Chinese Themselves on the PRC: 'Why China Works'

Replicating Pearl River Deltas all over the nation?

Many Westerners have tried capturing China's secrets of success from the outside looking in. Joshua Cooper Ramo famously coined the "Beijing Consensus" to denote China's state-directed counterpart to the American prescription for economic success which is a fairly straightforward application of the neoliberal ideal of unshackling markets to do their magic. Aside from not reflecting what's really happening in China--does anyone consider China  a model of sustainability and equality--the Beijing Consensus has become shorthand for what China merely does as opposed to what it advocates. Scott Kennedy ultimately concludes that there is no such thing as a Beijing Consensus since it gets the facts wrong about China and it distorts actual PRC policies.

I was therefore chuffed to see a genuine homegrown effort to define the parameters of Chinese development in the pages of the People's Daily. The advantage of reading an official publication is that you are in no doubt as to whether it imparts the spin intended by the government in question. You can be sure the material has been vetted. In this case, Zhang Weiwei, Director of the Centre for China Development Model Research, Fudan University in Shanghai, offers probably as close to the official version of China's success as you are likely to get for international consumption. According to him (all emphasis is in the article):
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The following five aspects of China's political governance merit special attention:

[1] First, one-party governance...The Communist Party of China has to a great extent followed this tradition and built an impressive system of selecting its leaders based on merit and performance. For instance, its top decision-makers (6 out of 7 Politburo's Standing Committee members) all worked at least twice as much as party secretaries or governors at the provincial level, which means they have on average administered a population of about 100 million before being promoted to their current positions in Beijing.

In this context, the word "party" may be a misnomer for the CPC, as it bears no similarity with the type of political institutions like the Republican or Democratic parties of the U.S., which openly represent group interests of a society and compete with each other. The CPC has tried, in China's own political tradition, to represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of people, who apparently accept this, at least up to now, thanks largely to the fact that most people have found their living standards significantly improved over the past three decades.

In this sense, the CPC should better be viewed as a state party or, in a hypothetical American context, a merge of the Republican and Democratic parties in which competition of ideas and competence is the norm and consensus and can-do spirit is prized. 

[2] Second, neo-democratic centralism. China's success is inseparable from its much reformed decision-making process, which can be described as neo-democratic centralism or a modern form of democratic centralism. The old Soviet-style decision-making process was indeed more about centralism than democracy, but China has improved on it and institutionalized a procedural accountability for its democratic centralism. Under such a system, a typical major decision like the nation's five-year plan for development takes well over a year of extensive and interactive consultations at various levels of the Chinese state and the society, with several cycles of "from the people to the people, and to the people from the people".

As a result, the final decision reflects the broad consensus of Chinese society on many issues such as public health reform, adjustment of the one child policy, deferred retirement age, banking sector reform, education reform and the end of the "reform through labor" system. Many decisions are made based on the results of pilot projects.

With a higher degree of legitimacy in the decision-making process, there is usually no need to "sell" the state's decisions, as the United States does, to the public. Once decisions are made in Beijing after such a process, they are usually ready for "study and execution" or to be further tested in various pilot projects...

[3] Third, demand creation. Cycles of institutionalized consultations and policy debates in major decision-making processes tend to generate, at regular intervals, a lot of public expectations, usually more positive than negative, for economic development. Such expectations in turn create new and often medium to long term demand. A typical five-year plan in China catches the attention of the vast part of the Chinese society, from private firms to state-owned enterprises to individual shareholders. The fact that China has been able to sustain an annual GDP growth rate of over 9 percent for over three decades is inseparable from these regular and predictable cycles of expectation and demand creation.

"The fact that China has been able to sustain an annual GDP growth rate of over 9 percent for over three decades is inseparable from these regular and predictable cycles of expectation and demand creation. "

[4] Fourth, development administration. It's not far from wrong to claim that China has created its own model of development, an important feature of which can be called "development adminstration," in contrast to public administration. China's five-year national plans and CPC's annual economic conference are definitely part of China's development administration. The same is true with many local development strategies and plans. Chinese universities may eventually offer courses and even degrees in development administration just as degrees in public administration are common everywhere.

But the Chinese case may be unique, as the Chinese state, under the "socialist market economy," commands not only such Keynesian instruments as fiscal and monetary policies, but also other "tools," which may not be available in other countries, such as public ownership of land and of strategic resources as well as a largely performing state sector. These "tools" give the Chinese state greater leveraging power.

