O conflito (ainda verbal) entre os EUA e a China - três artigos

Agradeço IMENSAMENTE a meu amigo e colega Pedro Luiz Rodrigues por me abastecer diariamente dos mais ricos materiais da imprensa internacional sobre temas da mais alta relevância para minha informação, reflexão e depois elaboração eventual de minhas próprias análises sobre os temas em pauta. 

Como sempre ocorre, não “compro” todas as análises e opiniões contidas nessas matérias, mas procuro refletir e opinar com base em meu próprio conhecimento, e em outras leituras, e a partir daí elaborar alguma opinião levando em conta o interesse dos brasileiros, individualmente, da sociedade brasileira e do Estado brasileiro, nessa exata ordem. Ou seja, não é por ser diplomata (mais anarco, do que disciplina, ou afeto à hierarquia) que vou defender os interesses do Estado brasileiro, cujas políticas (de governos) são muito influenciadas por suas elites — civis, militares, econômicas e políticas —, que nem sempre possuem o melhor julgamento do interesse nacional, em relação ao qual, repito, o interesse dos indivíduos passa antes dos interesses dos dirigentes ou do Estado.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

China’s catastrophic success:

US strategic blunders fuel rivalry

Deepening enmity could amplify Beijing’s assessment that

Washington may pursue the overthrow of the CCP as an end goal.

John Culver

Lowy Interpreter, Sydney – 25.7.2020

The Trump administration publicly identified China as a great power competitor in its November 2017 National Security Strategy. 

From Beijing’s perspective, China and the United States have been moving toward a strategic “systems rivalry” for the past decade. The CCP apparently reached this strategic conclusion after the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis and framed some of the more dire implications for its rule in the 2012 CCP “Document No. 9”.  

Beijing assumes that this rivalry will last decades. It could involve periods of “cold war” and military conflict – especially in East Asia, where US alliance responsibilities and Chinese sovereignty claims and “red lines” converge. From the CCP’s Marxist-Leninist perspective, the side that best marshals superior domestic stability, economic performance and relevance to international conditions will prevail.  

If Beijing comes to see US antagonism to CCP rule as structural and bipartisan – especially in the aftermath of the 2020 US elections – China’s self-imposed restraint to prioritise stable US relations and drive economic reform and growth would be greatly weakened.

Beijing saw China’s “composite” national power as rising relative to that of the United States. But this was only partially due to China’s correct choices. 

Beijing assumed that as Washington saw China closing the gap in “comprehensive national power” it would react, seeking to blunt China’s ability to challenge America’s status as global hegemon and dominant power in the Indo-Pacific.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, China had been both restrained and constrained in its response to what it saw as US economic, trade, financial wars and information aggression. Beijing still recognised a need for a predictable, and if possible, stable, relationship with Washington. To borrow a phrase, China adopted a hedging strategy over the past three years of “fighting without breaking/splitting”. (斗而不破 ).

Beijing saw the trade war as largely motivated by US domestic politics.

But the past may not be prologue. As Wang Jisi, “dean” of the Chinese America-watching community noted in April

The deepening enmity of US-China strategic rivalry is eroding core CCP assumptions that competition would remain bounded – by nuclear deterrence, deep economic integration, shared stewardship of financial stability and cooperation on global challenges such as pandemics – and may be amplifying Beijing’s assessment that the US is on a trajectory to pursue overthrow of the CCP as a strategic goal.  

If Beijing comes to see US antagonism to CCP rule as structural and bipartisan – especially in the aftermath of the 2020 US elections – China’s self-imposed restraint to prioritise stable US relations and drive economic reform and growth would be greatly weakened. For the CCP, the relatively peaceful, stable global and regional environment that prevailed in the late bipolar Cold War and post-Cold War would end. Economic growth and rising prosperity would diminish as sources of regime legitimacy. Defence of the CCP system, fuelled by nationalism, and more active cooperation with Russia and other US adversaries, could become more prominent.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position or views of the US government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.

*

Broad support helps China withstand US shock wave

Global Times, Pequim – 29.7.2020 – Editorial

The US has launched an overall suppression against China, and is trying to rope in Western countries to form an anti-China alliance. The world has bad expectations for China-US relations. But Chinese society has withstood the US-initiated new shock wave in a relatively stable manner

First, the US hastily started a new cold war against China, and US society is far from forming a consensus on it Part of the new cold war comes from the US elites' true will and motivation, but a large part is because of the Trump administration's attempt to divert domestic attention to achieve reelection. The new cold war cannot be regarded as the US' established strategy toward China. It will be tested by time.

Chinese society has formed a broad consensus of avoiding a new cold war with the US, and breaking Washington's strategic containment by expanding opening-up and doing our own things well. China's strategy is very practical, while the US needs to make every effort to make changes. Every step the US takes may face huge resistance.

Second, Washington has faced a bad beginning. 

Third, the China-US trade war prepares Chinese society for bigger challenges from the US. It shows Chinese people that US strength is limited. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the flaws in the US system. All this, coupled with Washington's intensified anti-China political show, has reshaped the Chinese people's understanding of the US. The impression that "the US is outstanding in every aspect" has completely collapsed among Chinese people. More Chinese people now believe China and the US have their own strengths. Chinese society is confident when facing the US.

Fourth, China and the US are competing for the support of other Western countries and most countries worldwide. It is generally believed that the US has a great advantage in persuading Western countries. But this is not the case.

Western countries have similar values with the US. However, the US requires them to follow in opposing China by giving up their own interests. China encourages them to be relatively neutral, which is more in line with their own interests. China's suggestion is a normal choice for these countries, but the US requires them to make painful changes. Which country is more likely to succeed?

