VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3, JUL–SEPT 2019 BLESS YOU, PRISON Experiences of Detention 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. ‘Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realise that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.’ Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL (P. 6) BRIEFS (P. 8) OP-EDS (P. 12) GOVERNING HONG KONG LIKE ANY OTHER CHINESE CITY (P. 13) Kaxton SIU VOLUME 4, ISSUE #3 JUL–SEPT 2019 HONG KONG IN TURMOIL (P. 17) ISSN 2206-9119 Anita CHAN CHIEF EDITORS COMPELLED RETICENCE: OVERSEAS Ivan Franceschini, Nicholas Loubere MAINLAND CHINESE AMID MASS PROTESTS IN HONG KONG (P. 23) EDITORIAL BOARD Daphne ZHAO YiGe DonG, Kevin Lin, Andrea Enrico Pia, Christian Sorace CAN CHINESE STUDENTS ABROAD SPEAK? ASSERTING POLITICAL AGENCY AMID ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ANXIETY (P. 29) Ai XiaominG, BørGe Bakken, Sam Berlin, Shan WINDSCRIPT Darren Byler, Yifan Cai, Michael Caster, Anita Chan, Js Chen, Miriam Driessen, Fu WE STOOD ON OPPOSITE SIDES AT A PRO- HualinG, Zhiyuan Guo, Tyler Harlan, WenJing HONG KONG RALLY AND BECAME FRIENDS JianG, Ryan Mitchell, K. Shen, Kaxton Siu, (P. 36) Tobias Smith, Claudio Sopranzetti, Shan JS CHEN Windscript, Yi Xiaocuo, ZenG Jinyan, HonG K. SHEN Zhang, Daphne Zhao, Giulia Zoccatelli SERVICE FOR INFLUENCE? THE CHINESE COPY-EDITING COMMUNIST PARTY’S NEGOTIATED ACCESS Sharon Strange TO PRIVATE ENTERPRISES (P. 41) Hong ZHANG EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Nan Liu, Tessie Sun CHINA COLUMNS (P. 46) ART DIRECTION CHINA AND THE POLITICAL MYTH OF Tommaso Facchin ‘BRAINWASHING’ (P. 48) Ryan MITCHELL COVER ARTWORK Marc VerduGo RECRUITING LOYAL STABILISERS: ON THE BANALITY OF CARCERAL COLONIALISM IN XINJIANG (P. 54) YI Xiaocuo FOCUS (P. 62) STATE OF SENSITIVITY: NAVIGATING FIELDWORK IN AN INCREASINGLY HARSH JUSTICE? (P. 64) AUTHORITARIAN CHINA (P. 116) Tobias SMITH Tyler HARLAN THE POWER TO DETAIN IN A DUAL STATE RESEARCHING CHINA THROUGH STRUCTURE (P. 70) TRANSLATION AND PRESENTATION (P. 120) FU Hualing WenJinG JIANG SYSTEMATISING HUMAN RIGHTS WINDOW ON ASIA (P. 124 ) VIOLATIONS: COERCIVE CUSTODY AND INSTITUTIONALISED DISAPPEARANCES IN THE THAI ELECTIONS OF 2019: THE RISE OF CHINA (P. 76) THE ILLIBERAL MIDDLE CLASSES (P. 126) Michael CASTER Claudio SOPRANZETTI FORCED INTERNMENT IN MENTAL HEALTH WORK OF ARTS (P. 130 ) INSTITUTIONS IN CHINA: COMPULSORY TREATMENT AND INVOLUNTARY JIABIANGOU ELEGY: A CONVERSATION HOSPITALISATION (P. 82) WITH AI XIAOMING (P. 131) GUO Zhiyuan ZENG Jinyan PREVENTATIVE POLICING AS COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS (P. 142 ) DETENTION IN NORTHWEST CHINA (P. 88) Darren BYLER TALES OF HOPE, TASTES OF BITTERNESS: A CONVERSATION WITH MIRIAM DRIESSEN PUNISH AND CURE: FORCED DETOX CAMPS, (P. 142) REEDUCATION THROUGH LABOUR, AND Nicholas LOUBERE THE CONTRADICTIONS OF CHINA’S WAR ON DRUGS (P. 95) CONTRIBUTOR BIOS (P. 148 ) Giulia ZOCCATELLI BIBLIOGRAPHY (P. 152) ON DETENTION, ‘DIRTY WORK’, AND EXTRA- LEGAL POLICING IN CHINA (P. 101) Børge BAKKEN FORUM (P. 106 ) ON BECOMING A ‘BLUE-EYED, BLOND AMERICAN FRIEND’: DIFFICULT FIELDWORK, POSITIONALITY, AND BEING A PARTICIPANT- RESEARCHER (P. 108) Sam Berlin CONFRONTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE FIELD: #METOO WITHIN THE IVORY TOWER AND BEYOND (P. 112) Yifan CAI EDITORIAL Bless you prison, bless you for beinG in my life. For there, lyinG upon the rottinG prison straw, I came to realise that the obJect of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 Bless You, Prison Experiences of Detention in China ith these words, Soviet star crimes or less-noble causes? What about the dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reality of murderers, thieves, drug addicts, and Wexalted the transformative role prostitutes? Is prison a blessing for them too? of the gulag—where he had been imprisoned This issue of the Made in China Journal for eight years—in reconfiguring his soul. Just aims to provide a more balanced account of like his account of life in the labour camps Chinese experiences of detention by examining played a fundamental role in shaping public situations as diverse as education camps in perceptions of the Soviet labour camps, our Xinjiang, forced detox camps for drug addicts, views of the Chinese detention system are also involuntary hospitalisation of people with widely shaped by the writings and testimonies mental health problems, the contested legacies of former political prisoners, whether victims of labour camps from