VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1, JAN–MAR 2019 SMASHING THE BELL JAR Shades of Gender in China The Made in China Journal is a quarterly on Chinese labour, civil society, and rights. This project has been produced with the financial assistance of the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW), The Australian National University, and the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University. The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of CIW, Lund University, or the institutions to which the authors are affiliated. Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark; Our women’s world is sunk so deep, who can help us? Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas, Cut off from my family I leave my native land. Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison, With heated heart arouse all women’s spirits. Alas, this delicate kerchief here Is half stained with blood, and half with tears. Qiu Jin, 1904 (translated by Jonathan Spence) TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL (P. 6) BRIEFS (P. 8) OP-EDS (P. 12) TRANSNATIONAL CARCERAL CAPITALISM IN XINJIANG AND BEYOND (P. 13) Gerald ROCHE STATE REPRESSION IN THE JASIC VOLUME 4, ISSUE #1 AFTERMATH: FROM PUNISHMENT TO JAN–MAR 2019 PREEMPTION (P. 16) ISSN 2206-9119 Kevin LIN CHIEF EDITORS WHERE IS CHINA’S INTERPOL CHIEF? (P. 20) Ivan Franceschini, Nicholas Loubere Maya WANG EDITORIAL BOARD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, ARTIFICIAL Yige Dong, Nuala Gathercole Lam, Kevin Lin, INTELLIGENCE, AND ETHICAL DILEMMAS: Andrea Enrico Pia, Christian Sorace CHINA AND THE NEW FRONTIERS OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY (P. 24) ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS James DARROWBY Bao Hongwei, Milford Bateman, Jude Blanchette, Katherine Brickell, Martina FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: Caschera, James Darrowby, He Xiaopei, A RESPONSE TO JOHN GARNAUT’S PRIMER Séagh Kehoe, Nicola Macbean, Nithya ON IDEOLOGY (P. 29) Natarajan, Laurie Parsons, Dušica Christian SORACE Ristivojević, Gerald Roche, Tan Jia, Daniel Vukovich, Robert Walker, Maya Wang, Wang Nanfu, Jie Yang, Yang Lichao, Yi Xiaocuo, CHINA COLUMNS (P. 34) Zeng Jinyan, Zhang Leilei, Zheng Churan, HIDDEN RULES AND THE ‘HEARTACHE’ OF Tiantian Zheng CHINESE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS (P. 36) Jie YANG COPY-EDITING Sharon Strange AGAINST ATROPHY: PARTY ORGANISATIONS IN PRIVATE FIRMS (P. 42) EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Jude BLANCHETTE Nan Liu, Tessie Sun ANTI-POVERTY POLICIES AND DISCOURSES ART DIRECTION OF BLAME IN CHINA (P. 46) Tommaso Facchin Robert WALKER YANG Lichao COVER ARTWORK Marc Verdugo FOCUS (P. 50) WORK OF ARTS (P. 118) CHINESE FEMINISM AS WE KNOW ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA: LU IT: PUBLIC PEDAGOGIES OF THE ZHIXIANG’S SKETCHES OF SHANGHAI’S ANGLOPHONE MEDIA SPACE (P. 52) SOCIETY IN THE 1930S (P. 119) Dušica RISTIVOJEVIĆ Martina CASCHERA DOES CHINA HAVE A FEMINIST MOVEMENT HOOLIGAN SPARROW: A CONVERSATION FROM THE LEFT? (P. 58) WITH WANG NANFU (P. 126) Yige DONG ZENG Jinyan, TAN Jia BEYOND #METOO IN CHINA: A CONVERSATIONS (P. 134) CONVERSATION WITH ZHANG LEILEI (P. 64) Nuala GATHERCOLE LAM ILLIBERAL CHINA: A CONVERSATION WITH DANIEL VUKOVICH (P. 134) GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: CHINESE Christian SORACE FEMINISM, TIBET, AND XINJIANG (P. 72) Séagh KEHOE CONTRIBUTOR BIOS (P. 138) SEPARATED AGAIN BY A HIGH WALL (P. 78) BIBLIOGRAPHY (P. 142) ZHENG Churan THE PLIGHT OF SEX WORKERS IN CHINA: FROM CRIMINALISATION AND ABUSE TO ACTIVISM (P. 86) Tiantian ZHENG ACCIDENTAL ACTIVISTS: THE RESISTANCE OF THE ‘709’ WIVES (P. 92) Nicola MACBEAN QUEER HISTORY, CULTURE, AND ACTIVISM IN CHINA: A CONVERSATION WITH HE XIAOPEI (P. 96) BAO Hongwei WINDOW ON ASIA (P. 106) DESCENDING INTO DEBT IN CAMBODIA (P. 107) Milford BATEMAN, Nithya NATARAJAN, Katherine BRICKELL, and Laurie PARSONS A ROAD TO FORGETTING: FRIENDSHIP AND MEMORY IN CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (P. 114) YI Xiaocuo EDITORIAL Smashing the Bell Jar Shades of Gender in China would continue to engage in revolutionary activities, and was ultimately beheaded by the Qing authorities in July 1907 at the age of 31. Martyrdom made her into a legend. More than a century later, bound feet belong to another age and kerchieves stained with blood and tears have become an overused trope in revolutionary literature. Still, Qiu Jin’s spirit is more alive than ever in a whole new generation of Chinese feminists who are fighting for women’s rights—a renewed attempt to smash the bell jar of China’s patriarchal society. This issue of the Made in China Journal offers a series of perspectives on the plight and struggles of women and sexual minorities in today’s China. In the special section, Dušica Ristivojević reflects on how Anglophone media have been reporting on women’s Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark; activism in China over the past three decades Our women’s world is sunk so deep, who can and the implications of such coverage for our help us? understanding of the phenomenon. Yige Dong Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas, considers the class composition of the