Fifth, in the face of the US' frenzied suppression, China has acted calmly. China has only carried out countermeasures. China's countermeasures are reciprocal and do not expand to other areas. On US global suppression, China is its most powerful opponent. The US attacks are exhausting, and China's counterattacks are orderly. China's endurance has shown its advantages.

Sixth, Washington tries to completely destroy relations with Beijing, which has posed serious risks to US national interests, and also harmed world peace. Washington has lost in terms of morality and justice. This will generally help China accumulate more resources to resist US suppression.

Seventh, there are still some Chinese people who worry about the US turning against China. Some of them simply find it hard to adapt to sudden changes, and most of them worry that China will be trapped into self-isolation and conservatism under US pressure. However, these are all within the scope of the Chinese people's ability to adjust. Since the trade war, China has been moving forward steadily. We have every reason to believe that the more we fight, the wiser we become, and the more we mature.

*

Beijing to balance nationalism with pragmatism in US relations

Sarah Zheng, Kinling Lo and Jun Mai

South China Morning Post, Hong Kong – 29.7.2020 

Beijing - 

Analysts say that despite the “Wolf Warrior” attitude from Chinese diplomats, official rhetoric and online nationalists, Beijing has stopped short of overly provocative steps and has not, or cannot, retaliate with equal force to American diplomatic volleys.

Tensions flared last week when the US ordered China’s consulate in Houston to close within 72 hours over alleged espionage activities. Beijing reacted by closing the American consulate in Chengdu, rather than shuttering high-profile offices like the one in Wuhan that was temporarily closed during the pandemic or more significant US consulates in Shanghai or Hong Kong.

Despite framing the closure in Chengdu as “necessary”, “appropriate” and “reciprocal” – and allowing for a live stream of the event to be viewed by millions – it highlighted Beijing’s balancing act in trying to please its domestic audience without pushing bilateral relations to the brink.

“Basically, it intended to show that China stands firm but does not want to escalate the situation,” said Zhang Baohui, a political science professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. “China’s overall approach, as a rising power, is how not to move the US towards a full-fledged cold war.”

Tensions between China and the US began to simmer when, in mid-2018, Washington fired the first shots in a trade war that continues to this day. Although US President Donald Trump has dismissed further trade talks with China, Beijing maintained it was still committed to the “phase one” trade deal the two sides signed in January.

Relations have only worsened as the major powers clashed over technological competition, corporate espionage, the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and the South China Sea.

Last Thursday, when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged democratic-leaning Chinese citizens to more aggressively “induce change” from the Chinese Communist Party, Foreign Minister Wang Yi was busy working to improve relations with Germany. 

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the speech showed Pompeo was “launching a new crusade against China in a globalised world” and urged the world to “step forward to prevent him from doing the world more harm”.

In early July, Wang sent out a public call for reconciliation and dialogue “as long as the US is willing”. But just over a week later, he said the US had “

lost its mind, morals and credibility

” and said the Trump administration’s “America First” policy had induced bullying and egoism.

Cui Lei, an associate research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, said the party was still seeking to ease the situation, as had happened after previous moments of heightened tensions; particularly after the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and in 2001 when a US aircraft and Chinese fighter jet collided near Hainan.

“Beijing’s strategy is both to maintain stability, express goodwill and to preserve, at least on the surface, a sense that they will not give in,” Cui, a former diplomat, said. “As long as the US does not want to go to war, there is still room for negotiations.”

When the US sanctioned senior Chinese officials in July over Beijing’s repression in Xinjiang, the most prominent being Politburo member and Xinjiang party secretary Chen Quanguo, China responded by sanctioning lawmakers Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Smith and the relatively unknown official Sam Brownback, the US ambassador at large for international religious freedom.

Also in July, Beijing reacted to the US State Department’s approval of a US$620 million missile upgrade package to Taiwan by sanctioning Lockheed Martin, a move of little consequence because the US weapons supplier has limited business interests in China.

Shi Yinhong, a government adviser and US specialist at Renmin University in Beijing, said China had largely avoided equal reciprocation to US actions in recent years.

“China has less in its toolbox to retaliate with, compared to sanctions that the US and its closest allies, including the UK and Australia, could use,” he said. “Regular use of tit-for-tat could also give Trump exactly what he wants, and further isolate China internationally. And it would get the domestic public used to a strong response and further stimulate the appetite for US hawks in China.”

It is difficult to gauge domestic public sentiment in China because of tight censorship and fears of expressing positions in contrast to the official political line.

On China’s highly regulated social media platforms, state media coverage of the US-China row has spurred more nationalistic, anti-American sentiments. This could put pressure on the leadership to not appear weak against perceived US grievances.

Zhu Feng, an international relations professor at Nanjing University, said there was a “wide spectrum of public opinions” but that they may not necessarily influence Beijing decision-making.

“For domestic purposes, China did try to avoid looking weak with the decision in Chengdu and as part of its ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’, but I think China has been clear in trying to avoid the new cold war the US now wants to impose on China,” he said.

Some have also suggested that tensions between the powers could ease after the US presidential election in November, citing that Trump has sought to blame Beijing for American woes from the coronavirus pandemic. The US makes up more than one-quarter of the nearly 16.5 million cases globally.

But American lawmakers have coalesced around a bipartisan consensus pushing for a more aggressive approach to counter Beijing’s increasing assertiveness.

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based expert on China-US relations, said every action from either country would guarantee a reaction in the current atmosphere, with no end to the downward spiral on the horizon.

“This has become an infinite loop of action and reaction, and every step of it is taking Sino-US ties closer to the edge of a breaking in ties,” he said. “As long as neither country says, ‘We will not make any moves after being attacked’, then this loop obviously will not stop.”

Bye bye dólar? Ainda não, mas estamos a caminho...