[5] Fifth, minyi versus minxin. Behind all the above is the Chinese philosophy of governance, including, inter alia, the two distinctive concepts: minyi and minxin, the former referring to "public opinion", and the latter to "the hearts and minds of the people" (approximate English translation), which was first put forward by Mencius (372 - 289 BC). Minyi or public opinion can be fleeting and change overnight, while minxin or "hearts and minds of the people" tends to be stable and lasting, reflecting the whole and long-term interest of a nation. Over the past three decades, even under the occasionally populist pressure of minyi, the Chinese state has still generally practiced "rule by minxin". This allows China to plan for medium to long terms and even for the next generation, rather than for next 100 days or next election as in many Western countries.

[Me again. Zhang even concludes by pointing out that China faces a series of difficulties. Yet, these do not mean Chinese governance is better than is has been in the last few centuries according to him:]

China is still faced with many daunting challenges ranging from corruption to regional income gaps and environmental degradation. But China is indeed better than at anytime in its modern history. The country is now the world's largest laboratory for economic, social and political experimentation. There is a every reason to believe that China, which has a continuously adaptive political system, will reach its objective of becoming the world's largest economy in a decade's time -- with all the implications for China itself and for the rest of the world at large.
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[At CEIBS, China's top business school, Zhang Weiwei also served up an eight-point "China Model":]

Prof. Zhang then gave a summary of the China Model’s eight distinctive features. It:
- Is based on practical reasoning;
- Has a strong and relatively neutral government;
- Prioritizes stability;
- Focuses on people’s livelihood;
- Is based on gradual reform;
- Has correct priorities and sequences;
- Has a mixed economy;
- Is open to the outside world. 

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Mickey in GulagWorld: Enter Disney Shanghai

Wishing upon a CSR Death Star, you are.

I was originally going to entitle this post "Totalitarianism and Theme Parks" but I thought the better of it. Some of you will of course still complain that (a) there already a Disney park in China in Disneyland Hong Kong and that (b) jillions of Disney-licensed merchandise is already made in the PRC. So, it is too late to complain that China's authoritarianism fits poorly with Disney's family-friendly image. But I digress.

With holier-than-thou Hollywood types complaining about Brunei's human rights violations, the upcoming opening of a Disney park in mainland China should not go unnoticed. The interesting angle for me has always been the collision of Disney's commercialized and sanitized fairy-tale happy endings with real life's opposing penchant for messy, tabloid-nasty sad endings. The essential difference between Disney and China is that Disney is more concerned with the appearance of being one big, happy family whereas China is more concerned with acquiescence to a patriarchal leadership in the Communist Party. Are these two--illusion and patrimony--mutually exclusive? That is the question Disney Shanghai will face.

Actually, there already is a planned community which Disney has created that certainly does not always play host happy endings. Celebration, Florida (pop. 7,427) has been around for about a decade, and it's been an interesting social experiment:

Celebration isn’t perfect in the Stepford Wives, Truman Show way that it invokes with its Disney connection and emphasis on uniformity—there have actually been a few documented murders in Celebration and Potochney recalls clandestine drug use by teens like in any other town—but the residents have a palpable pride. It stems from a sense of connectivity and community that careful planning often provides, and that hopefully we can learn from and try to implement in less logically structured neighborhoods in the country.

So residents of Celebration kill each other and shoot up drugs like in any other American town. However, that it is still an all-American town means that few compare it to the Disney ideal. Do not expect the same treatment for Disney Shanghai. So many years on after it joined the WTO in 2011, we have hardly noticed Bill Clinton's liberal ideal that economic freedom will eventually cause Chinese residents to clamor for political freedom. Just think of the possibilities for protesters--I'm sure Disney itself is already building up its rhetorical defense for when the time comes:

1. When You Wish Upon a Star - Jiminy Cricket tells us that it makes no difference who you are; anything your heart desires will come to you. However, what if you are the Uighurs or Tibetans wising for self-determination, or at least more political autonomy? Xinjiang province where the Uighurs live has been subject to Commmunist Party repopulation campaigns to make them a minority there. Same banana with the Tibetans who've been subject to their own repopulation efforts. Can you say "Chinese West Bank"?
2. It's a Small World After All - this standard ride in all Disney theme park extols the virtue of respecting differences in a Kantian sense since "there's so much that we share." Aside from hardly being applicable to China's separatist movements, Chinese work camps or laogai do not seem to square with China being a small world after all. Why would you need to re-educate your people while hosting a theme park that lauds unity in diversity? 
3. Circle of Life - this Elton John classic from The Lion King is a really memorable, upbeat tune. It too does not seem to jibe with a country that still implements a one-child policy whose violation by the poor and marginalized is likely to result in forced abortions.

