea have skirmishes all the time. During the crabbing season, North Korean patrol boats are in South Korean waters frequently. One of those times might be one provocation too many. Or a minor shooting incident at the DMZ escalating into something much more than that. North Korea is inherently aggressive, but the new South Korean president Lee Myung-bak is less willing to put up with crap (than his predecessors).

Another possibility is that Kim or his successor gets desperate and decides to start a war. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but the odds are higher than generally expected. It may happen in ways that truly surprise us.

RCW: How did you get into China, North Korea and East Asian politics? Aren't you a lawyer by trade?

Chang: When I practiced law, I worked in Shanghai in 1996. At that time, I wasn't terribly into politics. I had a positive view of China. I remember my wife calling back to the States talking to her mother, saying, "Mom, China is not a communist country anymore." But after living there, working there and traveling there, we saw a different side of China that changed our perception. After writing The Coming Collapse of China, I began to learn about China's relationship with North Korea - it's got to be the oddest bilateral relationship in the world. To me, North Korea is a very consequential country in world affairs.

I now write and speak because I feel very passionately about these issues. I think the world has the wrong perception of China. We live in dangerous times, and even minor events, if we mishandle them or because we don't comprehend them, can make things a lot worse.

Chinese Nationalism Begets Chinese Racism

(From RealClearWorld)

Call it ethnic cleansing, with Chinese characteristics.

For the past two decades, China’s communist mandarins have sought the use of nationalism to offset their dubious legitimacy. In turning every Chinese misstep into a foreign affront, the regime has successfully created a sense of “China Uber Alles,” to borrow a phrase from a long-departed regime.

The side effect of the newly fashioned Chinese nationalism is a virulent strand of Chinese racism. To be more exact, the Han Chinese racism.

The Han race dominates the Chinese world in every way imaginable. They may be rich or poor. They may speak Cantonese or Mandarin. They may hail from Shanghai or Taipei or Los Angeles. But they draw their blood from the same ancestral source.

Because China proper has a mostly homogeneous population, the issue of race or ethnicity has rarely been a topic worthy of discussion. The Han race last galvanized itself in the 19th century to drive the ruling Manchus out of China. Once the Qing Dynasty was vanquished in 1911, the book on race relations in China was closed.

Until now.

After winning the Civil War in 1949, the Chinese Communists have strived to maintain China’s territorial integrity, especially after numerous border clashes with the Soviet Union, India and Vietnam. To secure those border hinterlands in the People’s Republic’s vast western territories, the government invested in a policy to place more reliable elements into those potentially troublesome regions.

It’s a settlement regimen that makes Israel’s look like child’s play.

Han Chinese flooded into Tibet and Xinjiang (literally meaning “New Territories") in the years after the People’s Liberation Army marched in to take control. The government enticed the Han Chinese to move thousands of miles away from the country's heartland with promises of jobs, status and a bright future. Tired of the crowded rat race in cities like Beijing, Guangzhou and Wuhan, many took the offer to head west.

The result is one of the world’s biggest population shifts since Germans were expelled from Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. In 1949, Han Chinese accounted for just 5% of Xinjiang’s population. Today, they are up to 41%, soon to eclipse the native Uighur Muslims’ 45%. Urumqi, the modern capital city dotted by skyscrapers, is dominated by the Han Chinese, who comprise over 75% of the 2.5 million population.

The successful settlement of Han population in Xinjiang underscores the importance of the region to the regime. While Tibet gets more attention from abroad, Xinjiang is more critical to China.

More than twice the size of Texas, Xinjiang sits on the old Silk Road, a land rich with resources such as natural gas and oil. It houses China’s nuclear weapons facilities. Its frontier is guarded by the towering Tian Shan mountain range, shielding China from its unstable Central Asian neighbors.

As with Tibet, Xinjiang is nominally an “autonomous region,” but that designation is as miscast as “People’s Republic.” The native Uighurs are kept away from the levers of power, which of course are supervised by Beijing. In fact, despite being as far as 3,000 miles away, all of Xinjiang (and all of China) is on Beijing time.