Uau! Quando a “consciência esclarecida” do establishment da costa leste, o representante oficial dos “brightest and wisest” do Council on Foreign Relations, decide que chegou a hora de abandonar a “exuberância arrogante” do dólar, é porque a coisa está “preta” (êpa!) para o lado do Império.
Isto significa que chegou realmente o momento da multipolaridade nas relações internacionais?
Não, infelizmente ainda não.
Mesmos os brightest and wisest da Ivy League foram infectados pela paranoia (natural) do Pentágono e vão se engajar numa fantasmagórica Segunda Guerra Fria, desta vez contra a China — mas desta vez já começam derrotados — e vão torrar mais um pouco do dinheiro dos contribuintes numa insana corrida para a frente para manter sua supremacia absoluta em todas as áreas.
Os “mais iguais” não suportam a conversão num igual entre outros mais iguais; querem ser únicos.
Isso se chama “hubris”, na língua dos antigos gregos. Os atenienses foram atingidos por essa epidemia, como escreveu Tucídides.
Interessante como o “Thucydides trap” de Graham Allison é auto-aplicável.
Isso entre os mais iguais.
Do lado dos cachorrinhos idiotas aqui da terrinha, eles ficam abanando o rabo para o grandalhão lá do Norte e só sabem repetir: “I love you Trump”.
Tudo vai dar errado.
Como repetia aquela hiena do desenho animado: “Oh Deus, oh céus, eu sabia que não ia dar certo!”
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 29/07/2020

Foreign Affairs, Nova Iorque – 28.7.2020

It Is Time to Abandon Dollar Hegemony

Issuing the World’s Reserve Currency Comes at Too High a Price

Simon Tilford and Hans Kundnani

In the 1960s, French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing complained that the dominance of the U.S. dollar gave the United States an “exorbitant privilege” to borrow cheaply from the rest of the world and live beyond its means. U.S. allies and adversaries alike have often echoed the gripe since. But the exorbitant privilege also entails exorbitant burdens that weigh on U.S. trade competitiveness and employment and that are likely to grow heavier and more destabilizing as the United States’ share of the global economy shrinks. The benefits of dollar primacy accrue mainly to financial institutions and big businesses, but the costs are generally borne by workers. For this reason, continued dollar hegemony threatens to deepen inequality as well as political polarization in the United States.

Dollar hegemony isn’t foreordained. For years, analysts have warned that China and other powers might decide to abandon the dollar and diversify their currency reserves for economic or strategic reasons. To date, there is little reason to think that global demand for dollars is drying up. But there is another way the United States could lose its status as issuer of the world’s dominant reserve currency: it could voluntarily abandon dollar hegemony because the domestic economic and political costs have grown too high.

The United States has already abandoned multilateral and security commitments during the administration of President Donald Trump—prompting international relations scholars to debate whether the country is abandoning hegemony in a broader strategic sense. The United States could abandon its commitment to dollar hegemony in a similar way: even if much of the rest of the world wants the United States to maintain the dollar’s role as a reserve currency—just as much of the world wants the United States to continue to provide security—Washington could decide that it can no longer afford to do so. It is an idea that has received surprisingly little discussion in policy circles, but it could benefit the United States and ultimately, the rest of the world.

THE PRICE OF DOLLAR DOMINANCE

The dollar’s dominance stems from the demand for it around the world. Foreign capital flows into the United States because it is a safe place to put money and because there are few other alternatives. These capital inflows dwarf those needed to finance trade many times over, and they cause the United States to run a large current account deficit. In other words, the United States is not so much living beyond its means as accommodating the world’s excess capital.

Dollar hegemony also has domestic distributional consequences—that is, it creates winners and losers within the United States. The main winners are the banks that act as the intermediaries and recipients of the capital inflows and that exercise excessive influence over U.S economic policy. The losers are the manufacturers and the workers they employ. Demand for the dollar pushes up its value, which makes U.S. exports more expensive and curtails demand for them abroad, thus leading to earnings and job losses in manufacturing.

The costs have been borne disproportionately by swing states in regions such as the Rust Belt—a consequence that in turn has deepened socioeconomic divisions and fueled political polarization. Manufacturing jobs that were once central to the economies of these regions have been offshored, leaving poverty and resentment in their wake. It is little surprise that many of the hardest-hit states voted for Trump in 2016.

The domestic costs of accommodating large capital flows are likely to increase and become more destabilizing for the United States in the future. As China and other emerging economies continue to grow and the United States’ slice of the global economy continues to shrink, capital inflows to the United States will grow relative to the size of the U.S. economy. This will amplify the distributional consequences of dollar hegemony, further benefiting U.S. financial intermediaries at the expense of the country’s industrial base. It will likely also make U.S. politics even more fraught.

Given these mounting economic and political pressures, it will become increasingly difficult for the United States to create more balanced and equitable growth while remaining the destination of choice for the world’s excess capital, with the overvalued currency and deindustrialization this implies. At some point, the United States may have little alternative but to limit capital imports in the interests of the broader economy—even if doing so means voluntarily giving up the dollar’s role as the world’s dominant reserve currency.

THE BRITISH PRECEDENT

The United States would not be the first country to abdicate monetary hegemony. From the mid-nineteenth century until World War I, the United Kingdom was the world’s dominant creditor, and the pound sterling was the dominant means of financing international trade. During this period, the value of money was based on its redeemability for gold under the so-called gold standard. The United Kingdom held the largest gold reserves in the world, and other countries held their reserves in gold or in pounds.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the British economy declined, and its exports became less competitive. But because the United Kingdom adhered to the gold standard, running a trade deficit meant transferring gold abroad, which reduced the amount of money in circulation and forced down domestic prices. The United Kingdom suspended the gold standard during World War I, along with several other countries. But by the end of the war, it was a debtor nation and the United States, which had accumulated huge gold reserves, had replaced it as the world’s principal creditor.