I hardly think China will change the practices mentioned above to ensure Disney doesn't get a a bum rap helping enrich the folks who violate all sorts of trite, do-gooder sentiments expressed in song. Sometime ago I discussed money-grubbing American Yale University whitewashing concerns about freedom of speech to set up shop in Singapore, while the more circumspect British Warwick University decided against doing so. Americans, especially the commercial behemoth that is Disney, probably couldn't care less that the CSR concerns in China are far, far greater than those of Singapore for as long as they're not brought up. Again, the problem for Disney is that it is the world's leading purveyor of lachrymose sentiments about the goodness of this world while working closely with a regime that tries to keep 1.3 billion persons in line by almost any means necessary.

Indeed, why are there so many songs about rainbows when we kind of know what's on the "other side"? To paraphrase Elton John, I'm afraid I do not necessarily feel the love tonight--but I do see the commercial po$$ibilities. As the capitalists have pumped in another $800 million into this project, it should be quite a show. Mark your calendars for December 2015, and try not to feel so bad about radical levels of inequality in this self-styled "worker's paradise" of a country as you take photos with Gonzo, Princess Leia, Winnie the Pooh and heaven knows how many more characters Disney have already bought.

You may even want to try out to be a "cast member" who is contractually obliged to be perpetually cheery in that shallow and vacuous American way: just forget about the poor sods unable to afford a ticket into the Happiest Place on Earth. Really, it's a whole new world (after you get in the gates)--don't you dare close your eyes.

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China, India, US & Pol Eco of Pollution Statistics

We've been conditioned to believe that Chinese cities are the world's most polluted. After all, what would you expect from an authoritarian regime that brooks no dissent--especially about how damaged the environment is? With China becoming the world's factory--it seems every other consumer good is made there nowadays--this expectation is further reinforced. We all know who the environment's bad guys are...or do we, really?

Well surprise, surprise: actually, the country with the dubious distinction of having the most polluted cities in the world in terms of air quality is India, not China. Yes, precisely--the world's largest democracy that supposedly focuses on "clean" services like business process outsourcing is numero uno globally. The World Health Organization stats speak for themselves after I chart the concentration of particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or smaller in the air of these cities (PM2.5) that are particularly dangerous since they can penetrate deeply into our lungs. More information from the 2014 report can be found here. The top 15 are:

As per the country's travel campaign, it's incredible India although not in the manner intended. There's not even a contest going by this measure since Beijing, China ranks 77th worldwide among WHO monitoring stations (a PM2.5 of 56). As you can see, it's almost a lockout for the Indian subcontinent save for Qatar and Iran. Yes, Beijing PM2.5 peaks at unbelievably high levels with some regularity, but on average, particulates in these cities on the Indian subcontinent are much more plentiful. Statistically speaking, fixating on Chinese pollution by mentioning Beijing's spikes in PM2.5 is unwarranted. True, China is plenty polluted in many other ways--water, arable land and so forth--but on the measure it is most commonly criticized on, there are others doing much worse.

What, then, explains popular beliefs that China is the world's most polluted country? There is likely a political economy of statistics at play. The United States--a large democracy and service-oriented economy just like India--would of course prefer that a communist and authoritarian system be blamed for intolerably high pollution. CCP authorities hide how bad the situation is, etc. Hence the American Embassy in Beijing providing its own air quality stats to "embarrass" Chinese authorities over their environmental destruction:

Despite Beijing’s widespread reputation of having some of the most polluted air of any major city in the world, an examination of daily pollution figures collected from both cities suggests that New Delhi’s air is more laden with dangerous small particles of pollution, more often, than Beijing’s. Lately, a very bad air day in Beijing is about an average one in New Delhi...

The United States Embassy in Beijing posts on Twitter the readings of its air monitor, helping to spur awareness of the problem. The readings have more than 35,000 followers. The United States does not release similar readings from its New Delhi Embassy, saying the Indian government releases its own figures [my emphasis].

