Kapok: Not so cool after all

We have known for some time that air-conditioning is not only bad for the environment but also pretty dreadful for our health.

It consumes a lot of energy — far more than a fan; contributes to the “island warming” phenomenon in cities — pumping hot air from inside the houses to the street; increases air pollution; and ultimately makes a disproportionate contribution to global warming.

When it comes to airborne germs and bacteria, it acts not only as a propagator but also as a source of illnesses, especially when air con units remain dirty or worn out. If Legionnaires’ disease is one of the nastiest such illnesses, it remains luckily quite rare, contrary to colds and sore throats, that can easily become chronic ailments. In a previous job, air-cons were so badly maintained that I would regularly suffer from throat infections and voice loss after teaching only two classes in a row. But then, occupational diseases were the least of my concerns — sadly!

With record-breaking heat waves affecting the world, it seems only natural to question the all-out rush on air conditioning to cool down, even more so in our part of the world, where abusing the AC has become a way of life, so that one has to bring a jumper along to the movies, a shopping mall, hopping on a bus or sitting on a ferry.

In a recently released study by the International Energy Agency (IEA) entitled “The Future of Cooling”, we are reminded that the use of air conditioners and electric fans already accounts for 10% of overall global electricity consumption! Moreover, projections on energy demand for space-cooling indicate that without action to address energy efficiency and promote alternative methods of coping with the heat, the share of final electricity demand for cooling will more than triple by 2050 — space-cooling demand will represent 37% of the world’s overall electricity demand! In Hong Kong, the future is now as ACs already suck up 30% of the SAR’s annual energy. In Macao, as usual, ignorance is bliss, but as energy consumption has more than tripled in the past 18 years — soaring from 1,573 to 5,417 million KWh between 2000 and 2017 — we can legitimately postulate that air conditioning is the big culprit.

One recommendation highlighted in the IEA report — besides walking around naked, working at night, taking refuge in a forest and living in white-painted individual and well-ventilated houses with shades closed most of the time — is that policies to improve the efficiency of ACs could quickly curb demand and that such efficiency would bring major benefits, reducing the need to build new energy generation capacity, thus lowering investment as well as fuel and operating costs. Coupled with decarbonization, that would also translate into a massive reduction in cooling-related CO2 emissions.

In China, the challenge and opportunities are of epic proportion. China and the United States now account for more than half of the 1.6 billion AC units in use in the world, and the two taken together contribute to 55% of global cooling-related CO2 emissions. However, China is taking the lead when it comes to forecasted demand and, as reported, “in some places, such as Beijing on the 13 July 2017, more than 50% of the daily peak load [is] related to cooling.” One of the big issues has to do with coal power generation in China, but the disparity between the best available energy efficient AC units and the market average is also to be blamed — pricing is still an issue.

In Macao, this imperative to improve the overall efficiency of air conditioners was for a while factored into policy-making… but then the Environmental Protection and Energy Conservation Fund was terminated in December 2015. Why? Nobody ever cared to explain.

Published in Macau Daily Times on August 10, 2018

Kapok: Legality vs. responsibility

Since the public unravelling of the Panama papers on Sunday, my nights have been significantly shortened. My, my! This is truly a gripping story!
First, because of its sheer size, as the wizardry of eye-catching data journalism and colourful infographics have made it clear: 11.5 million documents — including 4.8 million emails! — representing a massive 2.6 terabytes of data, and implicating 214,488 offshore structures as well as more than 14,000 banks and other intermediaries, over a period of roughly 40 years! That’s 10 times more than the 2013 Offshore Leaks and 1,500 times more than the 2010 Cablegate/Wikileaks!
Second, because although it originated from a single Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, the so-called leak has a global reach: it involves companies, banks and individuals across the seven seas – more than 200 countries and territories, and threatens people with varying degrees of accountability all over the world – 140 politicians and public officials, including 12 current and former world leaders. Equally global and hefty is the mobilisation of more than one hundred media partners and 370 journalists, working together under the umbrella of The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism, of which the first press outlet originally approached, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, is a member.
And third, because at a time of ever-growing gaping inequalities, it allows to expose the hidden wealth of the rich and powerful, thus stigmatising the imperfections of our system of capitalist wealth generation. Hypocrisy and double standards are made obvious, and beyond the issue of legality/criminality emerges the one of responsibility – social, economic and political, in effect much more open to interpretation. The trial of failing oligarchies is thus set to start.
Yet, if size matters, not all documents are equal, and ultimately one has to be cautious in the exercise of finger pointing at high-profile tax evaders — President Putin and his 2 billion worth of hidden assets as the opening piecemeal — or nations — China, Hong Kong, Russia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland leading the pack if the sample from Panama is to be trusted. As an economist friend pointed out to me, the level of tax evasion should actually be “proportional” to GDP. And if one follows the 2015 study published by Gabriel Zucman about “The Hidden Wealth of Nations,” it is actually some 8% of the world’s financial wealth that is being held offshore. And Zucman is thus able to demonstrate that half of the foreign profits of US firms are booked in tax havens (the Netherlands topping the list!), and that the effective rate paid by US corporations has been reduced by one third since the late 1990s.
Yet again, most of these forms of tax mitigation, planning or optimisation are legal and somehow legitimate — secrecy has its virtues when it comes to industrial intelligence, for example. But clearly, the borders with tax avoidance or tax evasion (here, I am not even considering money laundering or criminal dealings with financial transactions from dubious origins) are blurry and ever-shifting. In China, up to 2011, tax evasion was actually one of the 68 crimes that was punishable by death, and in line with a Marxist perspective, the idea of “robbing” the people of their collective wealth was considered one of the most serious “substantial” offences.
One of the key findings as far as our region is concerned is that the country with the greatest number of Mossack Fonseca’s offices was China and that the Hong Kong office was the busiest of all: at the end of 2015, 29% of the companies Mossack Fonseca was collecting fees for had been incorporated through offices in Hong Kong and China, and Hong Kong was home to the highest number of intermediaries in operation. Family members of China’s Communist party elite have been exposed, and if there is now a total blackout on the Panama papers at large in China proper, trust over the genuine intent behind the anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi Jinping in 2012 is being tested. Will utter rejection or a mere claim to legality be enough?

