James Fallows: A Glimpse at the Divisions Within China Over the Chen Guangcheng Case

[pampango]

One of the hardest points to absorb or remember from outside China, especially during an emergency like the recent Chen Guangcheng case, is how divided and even chaotic policies on the Chinese side can be. With the image of the big, monolithic, decree-anything-it-wants-and-it-will-happen Chinese superstate so imprinted in the Western media, it can be challenging to make mental room for the tensions and fissures within China.

Around midnight China time last night, the Beijing News posted a significant item on its Sina Weibo [aka Chinese Twitter] account, essentially apologizing for the position it had been forced to take. The post showed a sad-eyed little-person clown*, having a smoke, underneath a message saying:

In the still of the deep night, removing that mask of insincerity, we say to our true selves, "I am sorry." Goodnight.

You can see the Beijing News posting, on Weibo and in Chinese, at this site -- as long as it's still there. Moral, in case one is necessary: this is why the wrinkles and tensions of the real, fractious China are so much more compelling than the single-minded all-successful authoritarian economic powerhouse we generally hear and read about.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/a-glimpse-at-the-divisions-within-china-over-the-chen-guangcheng-case/256772/

Fallows has an interesting take on the image of China usually portrayed in the Western media as "the big, monolithic, decree-anything-it-wants-and-it-will-happen Chinese superstate" and "the single-minded all-successful authoritarian economic powerhouse".

Maybe it's just a modern version of the old Western view of the East as "inscrutable", "monolithic" and somewhat "scary".