Precisely one year ago, Le Monde asked in an uncharacteristically blaring headline: “US-Chine: Le Grande Refroidissement? [US-China: The Great Re-Freeze?]” Well, today that article appears to be rather prescient. From Taiwan to Google to the Dalai Lama to pending and present trade disputes, there is more than enough acrimony to go around. Perhaps this means that French journalism and commentary about East Asia generally, and China more specifically, needs to be paid greater heed. And I shall do my part, Gaul!
Liberation, the paper said to have been founded by the great wartime author Jean-Paul Sartre (hey, wasn’t he also a philosopher who went to China with his would-be lover Simone du Beauvoir in 1956?) carries a handful of excellent analyses, including:
“China-US: The Infernal Couple,” a look at the “coup de griffe”/small assaults or mutual provocations of late, asserting that if the world is indeed going to be led by a “G2” or a “Chinamerica,” that we’re all in for a rough ride. Moreover, the paper’s analysis of China’s newly apparent assertiveness combines notes from recent Washington Post editorials and an understanding of Nicholas Sarkozy’s reluctance to speak out more publicly against Chinese policy in Tibet, for instance.
Philippe Grangereau, no strange name on this blog, lays out the case most explicitly in “The New Arrogance of Superpower China.” He writes:
Les réactions de la République populaire de Chine aux ventes d’armes américaines à Taiwan sont habituellement musclées ; mais la menace d’imposer des sanctions à l’encontre d’entreprises américaines va, cette fois, bien au-delà de ce qui était attendu. Ce coup-de-poing sur la table ne fait que confirmer le coming out d’une Chine perçue comme de plus en plus arrogante, triomphaliste et orgueilleuse.
or
The PRC’s reactions to the American sale of arms to Tawain are typically muscular, but the threat of imposing sanctions against American companies is, this time, goes further than had been expected. This fist-pounding on the table serves only to confirm the “coming out” of a China which is seen as increasingly arrogant, triumphalist, and proud.
He then goes on to quote Charles Grant from a London think-tank:
«Depuis l’an dernier, le comportement de la Chine a changé. Des personnalités nationalistes et des partisans d’une ligne relativement dure du pouvoir paraissent avoir marginalisé ceux qui ont des instincts plus libéraux et internationalistes», écrit dans une récente analyse Charles Grant, le directeur du Centre pour la réforme européenne (CER), un think tank basé à Londres relevant que «ce changement conduit les gouvernements et les institutions européennes à revoir leurs stratégies vis-à-vis de la Chine».
“Since last year, China’s behavior has changed….etc.”
Grangereau goes on to quote Marie Holzmann, who says, roughly, “For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, the planet has a new composition wherein we have a great anti-democratic power, but now this time the world lacks the will to again air its conscience («Pour la première fois depuis la chute de l’Union soviétique, la planète doit à nouveau composer avec une grande puissance antidémocratique mais le monde n’en a pas encore pleinement conscience»).
Arnaud de la Grange lays out an extensive article about Chinese internet repression in Le Figaro.
While much of de la Grange’s article is already known to readers of this blog (due of course to their extreme erudition and marked sophistication in the seeking out of quality journalism, analysis, and organic salsa), he does make a couple of unique points at the end of his piece:
Sur les forums chinois, de nombreux internautes s’insurgent contre cette nouvelle contrainte, en se demandant quel espace de leur vie privée va rester un tant soit peu à l’écart des caméras ou logiciels espions. «Qu’ils bloquent des sites pornographiques, pourquoi pas, mais là ce sont nos échanges privés qu’ils scrutent, c’est inadmissible», s’indigne une jeune femme ingénieur. Pour Jerely Goldkorn, éditeur du site Danwei.org sur les médias et l’Internet chinois, «cela ressemble à un vrai programme de prise de contrôle totale de toutes les nouvelles formes de médias, l’une après l’autre».
La censure a ses effets boomerang. Un autre étudiant raconte que depuis septembre, avec la mise hors service des proxys habituels, il s’est comme bien d’autres tourné vers des logiciels de contournement plus sophistiqués. Et notamment ceux fournis par le Global Internet Freedom Consortium, un organisme basé aux États-Unis… et proche du mouvement Falun Gong, bête noire de Pékin. «Les autorités offrent une visibilité et une sympathie inespérée au Falun Gong», constate un observateur. Comme d’autres organismes américains, le consortium se veut être l’équivalent moderne de Voice of America. En développant des technologies offrant à tous l’accès au bruit du monde, non plus par les ondes, mais par les câbles d’Internet.
In the Chinese forums, a number of netizens are insurgent against the new constraints, and demand space for their private lives which rest under the gaze of the cameras or espionage. “Sure they block the pornographic sites, why not?,” says one indignant young female engineer. “But if they are scrutinizing my private exchanges, that’s unacceptable.” For Jeremy Goldkorn, editor of the site Danwei.org which covers Chinese media and internet, “this resembles a real program to take total control of all of the forms of new media, one after the other.”
Censorship and its effects will boomerang….etc.
And finally, Liberation covers the Obama-Dalai Lama angle in a story with more than 100 comments by “internautes,” or French internet users. Given all the attention paid to Chinese “netizens” and the ultimate desire to “bridge blog” our way into a real global conversation, I can only imagine how interesting it would be to translate and combine these French comments along with comments by Chinese Global Times readers into a single Anglophone stream. Dalai Lama: wolf or man of god? The only middle ground on this issue is probably under several million cubic tons of water in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps someday technology will make it possible for readers of the Chinese press to read the French press and vice versa, but in the meantime I will keep working here with my equivalent of the old Smith Corona to give you all what I got in saccadee Anglophone style.
Related Post: “Dalai Lama in Paris: A Commentary on Elections and Propaganda”
Adam Cathcart 