Kapok: What happens in…

As is often the case with sayings, their actual meaning is commonly debatable and easily twisted by the interest and the context of the moment. Such is the case with “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, that pulls together two sets of meanings. On the one hand, related to permissiveness and secrecy—you can engage in anything borderline in Vegas, but whatever you do out there will not spill over Vegas’s vicinity—and on the other, connected to absolute otherness—this is only possible in Vegas. Apart from the fact that this sin-charged marketing motto strikes a particular cord for us in Macao, this is the expression that popped into my mind while reading reports about recent declarations made in Beijing by Peter Lee Ka-kit, Hong Kong-based Henderson Land Development’s vice chairman, in which he stated that “polls” conducted by University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Programme were “biased” against the pro-establishment/pro-Beijing camp in the SAR. He went on namely to target the programme’s director, Robert Chung, by questioning the scientific character of the polls and came up with a “pragmatic” solution according to which a selected few trade associations, naturally pro-establishment, would start funding alternative polls that would be conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the two competitors of Mr. Chung’s institution among the top tier universities in our sister SAR. Very pragmatic indeed, as any businessman should be: if you are not happy with a supplier, just go to another one! 
These remarks were made in Beijing during a meeting held on the fringe of the annual ten-day-long annual full session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) between delegates from Hong Kong and Macao to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), of which Peter Lee is a member of the standing committee, and NPC chairman Zhang Dejiang. Let’s just recall that this annual meeting of the NPC is the only moment of the year when the supervisory power of this otherwise rubber-stamp assembly can somehow frailly glow—the government’s budget is always approved, but sometimes only by 80% of the members!—and that the CPPCC, in itself a purely advisory body, is supposed to help engage in “political consultation” with and perform “democratic supervision” of the Communist Party. In theory, members of the CPPCC can thus be expected to display some kind of innovative thinking that can help the Party better itself. In practice, it is far too often the occasion for prominent exemplary citizens to exhibit their absolute submission to the current Party line. Journalists in Beijing noted that Peter Lee’s remarks along with the ones made by another tycoon’s progeny, Victor Li Tzar-kuoi (son of Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, and also a CPPCC standing committee member) characterizing the Occupy Central movement as being contrary to Hong Kong’s core values, were made just hours after a high-level official from the central government liaison office had urged Hong Kong members of the CPPCC to speak more openly against Occupy Central.
That leads me back to my saying, this time with a local flavor: let’s hope that what happens in Beijing stays in Beijing, even though this doesn’t bode well for much needed political reforms in the first system. But can it really be so? What is there to gain, apart from radicalization, in adding worries over academic freedom to nagging questioning about threats to the freedom of the press in our neighboring SAR? And then, will what happens in Hong Kong stay in Hong Kong? On one side, we have businessmen suggesting the government “dissolve the people and elect another,” to echo Bertold Brecht’s famous verse, and on the other side we are expected to remain impervious to menaces growing on our doorstep. But of course, in Macao, we seem to be content with the simple fact that Mr Chui has finally ended the excruciating speculations about his candidacy for a second mandate and we have our own businessmen suggesting that legislators should simply forfeit their right to legislative initiative. Nothing to worry about, really.