The United Kingdom returned to the gold standard in 1925, but it did so at the prewar exchange rate, which meant that the pound sterling was highly overvalued, and with much-depleted gold reserves. British exports continued to suffer, and the country’s remaining gold holdings dwindled, forcing it to cut wages and prices. The country’s industrial competitiveness declined, and unemployment soared, causing social unrest. In 1931, the United Kingdom abandoned the gold standard for good—which in effect meant abandoning sterling hegemony.

In 1902, Joseph Chamberlain, then secretary of state for the colonies, famously described the United Kingdom as a “weary titan.” Today, the term aptly fits a United States that sees its economic might waning relative to that of other powers, particularly China. International relations theorists and foreign policy analysts debate the grade and extent of the U.S. decline and even the outlook for a “post-American” world.

Some argue that under Trump, the United States has deliberately abandoned the project of “liberal hegemony”—for example, by creating uncertainty about U.S. security commitments. Others describe the U.S. retreat from hegemony as part of a longer-term structural retrenchment. Either scenario makes wholly conceivable that the United States will follow the British precedent and voluntarily relinquish monetary hegemony. Whether and how this might happen has surprisingly been little discussed.

THE CASE FOR TAXING SPECULATIVE CAPITAL

At the moment, the dollar looks more dominant than ever. Even as the U.S. economy has plunged into recession and shed millions of jobs, the demand for dollars has increased—just as it did after the 2008 financial crisis. Foreigners sold large numbers of U.S. Treasury bonds in March, but they exchanged them for U.S. dollars. The Federal Reserve injected trillions of dollars into the global economy in order to prevent international financial markets from seizing up, expanding the system of swap lines with other central banks that it used in 2008. Even as the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic reinforced the view that the United States is a declining power, the actions of the Federal Reserve and investors around the world have underscored the centrality of the dollar in the global economy.

Yet this should not reassure the United States. The influx of capital will continue to harm U.S. manufacturers, and the pandemic-induced downturn will only compound the pain felt by workers.In order to alleviate the mounting economic and political pressures in regions such as the Rust Belt, the United States should consider taking steps to limit capital imports. One option would be to supply fewer dollars to the global economy, pushing up the value of the currency to a point where foreigners would balk at buying it. Doing so would make U.S. trade less competitive, however, and weigh down already excessively low inflation.

Alternatively, the United States could call the bluff of those powers, including China and the European Union, that have called for a diminished global role for the dollar. There is no obvious successor to the United States as the purveyor of the world’s dominant reserve currency.To allow capital to flow freely in and out of China, for instance, would require a fundamental—and politically difficult—restructuring of that country’s economy. Nor can the eurozone take over so long as it depends on export-led growth and the corresponding export of capital. But the absence of a clear successor shouldn’t necessarily stop the United States from abandoning dollar hegemony.

The United States could impose a levy or tax that penalizes short-term, speculative foreign investments but exempts longer-term ones. Such a policy would get at the origin of trade imbalances by reducing capital inflows (trade barriers hit at the symptoms rather than the cause). It would also mitigate the current backlash against free trade and reduce the economically unproductive profits of financial institutions.

In an optimistic scenario, the world’s three economic hubs—China, the United States, and the European Union—would agree to construct a currency basket along the lines of the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights and either empower the IMF to regulate it or create a new international monetary institution to do so. The pessimistic but probably more likely outcome is that tensions—especially between China and the United States—would make cooperation impossible and increase the likelihood of conflict between them around economic issues.

Even if it is impossible to find a cooperative solution, it may make sense for the United States to unilaterally abandon dollar hegemony. Doing so would force China and the eurozone to deploy their excess savings at home, which would require them to make major adjustments to their economic models so that they produce more balanced and equitable growth. It would also limit the excessive profits of U.S. financial intermediaries and benefit American workers by bringing down the value of the dollar and making U.S. exports more competitive. In short, abandoning dollar hegemony could open the way for a more stable and equitable U.S. economy and global economy.

• SIMON TILFORD is an economist at the Forum for a New Economy.

• HANS KUNDNANI is a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House.

A ditadura do PCC se instala em Hong Kong - Florence De Changy (Le Monde)

A Hongkong, un milliardaire tient tête à Pékin

Semblant visé par la nouvelle loi sécuritaire, le magnat de la presse d’opposition Jimmy Lai refuse de se taire

Florence De Changy

Le Monde, Mardi 28 juillet 2020

Si les autorités chinoises tiennent une liste bien à jour des personnalités les plus pénibles et les plus tenaces de la rébellion hongkongaise, le milliardaire militant Jimmy Lai y figure assurément en bonne place. Et ce, de longue date.

Depuis le début des années 1990, par le biais de son groupe de presse populaire, d’inspiration tabloïde, Next Media, devenu Next Digital en 2019, et de son titre-phare, l’Apple Daily, lancé en 1995, Jimmy Lai n’a eu de cesse de s’en prendre au Parti communiste chinois (PCC), exposant ses abus, ses injustices, son cynisme et ses complots… Le Global Times, le journal de propagande de Pékin, lui renvoie abondamment les politesses, le qualifiant de « traître sécessionniste », « à la solde de la CIA », l’accusant de « financer les émeutes » et d’« utiliser la jeunesse de Hongkong comme chair à canon ».

L’homme d’affaires de 71 ans, qui nous reçoit chez lui au petit matin d’un jour de semaine, est actuellement en liberté sous caution. Le juge lui a refusé à deux reprises le droit de quitter Hongkong pour des voyages d’affaires et des visites de famille. Le 19 août, il devra répondre de deux chefs d’accusation, « intimidation » et « participation à un rassemblement illégal ». Mais, c’est surtout la nouvelle loi sur la sécurité nationale, promulguée à Hongkong le 30 juin, qui semble le viser directement. Pourtant, malgré la menace qui pèse sur lui et ses proches, il persiste et signe.