Aside from the questionable assertion that the Chinese government does not collect its own pollution figures, that Indian authorities do is also a convenient excuse:

“It’s always puzzled me that the focus is always on China and not India,” said Dr. Angel Hsu, director of the environmental performance measurement program at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. “China has realized that it can’t hide behind its usual opacity, whereas India gets no pressure to release better data. So there simply isn’t good public data on India like there is for China.”

Putting 2 and 2 together, the picture we arrive at is that American scaremongering about Beijing's air quality is undoubtedly responsible for part of this misplaced focus. In order to bash an ideological rival, it harps on pollution in a city whose pollution isn't nearly as bad as that of others--like chummy India whom it shares nuclear technology with. Petty American political points scoring, however, distracts focus from where the real problems lie. What to do with air pollution on the Indian subcontinent is a particularly urgent one for serious-minded people to tackle. If you are genuinely concerned about the environment, blindly listening to frivolous Americans will lead you astray. I won't even go into who exactly buys all those China-made products.

The political economy of pollution statistics it is.

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Screw Asian Dev't Bank: PRC's Asian Infra Invsmt Bank

The PRC looks to storm ADB strongholds.

What's a country to do with (nearly) $4 trillion in FX reserves? To paraphrase Captain Kirk, China has boldly gone where no other country has gone before in accumulating them since Japan at full pomp "only" had slightly over $1 trillion; Japan now has about $1.3 trillion. Obviously, buying friends and subsidizing people is on the agenda--witness China in Africa--but this approach has its drawbacks. First, precisely because they are viewed as PRC-only endeavors, others are suspicious of its motives. Second, there is limited interaction with international institutions China seeks to be more influential with in going it alone.

Hence, China's recently mooted plans to set up an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to address both these points. The PRC has made limited inroads at the region's multilateral lending institution, the Asian Development Bank (ADB).  After all, the ADB cast of characters aren't Japan's natural allies: the largest shareholders in the ADB are Japan and the United States. Meanwhile, it is headquartered in the Philippines, the nation that has taken China to  court over its, how should I put this, expansive territorial claims over warnings not to "internationalize" the dispute. So if you can't join 'em, beat 'em by setting up your own regional lender. As for the present ADB ownership structure:

As of 31 December 2013, ADB’s five largest shareholders are Japan (with 15.7% of total shares), the United States (US) (15.6%), People’s Republic of China (6.5%), India (6.4%), and Australia (5.8%). ADB members who are also members of OECD hold 64.6% of total subscribed capital and 58.5% of total voting power.

This Bloomberg article makes much of China having territorial disputes with India, but then again, it has them with a lot of folks--add Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines "Taipei," Vietnam and so forth. To ensure this bank is not viewed as someone's pet project--it is, but similar criticisms can be leveled against the ADB--the supposed plan is for China to provide half the $50B over a period of five years with other Asian nations contributing the rest:

The planned bank was first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang during visits to Southeast Asia last October as part of efforts by China to boost its regional clout. The planned bank would have start-up capital of US$50 billion, half of which will be contributed by China and the rest by other Asian countries. China estimates fund contributions would hit $50 billion billion within 5-7 years, and the bank would then be ready to become a channel to fund infrastructure projects with a low [interest] rate.

The Chinese foreign minister proposing the AIIB is none other than the former chairman of the China Investment Corporation (CIC) sovereign wealth fund, Lou Jiwei. CIC started with a cool $200B, but its capitalization has increased to $500B. So, who's to say that AIIB is not going to increase in size over time if it fulfills its role in serving Chinese interests?

When he was appointed CIC chairman, a minister-level post, he was put in charge of investing US$200 billion. The fund is now valued at US$500 billion thanks to additional capital injections from the government and heavy dividend payouts by the biggest state-owned banks, and has recorded an annualised 5.03 per cent return since its inception.

Lou, 62, kept a low profile while CIC chairman, but the sovereign wealth fund became involved in several controversies due to unsuccessful investments and the blocking of some attempts to acquire foreign assets.

Just as China proposes the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to counterbalance the TPP, so does it put forward the AIIB idea to set up an alternate, China-centric group of development and trade institutions. What is its unique selling proposition? Simple: aside from offering substantial fresh loanable funds, it will impose few to no conditionalities and will certainly not insist on Western-style "good governance" so beloved by ADB folks:

The AIIB will differ from the ADB by focusing on building infrastructure rather than prioritizing poverty reduction, Lou said at the Boao Forum in April. The bank is unlikely to attach political conditions to its loans due to Beijing’s policy of not interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, according to Zhao Jianglin, a researcher with the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciencesin Beijing.