Young Cut off from my family I leave my native land. Feminist Activism in China, asking whether this Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand movement is really an elitarian urban project or years of poison, if it represents a feminist movement from the With heated heart arouse all women’s spirits. left. Nuala Gathercole Lam in conversation Alas, this delicate kerchief here with feminist activist Zhang Leilei discusses Is half stained with blood, and half with tears. the dynamics that led to the emergence of a #MeToo movement in China, as well as the Qiu Jin, 1904 shortcomings of the campaign. Séagh Kehoe (translated by Jonathan Spence) argues for increased attention and social mobilisation to address the complex and often brutal ways in which gender and ethnicity s she bode farewell to China in the overlap in China, in particular in the borderland summer of 1904, early revolutionary areas of Tibet and Xinjiang. Feminist activist AQiu Jin penned these words to Zheng Churan recounts her relationship with bemoan the fate of herself and of uncountable her husband Wei Zhili, detained at the end of Chinese women. She was leaving behind March for assisting migrant workers affected her husband—whom she had married out of by pneumoconiosis. Tiantian Zheng looks obligation—and two young children to go to back at the plight of sex workers in China study in Japan. Having returned to China, she since the beginning of the economic reforms, 6 MADE IN CHINA / 1, 2019 EDITORIAL highlighting the tragic consequences of the section, Martina Caschera reanimates the existing repressive policies. Nicola Macbean artistic production of Lu Zhixiang, a master describes the ‘accidental’ activism of the cartoonist whose work offered insight into the wifes of rights protection lawyers arrested plight of the underclasses in Shanghai in the in the crackdown of July 2015. Finally, Bao 1930s, and Zeng Jinyan and Tan Jia talk with Hongwei in conversation with leading queer director Wang Nanfu about her documentary feminist filmmaker He Xiaopei talks about the Hooligan Sparrow. formation of queer identities, communities, We wrap up the issue with a conversation and activism in China since the 1990s. with Daniel Vukovich about Illiberal China, The issue includes op-eds on the rise of his latest book on the idological challenges that transnational carceral capitalism in Xinjiang by China poses to liberal values and ideas. Gerald Roche; the latest crackdown on labour activists by Kevin Lin; the implications of the The Editors recent detention of the former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei by Maya Wang; the ethical and practical risks that Western universities face in dealing with China by James Darrowby; and the role of ideology in Xi Jinping’s China by Christian Sorace. In the China columns section, Jie Yang looks into the workings of ‘hidden norms’ in the Chinese bureaucracy and how they affect the psychological well- being of Chinese officials. Jude Blanchette traces the history of the policies adopted by the Chinese Communist Party to exert influence within private companies in China. Finally, Robert Walker and Yang Lichao analyse a recent official report that offers an assessment of progress in poverty reduction and candidly discusses contradictions within the current strategy. The Window on Asia section offers two essays. Milford Bateman, Nithya Natarajan, Katherine Brickell, and Laurie Parsons discuss the consequences of the expansion of Cambodia’s microcredit sector, where indebted people have been forced to accept exploitative labour conditions in the garment and construction industries and, in the worst cases, have been forced to sell themselves as bonded labour to brick kilns owners. Yi Xiaocuo analyses a new Sino-Kazakh coproduction that recounts the time that celebrated Chinese musician Xian Xinghai spent in Kazakhstan in early 1942, shedding light on the dark side of the cooperation between China and Kazakhstan under the aegis of the Belt and Road Initiative. In the cultural MADE IN CHINA / 1, 2019 7 BRIEFS Jan-Mar 2019 BRIEFS Crackdown on Labour Activism Intensifies JAN/MAR In the first quarter of 2019, many of the Maoist students and activists at the centre of the Jasic struggle—including Yue Xin, Shen Mengyu, Gu Jiayue, Zheng Yongming, and He Pengchao— 2019 appeared in forced confession videos screened privately to student activists at Peking University. According to students who secretly recorded the audio, in the taped confessions the activists China to Address Gender-based expressed regret for their beliefs and actions. The Discrimination authorities hinted that those in the videos might soon go on trial. In a sign of widening repression, The first quarter of 2019 has seen important steps on 20 January five labour NGO activists— taken to strengthen protection of women’s rights. including prominent labour NGO leaders Wu In December 2018, the ACWF lobbied the SPC Guijun and Zhang Zhiru—were arrested in to take into account the interests of women in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Changsha on charges judicial interpretation, develop a gender equality of ‘gathering a crowd to disturb public order’ (see assessment mechanism, promote the legalisation Lin’s op-ed in this issue).