« Cette loi sonne le glas pour Hongkong. Elle s’attaque en même temps à l’Etat de droit qui prévalait à Hongkong et à nos libertés. C’est pire que ce que les plus pessimistes avaient imaginé », affirme-t-il en guise d’entrée en matière, entre deux verres d’un jus vert persil fait maison, son régime des lendemains de dîner en ville. Le petit déjeuner est servi sur une nappe blanche, dans le grand jardin d’hiver attenant au salon où règne un chaleureux désordre.

« Pékin ne plaisante plus »

Cet homme aujourd’hui richissime et influent est arrivé jeune enfant sans-le-sou du sud de la Chine au milieu des années 1950. Il n’est pas du genre à échanger des banalités. Pendant dix ans, jusqu’en 2019, il n’a quasiment pas donné d’interviews. Mais voilà un an qu’il est passé à l’offensive. On dirait presque un baroud d’honneur. Car l’heure est grave. « Cette fois, Pékin ne plaisante plus », dit-il. En juillet 2019, il est allé personnellement à Washington demander l’appui des Etats-Unis au secrétaire d’Etat, Mike Pompeo, ainsi qu’au vice-président, Mike Pence, un acte qui pourrait relever de la « collusion avec un pouvoir étranger » sous la nouvelle loi, qui n’est toutefois pas rétroactive.

Il admet avoir espéré, il y a une dizaine années, qu’avec l’embourgeoisement de la classe moyenne en Chine, les citoyens du continent réclameraient plus de libertés civiles, « mais cela n’a pas eu lieu ». Au contraire, la montée en puissance de la Chine l’a dotée d’une nouvelle assurance pour imposer sa façon de faire, tant au reste du monde qu’à sa propre population. « Jamais un dictateur n’a eu les moyens de contrôler sa population comme Xi Jinping. Ils savent tout : où vous allez, ce que vous achetez, les gens auxquels vous parlez, en vrai, par téléphone ou en ligne… », affirme M. Lai, ahuri de l’arsenal technologique de surveillance déployé aujourd’hui en Chine. « Et si vous faites quelque chose qui leur déplaît, vous ne pouvez même plus vous acheter un billet de train ! », s’emporte-t-il soudain.

Il se demande comment les Hongkongais, pour qui les libertés individuelles et les valeurs occidentales sont une seconde nature, vont peu à peu s’adapter au changement de contexte créé par la nouvelle loi. Il a déjà remarqué un changement d’attitude chez certains, une plus grande prudence dans leur façon de parler. « Certains ont l’air de penser qu’un ami pourrait les dénoncer, qui sait ? »

D’après lui, arrêter les transferts de technologie vers la Chine, notamment dans les secteurs de la communication et de la surveillance, serait le moyen le plus efficace de faire pression sur Pékin et de ralentir l’ascension chinoise. Car si la Chine estime avoir réussi son coup de force à Hongkong, elle l’a tout de même payé en se mettant à dos une bonne partie du reste du monde. « Beaucoup de pays faisaient semblant de ne pas savoir car ils voulaient continuer à faire des affaires avec la Chine. Maintenant vous ne pouvez plus prétendre que vous ne savez pas », juge-t-il. Alors que se pose à présent la question de la survie du centre financier de Hongkong, quatrième place internationale, Jimmy Lai pense que, quand bien même Pékin n’avait pas comme intention initiale de détruire la place financière, la nouvelle loi va se charger de le faire, avec ou contre son gré. 

« En privant Hongkong de son Etat de droit, vous lui enlevez le climat de confiance indispensable à une grande place financière. » Il sait que l’argent chinois va continuer d’affluer, ce qui en volume compensera largement la perte des investissements américains. Mais la confiance ne sera plus là.

Il plaint les fonctionnaires qui vont devoir faire allégeance au gouvernement et à la Basic Law, la mini-Constitution de Hongkong, désormais placés sous l’autorité de la nouvelle loi sécuritaire. « Dans ces conditions, soit vous faites ce que l’on vous dit, soit vous perdez votre emploi. » Et tôt ou tard, il est persuadé que le même régime d’allégeance forcée va s’appliquer à tout le monde.

Prêt à assumer son destin

Donc, tant que le calcul reste gagnant pour les entreprises, les banques et même les tycoons, ces milliardaires à la tête des quelques familles patriciennes qui contrôlent toute l’économie de Hongkong, ils resteront. C’est l’homme d’affaires qui parle. Il n’empêche, dans son entourage, tout le monde sans exception se prépare, au cas où il faille vraiment partir. « Ils se disent, commençons à emballer. Liquidons nos biens pour sortir plus facilement le jour venu… »

Dans son groupe de presse, plusieurs journalistes ont déjà renoncé : il y a eu des démissions et des demandes d’affectation dans les services non politiques. Ceux qui ont un second passeport vont tenter leur chance en Australie ou au Royaume-Uni. Au sein de la rédaction de Apple Daily, porte-voix du camp prodémocratie, les journalistes sont persuadés que la nouvelle police politique guette avidement le premier faux-pas de l’un d’eux pour y faire une descente, et tôt ou tard forcer la fermeture du titre. Quant au mouvement démocratique, « tout le monde a eu très peur, certains ont fui et ceux qui restent ne sont pas forcément prêts à passer leurs meilleures années en prison. Personne ne peut exiger de quiconque de devenir martyr. »

A cet égard, Jimmy Lai estime que Pékin a déjà gagné : « Ils n’ont pas besoin d’aller plus loin pour le moment. Ils ont eu leur effet d’intimidation. Ensuite, ils vont sélectionner calmement un par un ceux qu’ils veulent éliminer. »Quant à lui, il n’envisage pas une minute de fuir. « Je les ennuie depuis trente ans, je ne vais pas leur faire le cadeau d’abandonner maintenant. Je me ferais honte à moi-même, au journal et au camp prodémocratie. Au pire, Teresa [sa femme] et les enfants partiront. Je resterai seul », déclare-t-il.