Territorial disputes aside, the Indonesians are already eyeing it...

China’s recent initiative to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a potential game-changer. Indonesia has welcomed this initiative and stated its intention to participate in the new development bank. The AIIB can be expected to accelerate investment in economic infrastructure to boost Asia’s productivity.

...and so are the Thais for megaprojects:

Thailand can tap the Chinese-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a funding source for its infrastructure megaprojects now that the 2-trillion-baht borrowing bill has been derailed by the Constitutional Court, says a senior Finance Ministry official. Somchai Sujjapongse, director-general of the ministry’s Fiscal Policy Office, said establishing the AIIB, whose function would be to fund infrastructure projects in the region, could be a boon to countries that need funding for their infrastructure developments.

The Chinese are quite canny in focusing on infrastructure. Not only can they (conveniently) claim that they are not in competition with the ADB which is more into poverty alleviation, but they also can tap a widely-shared need throughout the region for infrastructure lending. Heck, even its territorial disputants can probably be swayed by that. If the Chinese can provide technical assistance on top of it all, then AIIB would represent a formidable new international institution in comparison to the ADB which has been around since 1966.

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White Man's e-Burden: Can Facebook & Google Save the World?

Don't fret; the male and pale will sort out us backward colored people with tech.

There is an outdated naivete behind the conceit that the world's social problems can be solved by technological fixes. In development studies, this idea exemplifies the modern idea that "progress" has put in mankind's reach solutions to problems our predecessors could not solve. I certainly wish that were the case, but the world is infinitely more complicated than that. For a number of years now, tech people have fixated on the notion that the Internet is as close to a magic bullet to sociopolitical woes as you can get in this day and age. If the "digital divide" were bridged, then us unenlightened coloreds could be just as civilized as they are.

Despite the abject failures of OLPC, "Twitter revolutions" and all sorts of schemes to improve the plight of humanity, we keep going back to the same modern premise that a game-changing technology is all it takes to solve all sorts of sociopolitical problems. Even if most Americans have moved on to a Battlestar Galactica view of the world, Silicon Valley bigwigs that matter are still in Star Trek mode. Hence this space cadet competition between Facebook and Google to come up with increasingly outlandish ideas for providing Internet access to benighted places of this world. Witness Google's plans to fly balloons over Internet-challenged parts of Africa. Not to be outdone and to be even more up-to-date, Facebook plans to fly drones instead. Behold, variations on the white man's e-burden:


Iain Marlow captures the ludicrousness of the idea that Silicon Valley can remotely pilot development from African skies in order to not get involved with, gee, real live Africans. I've heard of top-down development thinking that views poverty as a technological problem, but these grand plans will literally take it to new heights. When Google Maps currently slights Africa because there are not enough Starbucks in the Sahel, wouldn't it make sense to be at least concerned with what's happening on the ground so commerce worthy of Google's attention finally brings recognition to the continent?

[T]he ideas gain outsized attention (and funds and credence) by playing on simplistic assumptions by people who know absolutely nothing about the situation on the ground. There are thousands of smart Africans already working in technology in Africa, and doing amazing things, and I don’t hear many of them talking about balloons and drones (except those other sorts of drones)...
 
Why do Google and Facebook want to soar over extremely complicated but opportunity-rich countries such as Nigeria, Mali and the Central African Republic? The answer is obvious: They want to avoid the messy realities on the ground...

Like with the one-laptop-per-child idea and other lofty “connectivity” schemes, the ideas and goals of these types of ideas tend to misdiagnose the problem and then dramatically over-promise on results. By the time these plans come to fruition, everyone has generally moved on to something else, and the original euphoria is forgotten.

There are two unexamined premises here IMHO. The first one Marlow brings up elsewhere in his article is that Internet access is not yet available to those who need to make use of it--especially in Africa. The second one I am more concerned with is that Internet access automatically implies development. Once more, aren't there potentially more cost-effective fixes that directly tap into the local knowledge and ingenuity of Africans and others in "emerging markets" instead of remotely piloting progress? There is no mystery about the popularity of TEDx to crowds of mostly white people where glib and slick presenters proffer tech fixes to problems us thick coloreds haven't been able to come up with since we are so technologically backward. What would their reception be outside of NorCal among people who have to live with the complexities of everyday life in the third world?