Beyond moving in Han Chinese to insure a loyal populace, the other part of the “ethnic cleansing” involves moving the Uighurs out of Xinjiang. Thousands of native Uighurs (many of them women) have been shipped out of their native land to take jobs in China proper. Ostensibly, it was to provide them with better pay and future, exactly what’s promised the Han Chinese in Xinjiang.

This week’s troubles started not in Xinjiang, but in Guangdong, where the displaced Uighur factory workers were involved in a brawl with the local Han Chinese population. When the Uighurs organized to protest in Urumqi, they were met with angry Han Chinese mobs, who outnumber them, 5-1, in the capital of the ironically named “Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.”

It’s abundantly clear, from last year’s riots in Lhasa to this week’s in Urumqi, that many Han Chinese have developed a keen sense of their own racial superiority.

The one phrase frequently heard from the average Chinese man on the street is “ungrateful." Put another way: Those backward minorities ought to appreciate all the modern infrastructure and improved living standards bestowed them by the Han Chinese, instead of making trouble.

There was a time when racial harmony was a highly cherished concept in the People’s Republic. Mao Zedong promoted class struggle, but demanded benevolence (at least in name) toward the minorities. China’s Reminbi currency made a point to feature all sorts of racial minorities in their various native costumes.

But that was when everybody was being repressed and oppressed in China. Now that China is bigger, stronger, and richer than ever, taking care of these minorities’ grievances isn’t much of a priority.

In fact, these grievances are met not with shrugs, but fists, sticks and guns – and not just from the cops and soldiers. Call it racism with Chinese characteristics.

China's Other Powder Keg Erupts

(From RealClearWorld)

The ethnic riots in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region has so far claimed 140 lives with 800-plus injured, according to official figures. In reality, those numbers could be much higher.

The majority Uighurs in the Xinjiang region, in China's far-flung northwest corner, have resented the hardline rule of the Chinese Communists and the growing influx of ethnic Han Chinese since the People's Liberation Army entered the area in 1949. The latest incident began as a group of Uighur students protested Chinese discrimination against ethnic minorities.

According to the South China Morning Post, the leading English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, the origins of the events that led to the protest may have been fanned by an internet hoax:

Provincial police yesterday detained a man accused of spreading false rumours of rape over the internet that sparked a deadly ethnic brawl at a Hong Kong-owned toy factory in the northern Guangdong city of Shaoguan at the weekend.

Xinhua reported that the former worker posted a message on a local website claiming, "Six Xinjiang boys raped two innocent girls" at the factory, which is owned by Early Light International (Holdings).

Police said the unfounded claim was behind the massive brawl on Friday night between a group of Han and Uygur workers from the northwestern Xinjiang region who had been recruited to the factory. Some 800 migrant workers were employed from Shufu county, under the jurisdiction of Kashgar.

The Xinjiang region may be even more volatile than Tibet, which has given authorities fits intermittently since Communist Chinese occupation began in 1951. But Chinese leadership won't hesitate to unleash a harsh reprisal in Xinjiang, as there is little international support for the Uighurs' plight. A number of central Asian nations, and Russia, view the Uighur Muslims as potential troublemakers in the region and an Islamic terrorist threat.

Recently, when the Obama administration released a handful of Uighur detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, it had a difficult time placing them because repatriating them back to China would have resulted in harsh treatment (if not death) for these individuals, considered separatist terrorists by Beijing.

The riot in Xinjiang may be short-lived, as Chinese authorities will have no qualms about shutting down media access and springing a bloody crackdown. Alim Seytoff, head of the Uighur American Association, told the Chinese-language World Journal that the authorities responded with 1,000-plus riot police as soon as the protest emerged and "we've been told, they began randomly shooting into the crowd. ... We don't know how many people actually died, but at least hundreds were injured."

He went on to refute the Chinese government's assertion that the riot was premeditated by expatriate Uighur organizations, calling it a "smokescreen."