Cela fait déjà longtemps que l’on cherche à le faire taire. Pendant le « mouvement des parapluies », en 2014, quand, soixante-dix-neuf jours durant, les manifestants prodémocratie bloquèrent le quartier administratif de Hongkong, Jimmy Lai avait été aspergé d’un seau de viscères animales. Hormis le désagrément passager, cela ne l’avait nullement atteint.

Sa résidence a été la cible de plusieurs attaques. Ces derniers temps, il est régulièrement suivi. Ses gardes se sont habitués à la présence de voitures suspectes garées devant chez lui. « On m’a fait passer des messages explicites : “Tu vas finir tes jours dans une cellule en Chine, tu vas être abattu”… Si je réfléchissais à cela, je ne pourrais plus dormir, ni travailler. Je n’y pense pas, c’est tout », confie-t-il. Il semble prêt à assumer son propre destin, déjà exceptionnel, quel qu’il soit, et jusqu’au bout.

Avant de commencer l’entretien, Jimmy Lai avait allumé un cône d’encens devant un ensemble éclectique de sculptures saintes et d’icônes. Comme la plupart des aînés du combat démocratique à Hongkong, notamment l’avocat et fondateur du Parti démocratique Martin Lee, et l’ancienne première secrétaire du gouvernement, Anson Chan, Jimmy Lai est catholique. Lui a été baptisé adulte, à la  cathédrale de Hongkong, le 7 juillet 1997, soit sept jours après la rétrocession de l’ancienne colonie britannique à la Chine, par un autre membre éminent de la lutte pour la démocratie, l’infatigable cardinal Zen, 88 ans, alors évêque.

Tout cela crée des liens. « Nous, nous sommes à la fin de notre vie. C’est plus facile que pour les jeunes. Mais tous, on tient bon parce que l’on sait qu’on est du bon côté de l’histoire. Même si l’on perd aujourd’hui, ceux qui reprendront le flambeau gagneront. C’est notre espoir. »

O genocídio de Mao: o Grande Salto para Trás, 1958-1962 - livro Tombstone - Yang Jisheng

Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962

Yang Jisheng and 4 more

4.3 out of 5 stars (185)Reviews

Farrar, Strauss, 2012

Introduction by Edward Friedman and Roderick MacFarquhar

Yang Jisheng was born in 1940, joined the Communist Party in 1964, and worked for the Xinhua News Agency from January 1968 until his retirement in 2001. He is now a deputy editor at Yanhuang Chunqiu (Chronicles of History), an official journal that regularly skirts censorship with articles on controversial political topics. A leading liberal voice, he published the Chinese version of Tombstone in Hong Kong in May 2008. Eight editions have been issued since then.Yang Jisheng lives in Beijing with his wife and two children. 

Kindle Edition: 

Length: 668 pages

Word Wise: Enabled

Screen Reader: Supported

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Page Flip: Enabled

The much-anticipated definitive account of China's Great Famine

An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster." 

As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest. 

Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, Tombstone is written both as a memorial to the lives lost—an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead—and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system. Ian Johnson, writing in The New York Review of Books, called the Chinese edition of Tombstone "groundbreaking . . . One of the most important books to come out of China in recent years."

FROM BOOKFORUM

Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 is methodical and factual, and it amounts to a devastatingly clear account of Mao and his era. In the me of building Communist utopia overnight, farmworkers were diverted to labor on industry and infrastructure; agricultural work was collectivized and thrown into disorder; high-ranking bureaucrats imposed useless and destructive pseudoscientific farming methods on the countryside. Local officials, vying to demonstrate the greatest commitment to progress, reported fraudulent crop yields, and the government requisitioned its due share of the non-existent bumper crops. Even with such shocking stories driving the narrative, the true horror of Tombstone is that it’s not sensational. It is, rather, a meticulous accumulation of evidence and fact. —Tom Scocca.

1 THE EPICENTER OF THE DISASTER

Henan is a rural province north of Shanghai and south of Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party’s “Three Red Banners” waved highest here, and the famine likewise hit hardest. Political movements set off the famine in Henan. Some seventy thousand Henan residents were labeled “rightists” in 1957—nearly 13 percent of those targeted in the Anti-Rightist Movement nationwide, and 15 percent of the province’s cadres.1 In 1958 a new campaign was launched against the “Pan, Yang, Wang rightist anti-party clique” within the party, which will be detailed later in this chapter.2 These two campaigns combined to create dread and fanaticism that led to wild exaggeration and horrendous brutality that in turn brought about a series of catastrophes—among which the “Xinyang Incident” is the most notable.

PART I: THE XINYANG INCIDENT

Xinyang Prefecture lies in the southeast of Henan, bordering the provinces of Hubei and Anhui. In 1958 the prefecture administered eighteen counties, the city of Xinyang, and the town of Zhumadian. It was home to 8.5 million people. Most of the prefecture consisted of mountain ranges that had served as bases for China’s revolutionary forces, and where hundreds of thousands of lives had been sacrificed in the civil war with the Kuomintang. Elderly residents say, “Even the trees and grasses of the Dabie Mountains served the Communist Party.” This lush region was the province’s main producer of grain and cotton and an abundant source of tea leaves, timber, bamboo, tung oil, and medicinal herbs. Scenic Jigong Shan (Rooster Mountain) is located here. In short, Xinyang, along with nearby Nanyang and Luoyang, was the economic engine of the province. Yet from the winter of 1959 to the spring of 1960, at least one million people starved to death here—one out of every eight residents.