Speaking of which, for people so keen on changing the world for better, I suggest that they look at what's happening in their own backyard, the Bay Area, to see whether their presence is making a positive impact. It seems to me that these tech types are merely reinforcing the inequality and racialization they profess to abhor in NorCal as their transportation and even their garb are continually under attack.

How does the saying go? Think globally, act locally. If these tech firms have worsened rather than improved social problems in their own communities, what makes them think they can fix problems on a global scale? It is typical American hubris unaccompanied by any track record to back it up.

UPDATE: Google now discloses that its employees are predominantly male and white. I am unsurprised especially given their naivete in addressing poverty issues.

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Leno, Branson & Brunei: On Boycotting Shari'a Law

Can Jay Leno and other white people "save" us foreign primitives from shari'a law?

Life is a series of endless annoyances you just wish would go away. This latest brouhaha started when big-chinned American funnyman Jay Leno publicized his boycott of the landmark Beverly Hills Hotel which is part of the Dorchester Collection hotel chain owned by the Sultan of Brunei. His recent implementation of shari'a law in Brunei has provoked an outcry among Western activists. Instead of blowing away, however, it's gotten worse as the glitterati have followed suit. The Hotel Bel Air which is also part of the Dorchester Collection has also been targeted. Not to be outdone, Sir Richard Branson decided to wade into the fray by prohibiting all Virgin employees from patronizing the sultan's properties--including the flagship Dorchester Hotel favored by the late Michael Jackson--citing "human rights violations."

I have four points:

(1) Ignorant Westerners living in their white people's worlds and applying their biased interpretations of morality on others is hardly unusual. Shari'a law with its--how shall we say--vivid punishments is a favorite target of Westerners since these include storing to death of adulterers and homosexuals. However, there is a not-insignificant difference between the literal interpretation of shari'a law and the punishments most commonly meted out. Take for instance, how shari'a is followed in the UAE:

Consider the courts' interpretation of family law. The UAE mandates that Sharia is used as the primary legal justification on matters involving family legal issues. But the UAE personal status law, which covers marriage, divorce and succession, also states in Article 1 that "the law shall apply to all UAE nationals except where non-Muslim UAE nationals have special rules relating to their specific creed or sect".

What's more, Article 1 adds that the law will apply to non-UAE nationals as well, unless they choose their own law. Elements of the nation's criminal code offer similar distinctions. For instance, payment of blood money in the event of a death or injury is allowed according to Sharia. Crimes such as the desertion of Islam, fornication, murder, theft, adultery and homosexuality - all crimes classified as "Al Hudud" in Arabic - are punishable by predetermined penalties (flogging and arm amputation among them). And yet some emirates have suspended Al Hudud provisions pursuant to their rulers' decrees and replaced the Sharia penalties with jail terms and fines as determined by the law according to each case respectively [my emphasis].

I am less concerned with the archaic punishments a literal interpretation of shari'a demands--the Old Testament is hardly more palatable in this respect to modern eyes. Rather, less concern should surround a country's legal system adopting aspects of shari'a law--usually the civil code--and  more with what punishments are actually meted out. Not having sentenced anyone to death by stoning for adultery yet--the sultan's brother, the dissipated wastrel Prince Jefri, should be first in line with his global philandering [1, 2]--Brunei still has the benefit of the doubt.

(2) If these Westerners were truly aghast at shari'a law in any way, shape or form, then their boycott should not only be confined to tiny Brunei. In the UK, it puzzles me why the Emiratis have not been subject to the sort of boycott the sultan has when Emiratis bankroll even more visible bits of the UK in the football clubs Arsenal (which plays at the Emirates Stadium) and Manchester City (which is owned by a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family). Doing so would bring football, the country's most-watched sport, to an absolute standstill since Manchester City looks likely to win this year's championship while Arsenal gains another Champions League berth. British royal warrants notwithstanding, Sir Richard Branson and his high society pals should also refrain from shopping at the world's most famous department store, Qatari owned Harrods. Similarly, Virgin Atlantic ought to stop flying out of Heathrow airport since it's part-owned by the Qataris.