Deng Xiaoping's Bloody Power Play

(From RealClearWorld)

On the fateful days leading up to June 4, 1989, Zhao Ziyang frantically tried to halt a looming bloody crackdown. He sought an audience with one man, in whose hands the future of China’s liberalization teetered.

But Deng Xiaoping wasn’t listening.

He might’ve been nearly deaf, but at the age of 84, Deng understood how to keep the reins of power perfectly. Zhao, in his just-published posthumous memoir - Prisoner of the State – made it clear that the events on June 4 and beyond were conducted according to the exact wishes of the most powerful man in China.

In order to understand the bloody crackdown and all its consequences, it is first necessary to understand Deng Xiaoping the man. Deng had a decision to make, and it was nearly his alone. In this critical hour, Deng proved that he was unable to overcome his own personal history and obsession with power.

The student protests began on April 15, 1989, initially as a gathering to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, and to voice their displeasure at the government’s corruption. Hu was Zhao’s predecessor as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and the leading reformer of his time. He had been purged by Deng and the reactionary faction in the CCP because, as a true reformer, Hu wanted China’s liberalization to go beyond just economic transformation.

China had opened its doors to the outside world for a decade at this point, but politically, it was nearly as repressive as it had been under Mao. Rampant corruption plagued the CCP at all levels, and public discontent was growing fiercer.

The students extended their protest for over a month, both during and after the visit in May by Mikhail Gorbachev -- a reformer himself and the architect of Glasnost. The protest now featured a hunger strike and a demand for direct dialogue with party officials. Over 100,000 students and workers occupied Tiananmen Square, despite repeated orders to disperse.

The scenes of students in a state of near anarchy haunted Deng.

In 1968, at the height of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it was Deng himself who had been purged and banished to work in a factory in Jiangxi Province. His children were rounded up by Peking University students and forced to denounce their father and “expose his crimes.”

As detailed in Mao – The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Deng’s 24-year-old son Pufang tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out of a window, only to survive and was paralyzed from the waist down. Deng and his wife were not even told of his condition until a year later and not allowed to see Pufang until 1971. It was the single-most traumatic event in Deng’s turbulent personal and political life.

Now, seeing the same Peking University students nearing yet another riot, Deng was not going to heed Zhao’s pleas to go soft and slow. In his mind, he had come too far to allow his grip on power to be loosened by the same kind of radicals.

Deng had regained his political footing in the waning days of Mao’s life. With a country nearly shattered by the Cultural Revolution, Mao needed someone competent to restore order, so he freed Deng from his house arrest and political exile of nearly a decade. After Mao’s death, Deng outmaneuvered Mao’s widow and her “Gang of Four” to become the party chairman and the ruler of China.

Though Deng – an economist by trade - favored economic liberalization, he was hesitant to bring about rapid political reforms. He had allowed reformers such as Hu and Zhao to become party chiefs, but in the face of hardline opposition, he always backed down rather swiftly.

Deng purged Hu following a massive student demonstration in late 1986. The same fate befell Zhao, who was ousted days before the crackdown, and lived under house arrest until his death in 2005.

On June 4, 1989, the nascent movement toward political accountability was ruthlessly crushed by guns and tanks. But the bloodshed didn’t stop in Tiananmen Square and its immediate vicinity, as executions, prison sentences and purges were carried out throughout China. There has not been any political mass protest in China since.

After Tiananmen, Deng consolidated his power and remained the “paramount leader” of China for the remainder of his life. No doubt he gained certain satisfaction at the outcome of the crackdown. Merely five months later, the Berlin Wall fell and the communist stranglehold on Eastern Europe collapsed. Yet 20 years later, the Chinese Communists’ grip on China in all facets of life is as firm as ever.

Most of China’s young today know little to nothing about the Tiananmen Massacre. June 4 will come and go as any other day on the calendar. But just to be sure that absolutely no one will be talking about the incident, the Chinese government has taken care to shut down Twitter, Flickr and other social networking sites for the moment.

Today’s Chinese leaders are thus true disciples of the CCP. Just like Mao and Deng before them, these kindred spirits can agree on one thing: Power grows from the barrel of the gun.