Li Jian, an official of the CCP Central Control Commission (the precursor of the Discipline and Inspection Commission) sent to Henan in the wake of the famine, found that the largest number of starvation deaths occurred in Xinyang and two other prefectures: Nanyang and Xuchang. The most horrific situation became known as the “Xinyang Incident.”3

In September 1999, I went to Xinyang, accompanied by a senior reporter from Xinhua’s Henan branch, Gu Yuezhong, and a former Xinhua reporter who had been stationed in Xinyang during the famine, Lu Baoguo. Gu had excellent relations with local officials, but the Xinyang municipal party committee was clearly disconcerted by the purpose of our visit, and arranged a scenic tour of Rooster Mountain. Nonetheless, we managed to interview a number of cadres and villagers who had lived through the famine, and gained access to a number of documents that shed light on the Xinyang Incident.

POLITICAL PRESSURE BREEDS EXAGGERATION

In a political system such as China’s, those below imitate those above, and political struggles at the higher levels are replicated at the lower levels in an expanded and even more ruthless form. This is what happened in Xinyang.

Following the provincial-level campaign against the “Pan, Yang, Wang” clique and the campaign against right deviation, Xinyang’s Guangshan County on November 11, 1959, conducted a criticism, or “struggle,” session against the secretary of the CCP county secretariat, Zhang Fuhong, who was labeled a “right deviationist” and a “degenerate element.” During the struggle session, county party secretary Ma Longshan took the lead by kicking Zhang, after which others set upon him with fists and feet. Other struggle sessions were conducted by county-level cadres on November 13 and 14, during which Zhang was beaten bloody, his hair ripped out in patches, and his uniform torn to shreds, leaving him barely able to walk.

On November 15, Zhang was handed over to commune cadres, by which time he could only lie on the floor while he was kicked and punched and had what remained of his hair torn out. Another struggle session by commune cadres on November 16 left Zhang near death; by the time he was dragged home that day, he had lost control of his bodily functions and could no longer eat or drink. On November 17 he was accused of malingering and attacked again. On November 18 he was accused of pining for the return of Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and was dragged from his bed for more struggle. When he asked for water, he was refused. Around noon on November 19, Zhang Fuhong died.4

Xinyang’s deputy party secretary and prefectural commissioner, Zhang Shufan, subsequently related in his memoirs why Zhang Fuhong was targeted. In the spring of 1959, in order to alleviate famine conditions among the peasants, Ma Longshan sent Zhang Fuhong to a production team to launch a pilot project in which output quotas were assigned to each household. Other localities were doing the same, but following the political reversals of the Central Committee’s Lushan Conference,5 household output quotas were labeled right opportunism. Ma denied responsibility, saying Zhang Fuhong had initiated the use of quotas. Although Zhang insisted that Ma had assigned him to carry out the system,6 an official one level higher can crush his subordinate, and that is what happened here.

Campaigns against right deviation in other counties were similarly brutal. In Xi County, party secretary Xu Xilan directed a struggle session against deputy secretary Feng Peiran. Xu sat above Feng with a handgun at his side while someone held Feng by the neck as others beat and kicked him. According to Zhang Shufan’s memoirs, some twelve thousand struggle sessions were held in the prefecture,7 and all kinds of ridiculous statements were made under political pressure.

In 1958, Xinyang’s Suiping County was given nationwide publicity for Great Leap production successes referred to as Sputniks, or “satellites.” These “grand achievements” were attributed to the “struggle against right-deviating conservatism.” In an atmosphere of extreme political pressure, anyone who dared question the accuracy of these reported crop yields risked being labeled a “doubter” or “denier” engaged in “casting aspersions on the excellent situation,” and anyone who exposed the fraudulence of the high-yield model was subjected to struggle.

A drought in 1959 drove down Xinyang’s crop yields, but prefectural party cadres, overcome by fanaticism, proposed the slogan of “Big drought, big harvest” and claimed higher yields than the year before. Commissioner Zhang Shufan, who was directly responsible for agriculture, in early August convened a meeting of leading county cadres to provide “practical and realistic” appraisals of the disaster and to adopt advanced measures such as varied crop plantings to prevent a famine.

Following the Lushan Conference, the prefectural party committee had each county report its projected yields. Under the political pressure of the times, each county’s estimate was exceeded by that of the next, as all feared being criticized for reporting the lowest projection. Yu Dehong, a staff member at the prefectural party committee meeting, later recalled that the first projection totaled 15 billion kilos. Zhang Shufan and others thought this excessively optimistic and asked everyone to submit new figures, which subsequently totaled 7.5 billion kilos and finally 3.6 billion kilos. During a meeting of the prefectural party committee’s standing committee, eight of the nine standing committee members believed that the 1959 crop yield would exceed that of 1958, and that given the 1958 yield of 2.8 billion kilos, a 3.6 billion kilo yield for 1959 was very reasonable. Zhang Shufan, however, expected a yield of only 1.5 to 2.0 billion kilos.