Published in Macau Daily Times, March 7 2014

Kapok: Tyrannies of Numbers

It is indeed an oft-repeated mantra regarding China: one of the issue that blurs our analytical perspective is that numbers are big there; and when I say big, I mean huge; and when I say huge, I clearly imply massive. Economic growth, population, size of cities, Internet users, and members of the Communist Party: everything is enormous, beyond any other country except for India. But then numbers in India, although the country has been part of the original and fast rising BRIC league right from the start (expanding now in BRICS, BRICSI and even TIMBI!), have been regarded up until recently as an impediment rather than a blessing: illiteracy rate, criminality, the multiplicity of states and union territories making the federation more fragile, and even the “inferiority complex of the majority” of Hindus vs. Muslims, etc. Now that the “demographic dividend” along with the benefit of “free thinking” fuelling modernized entrepreneurship seem to have shifted in favor of India, China’s horizon appears to be rather darkened because of its outdated “one-child policy” along with its very constrained paths to innovation, enlightenment far too often falling victim of plutocracy. Size does matter, but the very nature of the social, economic and political fabric of a nation will ultimately matter even more.
Macao has to suffer from its own tyranny of numbers: insolent years of GDP growth at a time of world recession; gambling revenues six times the ones of Vegas; largest casino premises in the world; biggest water show on the planet; one of the world’s lowest rates of unemployment; and of course one of the most indecent government surplus in the world when countries considered to be birthplaces of modern civilization are selling off national treasures to any investment fund, sovereign or less so, showing up with cash-laden briefcases. When a government is running a deficit and credit becomes scarce, austerity measures or budget rigor, as we now call it in France, become a necessity—yet the timing of such measures is still hotly debated. When a government is barely spending 45% of its revenues, what do we call it? Preemptive rigor or blindness to much needed investments for the future?
Wednesday’s tropical shower should act as a wake up call, a strident whistle blow in the deafening silence of ineptitude. In just three and a half hours, one meter of water fell on Macao, cascading in steep staircases, submerging roads, tossing vehicles on the side and flooding car parks and ground floors in several parts of the city—some below sea-level, but many above. I incidentally happened to be driving at 8pm that day, and witnessed first-hand the chaotic stir all of a sudden engulfing the city, from peninsula to far-off Coloane, bridges included. For some reason it reminded me of the 2011 Bangkok flooding that took months to recede. Nothing of that magnitude in Macao, and yet the lessons from the Thai capital’s upheaval found some strange echoes in Macao’s own commotion. Bangkok happened to be a manmade disaster brought by years of unrestrained urban development that had totally destroyed one of the oldest and most sophisticated drainage-canal systems. Macao’s drainage system has never been that sophisticated, but it is clearly obsolete and certainly not on par with the needs and challenges brought by ten years of fast and furious economic development. We indeed have Third World problems in a First World territory with First World revenues: luckily for us, the pouring lasted just a few hours and the next day was sunny.

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 11th 2013

KAPOK: The magnificent seven

Every ten years, it has become a ritual that a change of leadership occurs in China, and a “new” team takes over and is expected to usher the country (now the second biggest economy in the world) into an era of rejuvenated economic vitality and reshuffled social cohesiveness.
This master narrative of a peaceful transition of power in a communist regime is all the more surprising that it can claim thirty years of existence – and this in spite of having been vehemently contested during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 at a time when, precisely, Communism was crumbling in Eastern Europe. Yet, what is also striking is the level of secrecy that still adorns this change of leadership, even today, in spite of China hosting the largest population of Internet users — officially 538 million as of last July!
Mix tantalizing and worldwide curiosity with secrecy, cloak and dagger behind-the-scenes factional strife, and flawed yet viral circulation of information and you get an explosive cocktail of wildly spinning rumors and crippled certainties. Yet, a bit of historical perspective and cool-headed analytical consideration can help defuse reporting stirs overloaded with anxiety.
One of the arguments oft cited as fuelling the rumors is the fact that, as of today, the dates of the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are still not disclosed, or more precisely, are merely scheduled for “the second half” of 2012. Rather imprecise one would agree, as if the game were still “open” and thus arrangements for the succession not yet carved in stone. In a recent posting, Qian Gang from the China Media Project reminded us that it was not until 1982 that the CCP Congress managed to make good on the once-every-five-years tempo. At the time when the Congress was supposed to be held annually or triennially, political turmoil led to staggering delays: 17 years between the 6th (1928) and the 7th (1945) congresses, 11 years between the 7th and 8th (1956) and 13 years between the 8th and 9th (1969)… On the contrary, the two held in the 1970s were convened one year in advance: the 10th Congress (1973) because of the suspicious death of Lin Biao and the 11th (1977) because of the downfall of the Gang of Four! Just for reference, the 17th Congress was held from 15th to 21st October 2007.
As to the recent spat of rumors regarding the disappearance of the Secretary General in waiting, Xi Jinping, for 11 days: The press, especially the international media, started noticing when Xi canceled meetings with Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Now rumors have run havoc, ranging from a simple ailment due to a back problem to a heart attack, a car crash, and even a terrorist attack! Words like back injury 背伤 or crown prince 皇储, a netizen nickname for Xi, are banned from micro-blogging services in China. And things got even worse when it was reported that He Guoqiang, the No. 8 on the Standing Committee, had himself not been seen since August 28th! Let’s just remember that Premier Li Peng back in 1993 went missing for 7 long weeks! And let’s be honest, even in a democracy, from Roosevelt to François Mitterrand, health conditions and the exercise of power at the highest level have often had obscure relations.
Yes, the CCP and the regime it clings power to are still extremely secretive. Will all this hype change anything? Nope: it is now almost certain that Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Zhang Dejiang, Li Yuanchao, Wang Qishan and Wang Yang will become the paramount leaders of China. What would really bring uncertainty though would be an announcement right after the Congress that intra-party democracy 党内民主 should be the guiding principle of political reform in the coming five years!

Published in Macau Daily Times on September 14th 2012