In America, even the right-wingers at Breibart have a laundry list of other concerns that should be boycotted if shari'a law was to be avoided at all costs. Me, I'll stick to Jay Leno's other passion here--collecting automobiles. With so many big-engined exotic cars to fuel up in his garage, how sure is Jay Leno that his petrol has not been sourced from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or another homosexual-hating hydrocarbon supplier? Last I checked, Saudi alone supplied 13% of US-consumed oil, likely making Leno a rather famous consumer of products originating from a shari'a law-abiding nation (20% come from the "Persian Gulf"). To be safe on the safe side, he should also sell all his Ferrari car(s) since the automaker has a longstanding commercial tie-up with Abu Dhabi, including a theme park.

(3) Implicitly, there is also this typically condescending Western conceit that they "know better" about the barbarity of others and have a responsibility to "save" us colored people from our despotic rulers. Did it ever occur to them that some Muslims actually prefer the implementation of shari'a law--especially in civil matters? It is not uncommon for even predominantly non-Islamic countries to bow to such wishes granting shari'a courts powers of interpretation over these matters.

From Political Science 101, there is this notion of political legitimacy. Jay Leno and others only focus on extreme punishments not usually meted out by shari'a courts. Would so many people--especially in non-Islamic countries--tolerate or even demand these courts if the decisions made were completely out of line with people's expectations? I do not believe so. Rather, most courts issue rulings that pass muster even in non-Islamic countries which sufficiently meet the expectations of Islamic and other communities. In other words, the operation of these courts passes the test of legitimacy. Granted, some rulings may be abhorrent to Western sensibilities, but consider first what citizens' expectations are of their legal systems. Just because rulings are made by "authoritarian" figures does not mean they are bereft of popular support. If Brunei's citizens want to turf Sultan Bolkiah over enacting shari'a law, then it's their call and not anyone else's.

(4) If Jay Leno, Richard Branson and all these busybody celebs were truly concerned with human rights violations, then they should focus less on a country which hasn't stoned a single offender to death but rather their own countries that actually commit human rights violations on a massive scale. The United States invades other countries on false pretenses resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and then leaves them worse off in the name of democracy and freedom. It also kills innocent people indiscriminately the world over via drone strikes in the name of the global war on terror.

Complain if you will with the interpretation of shari'a law, but at least there is due process. The United States reserves the right to indefinitely detain and Guantanamo Ghraib people without any legal recourse whatsoever, Americans included. Unlike a certain other government, Brunei's doesn't abduct persons in 50+ countries Boko Haram-style and torture them somewhere else. Speaking of excessive punishment, there is also the matter of the United States jailing a larger proportion of its own people than any other country on earth--especially African-Americans not lucky enough to be well-off, white activists who have all the time in the world to pick on things of limited consequence outside the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Following the Gandhian principle of "peaceful disobedience"--he's, like, big in Hollywood since his biopic won 8 Oscars--I suggest that Jay Leno and his followers stop paying taxes to the US government which inflicts death and misery worldwide on an unprecedented scale instead of picking on a country that *may* issue an inhumane punishment in the future. My guess is they won't because they pick targets that are easy to demagogue against.

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Bottom line for these Western activists: As sung by the late Michael Jackson, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change.  Start with your own country since these holier-than-thou attitudes certainly don't impress us after years and years of American hypocrisy. It's "We the People," right? The IPE Zone does not suffer religious intolerance gladly  coming from Western left-wing or right-wing crusaders. They are too secure in their smug self-superiority. In the end, however, their differences are small since they share largely similar, narrow-minded whitebread views of the world.

To show you just how asinine these protests are, some desperately uninformed soul wearing designer shades [natch] in Leno's protest is seen urging Brunei to be excluded from the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) expansion negotiations. My dear, Brunei is a founding member of the TPP. Your country is merely trying to join it. Should your country press for what you suggest, it's far more likely that Brunei will "kick out" the United States. As many a blog post here will attest, Americans are this proud of parading their ignorance for all the world to see.

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F1 in Reverse: Drop India/Korea, Add Austria/Russia

Sochi Grand Prix come October: welcome to irredentist F1.

There has been a drive in Formula One to broaden its audience to the developing world. In recent years, the likes of Bahrain, China, India, Malaysia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have been added to the F1 calendar along with Singapore and South Korea. While Brazil remains a long-term fixture, others that have hosted FIA-sanctioned events include Mexico, Morocco and South Africa. Given prevailing demographic trends (populations are still increasing in the developing world) and economic trends (the world's center of economic activity is shifting eastward) you'd expect more races to be held in emerging markets, but not so.