Ninety Years of Chinese Nationalism

(From RealClearWorld)

The anniversary of June 4 will be closely observed by China watchers from around the world while it won’t be observed at all in China. But an event that's had far more lasting impact on modern China took place 90 years ago today, and it is this anniversary that should not escape unnoticed.

On May 4, 1919, thousands of university students gathered in Peking in an angry protest over China’s treatment in the Versailles Conference following the aftermath of World War I. If Weimar Germany got the shaft, then China was handed the short end of the stick.

Despite being on the winning side of the war, China, which sent 140,000 laborers to the western front digging ditches, ferrying ambulances and performing otherwise dangerous and menial tasks, got none of the victors’ spoils. Worse, it was betrayed by its western "allies" in every way. Not only did China not regain its sovereign soil held by the British and French, it watched helplessly as Japan took possession of the former German concessions.

The humiliation at Versailles illustrated the utter impotence of China’s nascent republic. But at this moment, when the "new" China hit the nadir in terms of international prestige, a fervent Chinese nationalism was born. And in many ways, this brand of Chinese nationalism is still ongoing.

The May Fourth Movement is commonly thought to be the catalyst, or birthplace, of the Chinese Communist Party. While it's true that a good number of the May Fourth intellectuals eventually came under communist influence, the CCP likely would've risen to prominence anyway, especially with the emergence of the new-born Soviet Union. But the real achievement of the movement was that it galvanized China to truly become a modern-day nation.

During centuries of imperial rule, the idea of "China" as one nation only existed in the minds of those at the highest levels of power. Because of China's isolation, it never really needed to contend with powerful foreign entities, save for the "barbarians" who lived outside of the Great Wall. But even when the barbarians conquered China, as the Mongols did in the 13th century and the Manchus in the 17th, they were quickly engulfed by the superior Chinese culture.

It wasn't until the 19th century when China had to deal with a truly foreign menace. First, it was the British. Then the French, Russians, Germans, and worst of all, the Japanese. A sense of nationhood initially was stoked during the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, but they were put down with the help of foreigners. The Qing Dynasty was finally overthrown in 1911, but the Republic of China, during its infancy, was more an idea than reality as the country was divvied up amongst various warlords and republican factions.

World War I was thought to be China's maiden voyage onto the international stage. But for all their efforts, the Chinese were rudely reminded of their inconsequence at the Versailles Conference. For the young generation of Chinese intellectuals who were educated in western-style liberalism, Versailles represented a devastating betrayal. For the first time, they understood that power politics trumps any lofty ideals. And with them leading the way, the movement built momentum throughout China that created a coherence and unity among the ordinary Chinese.

The Chinese were angry at their own weakness. They were angry at their own government and the foreign powers, especially Japan. The Chinese representatives in Versailles, in a symbolic gesture, refused to sign the final peace treaty. (China in fact signed a separate peace treaty with Germany in 1921.)

Fast forward to today. Ninety years later, Chinese nationalism is alive and well, and now with plenty of teeth. Backed by the world's third-largest economy and perhaps the second most powerful military, China is no longer the sick man of Asia. But nationalism is like a powder keg. For the CCP, management of this nationalism is a very delicate issue.

In recent years, the CCP has sought to use Chinese nationalism to deflect attention away from its continued one-party dictatorship. For the most part, it has achieved the desired effect. In crisis after crisis, whether it's on the question of Tibet or confrontations with the United States, the CCP counted on the application of nationalism to turn its own misdeeds into grievances.

But the days of the CCP playing the nationalism card so deftly may be numbered. China is the only country among the top 20 world producers that does not allow free elections (Russia might be another one, but we digress). Its superpower-in-waiting status is unquestioned. Sooner or later, the Chinese citizenry will figure out that to cure whatever ails China nowadays, they'd better start to look from within.

That's why the 90th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement - known as "Youth Day" in China - will only get a glancing acknowledgment from the country's leadership . At its very heart, May Fourth represented an awakening. It was a revolt, and it was anti-government. The CCP wants none of that.