CONTROL 治 EDITED BY Jane Golley, Linda Jaivin, AND Luigi Tomba C HINA S TORY YEARBOOK 2 0 16 © The Australian National Univeristy (as represented by the Australian Centre on China in the World) First published May 2017 by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Control / Jane Golley, Linda Jaivin, and Luigi Tomba, editors. ISBN: 9781760461195 (paperback); 9781760461201 (ebook) Series: China story yearbook; 2016. Subjects: Zhongguo gong chan dang--Discipline | China--Environment policy--21st century | China--Social conditions--21st century | China--Economic conditions--21st century | China--Politics and government--21st century. Other Creators/Contributors: Golley, Jane, editor. | Jaivin, Linda, editor. Tomba, Luigi, editor. All rights reserved. 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Design concept by Markuz Wernli; 2016 cover design and chapter openers by CRE8IVE Typesetting by Sharon Strange Printed by Union Offset Printers, Canberra, Australia The Australian Centre on China in the World is an initiative of the Commonwealth Government of Australia and The Australian National University 教 调查分析这一年里中国经济具影响的重要文件的第十三个五年规划纲要诸多至高控制权产党中央为全体党员制定了更加严格的行为准则更 、 教育 、 国 历史 、 ， 外交 并且通过了被绿色和平组织称为可能是对全球气候变化步伐最国的总结际化 、 、 文化及港台发展 更活跃 、 ， 人口规划 事实上亦可说这一年是控制更严格的一年 、 更全球化︱︱这是︽中国日报︾2016年中 、 。 执法与改革 。 中国故事年鉴2016年 ， 继续积极主张从互联网南海的 、 环境 、 互联网 、 医药 ： 。 治︱︱ 中国共 、 宗 Contents INTRODUCTION vi . Fifty Shades of Red · LINDA JAIVIN and JANE GOLLEY xxiii . Acknowledgements xxiv . The Cover Image CHAPTER 1 xxvi . What's the Plan? · LUIGI TOMBA FORUM · THE ENVIRONMENT: CONTROL AND PUNISHMENT 20 . Environmental Disasters · FOREST ABBOTT-LUM 24 . Iron-Fisted Punishments? · SIODHBHRA PARKIN 28 . Cracking Down on Water Management · WUQIRILETU 36 . A Glimmer of Hope · JANE GOLLEY CHAPTER 2 40 . Control by Law · SUSAN TREVASKES and ELISA NESOSSI FORUM · DISSENT 64 . Meet the State Security: Labour Activists and their Controllers · IVAN FRANCESCHINI CHAPTER 3 74 . Population and the Economy: The Ups and Downs of One and Two · JANE GOLLEY FORUM · THOUGHT CONTROL 98 . Communist Party Immunology · CHRISTIAN SORACE CHAPTER 4 108 . The Language of Discipline · GLORIA DAVIES FORUM · MANAGING THE PAST 134 . Dreaded Anniversaries: The Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong · LORAND LASKAI 138 . Regulating Old Towns: The Battle for the Tourist Yuan · ZHU YUJIE 142 . Trouble with the Past · NATHAN WOOLLEY CHAPTER 5 148 . Culture: In and Out of Control · LINDA JAIVIN FORUM · MIND, BODY, AND SOUL 170 . Govern the Country and Bring Peace to All: The Crisis in New Confucian Education · CRAIG A. SMITH 176 . Cups, Needles, and Noxious Blood · NATALIE KÖHLE 184 . Reining in Religion · BENJAMIN PENNY THE CHINA STORY YEARBOOK 2016 CHAPTER 6 190 . 'Nailing Jello to a Wall' · LORAND LASKAI CONTROL FORUM · 'COMPUTER SAYS NO' 212 . Cyber Loan Sharks, Social Credit, and New Frontiers 治 of Digital Control · NICHOLAS LOUBERE 224 . Crayfish, Rabies, Yoghurt, and the Little Refuting-Rumours Assistant · LORAND LASKAI 228 . Ungeilivable: Language Control in the Digital Age · ANNIE DRAHOS CHAPTER 7 236 . Policing the Borders: Hong Kong Conundrums · CAROLYN CARTIER FORUM · REACHING OUT, PULLING IN 258 . A Year of Looking Backwards · MARK HARRISON 268 . Control and Resistance in Hong Kong · ANTONY DAPIRAN CHAPTER 8 276 . Making the World Safe (for China) · GERRY GROOT FORUM · DIASPORIC DILEMMAS 298 . China's Environmental Footprint: The Zambian Example · BEYONGO MUKETE DYNAMIC 306 . The Year of the Scapegoat: Chinese in British Columbia · NICK STEMBER 312 . Chinese Americans for Trump, the 'Genuine Petty Man' · LINDA JAIVIN CHAPTER 9 316 . Strategic Control · REBECCA FABRIZI FORUM · ALIEN INVASION 338 . The ABCs of Working in China · LORAND LASKAI 342 . Crown Casino Arrests · LORAND LASKAI 346 . CHRONOLOGY 390 . ONLINE MATERIAL 356 . NOTES 392 . LIST OF INFORMATION WINDOWS 378 . KEYWORDS 394 . PREVIOUS CHINA STORY YEARBOOKS 384 . CONTRIBUTORS vii CHINA STORY YEARBOOK Fifty Shades of Red vi 2016 Linda Jaivin and Jane Golley INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Monkey King Source: William Tung, Wikimedia FIFTY SHADES OF RED Jane Golley and Linda Jaivin x xi Sun Wukong Source: othree, Flickr Fifty Shades of Red Linda Jaivin and Jane Golley The year 2016 was the Year of the Monkey, and no monkey is more iconic 2016 in China than Sun Wukong 孙悟空, the mischievous and beloved Monkey King of Chinese mythology. A central character in the sixteenth-century classic Journey to the West 西游记, ‘Monkey’ was born from a stone, and CHINA STORY YEARBOOK CHINA STORY enjoys tremendous