Looking at the 2014 F1 calendar, I thus found it weird that India and South Korea have been dropped simultaneously. Sure F1 honcho Bernie Ecclestone is rather mercurial about scheduling, but still. While India is of course the mother of all growth markets with a population of 1.1 billion-something people, the beef F1 has with it hosting a race has been the traditional Indian "license raj" vice. That is, incomplete reform makes it very hard for foreigners to come and go with ease such as F1 with its platoons of equipment and personnel. [Cue fat customs fees and import taxes.] The outgoing Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been faulted for pandering to special interests in not opening up the economy. As it turns out, lack of liberalization is also to blame for the F1 circus departing (at least this year):

[F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone] said the Indian GP promoters have not fully complied with the race contract to put the 2015 race in jeopardy. It now seems that the tax and bureaucratic hurdles cited for the uncertainty over the race returning to the Buddh International Circuit (BIC) were not the only reasons.

Ecclestone's revelation comes days after he said that he wants the race to be pushed to 2016 so that the country "gradually gets over all the bureaucratic and the tax issues to improve the general financial conditions". His statement fuelled speculation whether the race will ever see through the remaining two races of the contract.

Quite frankly, F1 does not particularly care about governance--unless it is being hamstrung by limits on bringing in people and equipment necessary to make the greatest racing show on Earth possible. In this respect, India's inability to accommodate F1 is symptomatic of broader difficulties with liberalization.

After four years of races in South Korea's Yeongam circuit, we must also bid it goodbye. Unlike the Japanese, the Koreans did not take to F1 as attendance was poor and the track was not particularly well-liked by the drivers and teams. So, away it goes:

The poorly-attended Korean race, one of the least popular among Formula One's travelling fraternity, has sustained heavy losses. Organisers, whose race at Yeongam in the far south was due to be moved from Octoberto April, had sought a contract re-negotiation with Ecclestone. 

Now, to the races added to the calendar replacing India and Korea. You must be joking if you consider Austria a "growth market" with its relatively small and not exactly booming population. Money talks, however, and Red Bull--winners of the last four constructors and drivers championships--brought the race back after over a decade in abeyance:

The Austrian Grand Prix is set to return to the Formula 1 calendar in 2014, after Spielberg's owner Red Bull revealed a deal had been struck for a July 6 date. The energy drinks company issued a short statement to Austrian media outlets on Tuesday morning saying that it had concluded negotiations for F1 to return to the circuit.

The former A1 Ring has been renamed--wait for it--the Red Bull Ring. The more things change, the more things stay the same as money talks more than anything else in this most commercially oriented of sports. Lastly, the appearance of Russia on the calendar will do nothing to dispel accusations that F1 favors authoritarian regimes--especially after its extracurricular activities in Ukraine after the Sochi Olympics. Speaking of which, we are beating a path back to Sochi for the race. It turns out Bernie is quite the Putin admirer...

Who do you ask for help if you need to turn a muddy hole in the ground into a futuristic grand prix track? "He's my sort of man," Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone says of Russian president Vladimir Putin's influence in the project to stage the nation's first grand prix this October in Sochi.

"He knows what he wants to do and he gets on and does it. I've never had any fear that what he agreed to do wouldn't happen. I think (Russia has) done a first-class job for F1 and a super job for the Olympics," Ecclestone told CNN. It's the kind of ringing endorsement that stands out like an oasis in a desert for a politician much derided for many of his policies by a large swathe of the international community.

But then, the 83-year-old Ecclestone has a reputation for favoring those who he believes can deliver on their promises and thereby aid F1's further expansion. The growth of motorsport's elite division into one of the world's most valuable sport franchises has been built on such relationships and Ecclestone's shrewd 40-year management of them.

So yes, Russia is an emerging market, but no, there is nothing quite so novel about it, really. There is some debate about whether Russia has really arrested its demographic decline, but you have to wonder if there really is an emergent consumerist "middle class" there as opposed to a bunch of state-sponsored oligarchs and everyone else with not much of any spending power. Putin's money talks, but what if the average Russian isn't well off enough to buy ludicrously overpriced F1 paraphernalia? 

Let's just say Russia's place in the F1 calendar is not secure--just as so many other developing countries that have been added and dropped now understand since Bernie's clearly a "what have you done for me lately" sort of chap. The show must go on.

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