Published in Macau Daily Times, April 8 2016

Kapok: Accountable Responsility

For any political leader, probing the hearts and minds of constituents is of utmost importance, whatever the political regime. In a democratic setting, elected officials have learned to engage at every turn with the people they derive their power from. Gone are the days when one would regenerate his or her “representative” status only at election time: one’s presence on Twitter is imperative, and not only to cunningly (often perilously) grab the headlines, but to foster public participation and nurture one’s political course of action via the many corrective bits that constitute an audience’s reaction, measured in levels of re-tweeting, liking and commenting. The power and beauty of social media do not only spring from their instantaneity and their reach but from the reactivity and interactivity. They are indeed a much more sophisticated channel than basic opinion polls that verge on popularity contests. Social media allow for participative democracy to cut across a mere slogan, even though they cannot and will never replace the act of voting, which is the actual exercise of power by the citizenry, and thus of accountability.
In an authoritarian context, regardless of the oligarchic or corporatist manoeuvrability, citizens are also being called upon. The lesson retained from the twentieth century is that no form of dictatorship can aspire to longevity if it does not somehow live up to the promise of a “rule for the people” – the greater good of the community remaining a distinctive finality. Thus demands from the society have to be accommodated, albeit with very stringent constraints. In Iran, many believe that the “Islamic Republic” serves as a “façade” for religious interests to clinch power while allowing for civil society to be placated. Quite tellingly, social media were at one point used as reversed illiberal weapons to track down activists challenging the regime, and today still, most Iranian netizens are denied access to Twitter while President Hassan Rouhani prides himself on having 378,000 followers (last tweet on August 9th) while even Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, is followed by less than 150,000 people. In the People’s Republic of China, many policies are opened to so-called “public consultations” and clearly there have been some interesting attempts at (very) local democracy. The regime today hammers that “democracy” is indeed one of the twelve core socialist values – along with freedom. But here again, engagement of and with the people follows very strict rules, as more than 250 human rights lawyers have been learning the hard way during the summer. Moreover, if China is home to the biggest Internet population on the planet – 668 million – and allows for citizens to express their concerns and participate in the public sphere, this can only ensue in a narrowly enclosed perimeter: Xinhua ultimately rules and the new cybersecurity law currently “under discussion” will fully “legalize” the usual practice of suspension of service and denial of access as soon as there is a hint of threat to “social order”. Thus, Virtual Private Networks that have been heavily targeted since January 2015 could be deemed “illegal”.
Public consultations and the use of social media can be characterized as a form of responsibility sharing. For a leader today, the source of political legitimacy matters less than the impression (at least) that he is ruling for the benefit of the whole community. Shouldering off part of the responsibility thus really comes handy. The ever-increasing use of “public consultations” in Macao is a good reminder that despite our lack of democratic institutions, the commitment to liberal values enshrined in the Basic Law together with their actual practice can be put to very potent use when it comes to accountability. Nobody will be voted out (or weep and resign), but then prospective public policies are openly discussed and challenged, omissions and shortcomings alike: the meticulous account provided by some media – the public meetings transcripts by All About Macao in particular – regarding the present public consultation on new reclamation areas is in that respect to be commended. Irrefutably, the quality of our future rests upon our freedom of expression.

Published in Macau Daily Times on August 21st 2015

Olho mágico: A Idade da Seclusão? / Peephole: The Age of Seclusion?

É bastante constrangedor reparar que o recente (segundo) rascunho da “Lei de Gestão de ONG’s Ultramarinas” da República Popular da China (中华人民共和国境外非政府组织 管理法) quase não suscitou discussão na nossa Região Administrativa Especial. Ao fim e ao cabo, trata-se de uma lei que vai não só aplicar-se a ONG’s (Organização Não Governamentais) “estrangeiras” mas também a um vasto número de organizações, instituições e associações sediadas em Hong Kong, Macau e Taiwan, como se sugere pelo uso da expressão 境外 (jingwai, literalmente fora das fronteiras de um país). O segundo esboço da lei foi apresentado no final de Abril no Comité Permanente da Assembleia Popular Nacional e o articulado da segunda proposta publicado a 5 de Maio com a possibilidade dos cidadãos se pronunciarem sobre a questão até 4 de Junho.  [...]