In late August and early September, the Henan provincial party committee convened an enlarged meeting to implement the spirit of the Lushan Conference. Each prefecture was asked to report projected crop yields. Zhang Shufan led off for Xinyang by reporting that his standing committee projected a crop yield of 3.6 billion kilos, but that his more modest personal projection was 1.5 to 2 billion kilos. The provincial party committee was dissatisfied with Zhang’s report and subsequently asked prefectural party secretary Lu Xianwen, “What’s going on in Xinyang?” Under pressure, Lu convened another meeting of county party secretaries requesting new projections. At first no one spoke, but finally someone asked, “Isn’t it what we already reported in our meeting?” Lu Xianwen replied, “Someone took exception to those projections.” By “someone,” Lu was referring to Zhang Shufan. Soon afterward, right-deviating elements were sought out and subjected to struggle, and this county head who had dared to speak the truth was stripped of his official position.8

PROCUREMENT BASED ON ABSURD PROJECTIONS

Exaggerated yield projections meant high state procurement quotas. In Henan, every county was forced to hand over every available kernel of grain. Zhang Shufan recalls:

Following the expanded meeting, I returned to the prefecture to head up the autumn harvest procurement. The provincial party committee based its procurement on the big 1958 harvest, and our prefecture met our quota of 800 million kilos by taking every kernel of grain ration and seed grain from the peasants. Immediately after the harvest, many localities were left with nothing to eat, and people began to leave the prefecture in search of food. Many communal kitchens had no food to serve their members, and the helpless villagers staved their hunger at home as best they could with sweet potatoes and wild herbs.

Higher levels reported a somewhat smaller procurement quota, but agreed that excessive procurement had serious repercussions:

In 1959, Xinyang suffered a drought. The tota... (...)

REVIEW

“The best English-language account . . . [Tombstone] combines thorough statistical analysis with detailed archival research and heart-rending oral histories.” ―Matthew C. Klein, Bloomberg

“Without a doubt the definitive account--for now and probably for a long time . . . One of the most important books--not just China books--of our time.” ―Arthur Waldron, The New Criterion

“A vital testimony of a largely buried era.” ―Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, The Independent

“Yang's discreet and well-judged pursuit of his project over more than a decade is a quietly heroic achievement.” ―Roger Garside, China Rights Forum

“Tombstone easily supersedes all previous chronicles of the famine, and is one of the best insider accounts of the Party's inner workings during this period, offering an unrivalled picture of socioeconomic engineering within a rigid ideological framework . . . meticulously researched.” ―Pankaj Mishra, The New Yorker

“Eye-opening . . . boldly unsparing.” ―Jonathan Mirsky, The New York Times Book Review

“Beautifully written and fluidly translated, Tombstonedeserves to reach as many readers as possible.” ―Samuel Moyn, The Nation

“[An] epic account . . . Tombstone is a landmark in the Chinese people's own efforts to confront their history.” ―Ian Johnson, The New York Review of Books

“The toll is astounding, and this book is important for many reasons--difficult to stomach, but important all the same.” ―Kirkus Review

“Mao's Great Famine of the late 1950s continues to boggle the mind. No one book or even set of books could encompass the tens of millions of lives needlessly and intentionally destroyed or explain the paranoid megalomania of China's leaders at the time. As with the Holocaust, every serious new account both renews our witness of the murdered dead and extends our understanding. Zhou Xun here selects, translates, and annotates 121 internal reports from local officials to their bosses. They form a frank, grisly, and specific portrait of hysteria defeating common sense. Zhou's University of Hong Kong colleague, Frank Dikötter, extricated some of these documents from newly opened (and now again closed) archives in local headquarters across China for his Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe 1958–1962, but Zhou's book stands on its own. A useful introduction, headnotes to each chapter, a chronology, and explanatory notes frame the documents. VERDICT Accessible and appealing to assiduous readers with knowledge of Mao's China; especially useful to specialists.” ―Charles W. Hayford, Evanston, IL

“A book of great importance.” ―Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans and co-author of Mao: The Unknown Story

“A truly necessary book.” ―Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag: A History

“In 1989 hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Chinese died in the June Fourth massacre in Beijing, and within hours hundreds of millions of people around the world had seen images of it on their television screens. In the late 1950s, also in Communist China, roughly the inverse happened: thirty million or more died while the world, then and now, has hardly noticed. If the cause of the Great Famine had been a natural disaster, this double standard might be more understandable. But the causes, as Yang Jisheng shows in meticulous detail, were political. How can the world not look now?” ―Perry Link, Chancellorial Chair for Innovative Teaching, Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages, University of California, Riverside

“Hard-hitting. . . It's a harrowing read, illuminating a historic watershed that's still too little known in the West.” ―Publishers' Weekly

“Groundbreaking…The most authoritative account of the Great Famine…One of the most important books to come out of China in recent years.” ―Ian Johnson, The New York Review of Books

“The most stellar example of retrospective writing on the Mao period from any Chinese pen or computer.” ―Perry Link, Chancellorial Chair for Innovative Teaching, Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages, University of California, Riverside

“The first proper history of China's Great Famine.” ―Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post

“A monumental work comparable to Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize-winning work The Gulag Archipelago.” ―Xu Youyu, Chinese Academy of Social Science

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yang Jisheng was born in 1940, joined the Communist Party in 1964, and worked for the Xinhua News Agency from January 1968 until his retirement in 2001. He is now a deputy editor at Yanhuang Chunqiu (Chronicles of History), an official journal that regularly skirts censorship with articles on controversial political topics. A leading liberal voice, he published the Chinese version of Tombstone in Hong Kong in May 2008. Eight editions have been issued since then.Yang Jisheng lives in Beijing with his wife and two children. 

Translator Bio: 

Stacy Mosher learned Chinese in Hong Kong, where she lived for nearly 18 years. A long-time journalist, Mosher currently works as an editor and translator in Brooklyn. 

Guo Jian is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Originally trained in Chinese language and literature, Guo was on the Chinese faculty of Beijing Normal University until he came to the United States to study for his PhD in English in the mid-1980's.

FEATURES & DETAILS

PRODUCT DETAILS

·       Publication Date: October 30, 2012

·       File Size: 5248 KB

·       Word Wise: Enabled

·       Print Length: 668 pages

·       Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint Edition (October 30, 2012)

·       Language: English

·       ASIN: B008MWNEXI

·       Text-to-Speech: Enabled

·       Page Numbers Source ISBN: 184614518X