powers thanks to Taoist practices and a magical staff. When he creates havoc in the Jade Emperor’s heavenly palace, the Buddha sends Monkey on a journey across the seemingly infinite expanse of his palm, finally trapping him under a mountain, where he remains for five hundred years. The Buddha promises Monkey his freedom if he agrees to protect the monk Xuanzang 玄奘 on his journey to collect the Buddhist classics from India and bring them back to China. But knowing Monkey’s capacity for mischief, the Buddha gives Xuanzang a headband that once placed on Monkey’s head can never be taken off, teaching him a magical incantation that enables the monk to painfully tighten the headband. The pain — or the threat of it — keeps Monkey under control throughout the long journey. ‘Control’ is the theme of the China Story Yearbook 2016. Each year, surveying the official and unofficial discourse from China, we choose a Chinese character that illustrates an overarching theme from that year’s political, economic, social, and cultural events. The character zhi 治 is our keyword for 2016. While it can be translated as control, this is only one of its many meanings. It also signifies to manage, govern, supervise, or take care of; to harness; and to arrange or put in order. It can also mean to pun- BETWEEN ORDER AND CHAOS, by Nathan Woolley Governing a large country is like steaming small fish. — Laozi in Daodejing, 60, translated by Edmund Ryden A dictionary of the second century AD refers to the character 治 as the name of a river in Shandong province, but puts forward no explanation for how it came to mean ‘control’, ‘bring order’, ‘govern’. The common use of this character in reference to the legendary sage ruler Yu 大禹 (c. 2200–2101 BCE), who ‘regulated’ the waters of China in an ancient time of great floods, suggests that it derives from the act of controlling water. While this osten- sibly explains why the radical (the graphical component of the Character taken from a character that may, but doesn’t always, have some connection rubbing of an inscription by Tang official Ouyang to the character’s meaning) of 治 is the water radical 氵, the evi- Xun 欧阳询 (557–641) dence is far from solid. By the Spring and Autumn period (eighth Source: Sina to fifth century BC), the character治 commonly appeared in one graphic form or another in political discourse and has done so ever since. Curiously, the character’s supposed antonym, luan 亂, in very early texts is sometimes used to mean ‘bring order’, and given the gloss 治. The scholar Yang Shuda (1885–1956) explained that the character now read luan originally depicted two hands, one holding silk while the other spooled it — suggesting the bringing of order to a possible tangle. Yet this understanding of the character describes an act with the potential for both order and cha- os. This is, perhaps, preserved in the rare character 乿, once an alternative way of writing 亂, and now read zhi or luan — that is having the meaning of either order or chaos depend- ing on how it is read, which is probably why the character is little used. The origin of the character 治 as ‘control’ may thus be as homonym, graphic variant or some form of cognate (as suggested by a dictionary of the eleventh century AD). ish, to cure (an illness), to exterminate (an agricultural pest or disease, for example), to research (zhi shi 治史, for example, is the study of history), to pacify and settle, and to stabilise. In historical times, it indicated the seat of local government. (See Information Window ‘Between Order and Chaos’ above.) Its most common antonym is the word for chaos, confusion, and disarray: luan 乱. Since his ascension to the presidency and leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012, Xi Jinping 习近平 has steadily expanded his personal control over the Party, the Party’s control over the state, and the state’s control over its citizens. This trend continued in 2016. Xi has personally assumed the leadership of so many commissions and ‘central leading groups’ that in the China Story Yearbook 2014: Shared Destiny, founding editor Geremie R. Barmé dubbed him the ‘chairman of everything’. In April 2016, he added a powerful new role to the list: Com- mander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s newly formed Joint Op- erations Command Centre. In October, the Sixth Plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the CCP conferred on him the status of ‘core leader’ xii xiii 核心领导人, an official appellation he now shares with the three strongest leaders of post-1949 China — Mao Zedong 毛泽东, Deng Xiaoping 邓小平, and Jiang Zemin 江泽民.