the Maoist past, and the of the mass campaigns of the Mao era or more latest reforms in the fields of Chinese criminal recent crackdowns against dissident voices. justice. Such grim analyses are also key to Reading these accounts, detention easily understanding the upheavals that are currently assumes the tragic connotations of martyrdom, taking place in Hong Kong. We should not and detainees come to be surrounded by a halo forget that the popular mobilisations of these of heroism. But what about those uncountable past months began in response to attempts prisoners who are detained for common by the Hong Kong authorities to pass an 6 MADE IN CHINA / 3, 2019 EDITORIAL extradition bill that would have established a discussions of today. Yi Xiaocuo illustrates how new case-by-case model to transfer fugitives to the Chinese authorities are facilitating new any jurisdiction that the former British colony waves of Han influx from Inner China to settle lacks a formal agreement with, including as farmers, civil servants, jail guards, police mainland China. Reading the accounts included officers, and teachers. Furthermore, the issue in this issue of the journal, it is not difficult to features a forum on the challenges of doing understand why this became a flashpoint. fieldwork in China today, with contributions In the special section, Tobias Smith reflects by Sam Berlin, Yifan Cai, Tyler Harlan, and on the trickiness of any comparison that aims Wenjing Jiang. In the Window on Asia section, to assess the harshness of China’s criminal Claudio Sopranzetti examines the role of justice in relative terms. Fu Hualing asks what the middle classes in the Thai elections of kind of progress the Chinese authorities have 2019, and in the cultural section Zeng Jinyan made after four decades of legal reform in talks with director Ai Xiaoming about her controlling their power to detain, reducing its documentary Jiabiangou Elegy: The Life and arbitrariness, and making the repressive arm of Death of Rightists, a heartbreaking testimony the state legally accountable. Michael Caster on the reality of a labour camp in the late 1950s. looks into the disturbing institutionalisation of We wrap up the issue with a conversation arbitrary and secret detention, as epitomised with Miriam Driessen about Tales of Hope, in the recently-established ‘residential Tastes of Bitterness, her new book on Chinese surveillance at a designated location’ and liuzhi road construction workers in Ethiopia. systems. Guo Zhiyuan analyses progress and shortcomings in the new laws and regulations The Editors aimed at protecting people with mental health problems from arbitrary deprivation of their freedom. Darren Byler examines the broader shift in policing and detention in Xinjiang, and highlights how this is linked to similar changes in counterinsurgency around the world. Giulia Zoccatelli digs deep into the history, the logic, and the functioning of China’s anti-drugs camps through the testimonies of doctors and former drug addicts. Finally, Børge Bakken argues for the importance of criminological research rather than legalistic discussion in debates about the Chinese legal system. The issue includes op-eds on the mass protests in Hong Kong by Anita Chan and Kaxton Siu; on how the situation in Hong Kong has been perceived by Chinese communities abroad by Daphne Zhao, Shan Windscript, and JS Chen and K. Shen; and on the problematic nature of the narrow cultural assumptions underpinning the documentary American Factory by Hong Zhang. In the China columns section, Ryan Mitchell deconstructs the political myth of ‘brainwashing’, tracing the history of the term from the late nineteenth century to the MADE IN CHINA / 3, 2019 7 BRIEFS Jul-Sept 2019 BRIEFS from mainland China. Another Chinese man was tied to a luggage cart and was later identified as a reporter for the Global Times—China’s JUL/SEPT propaganda mouthpiece. Following 11 consecutive weeks of protests, on 20 August Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s Chief 2019 Executive, announced that the government would enlist foreign experts to perform a fact- finding study into recent incidents, establish a more robust system to investigate complaints Protests Continue Unabated in against the police, and create a dialogue platform Hong Kong to directly engage with local communities. However, the announcements did little to placate demonstrators. On 23 August, thousands of Mass protests in Hong Kong, initially sparked protestors formed human chains across the city by the local