Published in Ponto Final, June 29 2015

And the text original in English with web links:

It is quite dismaying that the recent (second) draft of the “Overseas NGO Management Law” of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国境外非政府组织 管理法) has triggered so little discussion in our SAR. After all, it is not only a law that will apply to “foreign” NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) but also to a very wide number of organisations, institutions and associations also based in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as implied by the word 境外 (jingwai, literally outside a country’s borders). The second reading of the law was introduced in late April in the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, and the text of this second draft released on May 5^th with the possibility for citizens to provide comments until June 4^th.

If the original intent of the law was geared at “regulating and guiding the activities of overseas NGOs in China, guaranteeing their legal rights and benefits, and promoting exchange and cooperation”—that’s reasonable enough—the text that was unveiled in early May tells quite a different story, because of its scope and letter, and has sent a chill along the spine of many, both domestically and internationally.

Looking at the scope of the law first, and as previously noted, it concerns organisations beyond the PRC’s de facto boundaries, truly foreign ones but also those separating it from the two SARs and the Republic of China, and these organisations are defined broadly as “non-profit, non-government social organisations” that engage “in fields such as economic, education, science and technology, health, culture, sports, environmental protection and charity”. As pointed out by many observers, it is therefore not only the “usual suspects” that are being targeted—those engaging actively in legal, environmental or social issues—but in effect any non-profit actor: a school or hospital as well as a business association or a cultural institution, a non-profit college alumni organisation or international scientific association as well as a foreign high school band or volunteer medical group wishing to organise or participate in any kind of activity on Chinese soil. And to do so, they would need to either find a sponsor to legally register a representative office (and only one for the whole of China) or find a partner willing to help them through the labyrinth of obtaining a temporary activity permit. Registration, in both cases, would have to be done with the Public Security authorities, contrary to domestic NGOs that register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

This very last detail is pretty indicative of the letter itself: registration with the public security apparatus implies that the engagement of overseas NGOs in China is thus perceived from a national security perspective, as pointed out by a law professor from Tsinghua. This becomes even clearer when one reads art. 59 that states that an overseas organisation will be banned from operating on Chinese soil and its representatives suffer serious consequences should it conduct very loosely defined actions originating both inside AND outside China: subverting state power; undermining ethnic solidarity and engaging in separatism; inciting resistance against enforcement of state laws and administrative regulations; collecting state secrets or intelligence; spreading rumours, defamation, or publishing and disseminating other harmful information that undermine state security or harm national interests; carrying out or funding political activities or illegally carrying out or funding religious activities and other activities that undermine state security and harm national interests or societal public interests. As Ira Belkin and Jerome Cohen remark: “if a student group on an American campus protests against Chinese government treatment of Tibetans, the university could be barred from activities in China, and its representatives in China could be detained and prosecuted.”

Many identify the filiation of that draft law with the “seven speak-nots” of Document No. 9 released in April 2013 (that includes “civil society” among the seven values, mostly Western, to be thoroughly rejected) or the more recent pumped-up National Security Law under discussion, and yet many, both within and outside China, believe that this draft law only reflects the very conservative view of a faction within the party, therefore many stakeholders have decided to take the opportunity of the public consultation designed by the NPC to provide their comments and suggestions. A group of 30 Chinese lawyers have thus characterised the bill as arbitrary, in violation of the fundamental national policy of “reform and opening-up” as well as the State Council’s reform spirit of “streamlining administration and power delegation, and as having much negative impact to its purpose of public security protection. Chinese NGO practitioners have sent to the NPC point-by-point comments and suggestions for revision. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have shared their concerns about five aspects of the law: the broad and vague limitations on foreign NGOS operating temporarily or permanently in China; the onerous supervisory framework for NGOs; the expansive role for the police in approving and monitoring NGOs’ work; the restrictions on staffing and operations; and the punishments for vaguely defined activities. Even foreign chambers of commerce as well as western embassies and the European delegation in China have made their concerns public.

Ultimately, what seems to be at stake is the future of China’s relations with the outside world, and whether the “opening up” that has tremendously benefitted the country in the past 35 years is somehow coming to an end, at least when it comes to ideas—capitalism is welcome, liberalism far less. No doubt that the first one to suffer though if the law was to pass as is would be the thousands of domestic NGOs that have relied on 1000 to 6000 foreign organisations and foundations for funding, training, and expertise to serve millions of Chinese citizens.

Olho mágico: Um líder intrigante / Peephole: The puzzling leader

Being midway through his first term as supreme leader of China, Xi Jinping became itself an object of study and question, as is another form of a "new normal", especially after having driven a break radical with the ancient Chinese leadership and the "lost decade" of Hu Jintao. But the governance Xi Jinping is also a "case study" by the depth and scope of what the Chinese leader designated as a priority in terms of policy orientation, with the fight against corruption to stand out clearly visible. [...]

Published in Ponto Final, May 15 2015

And the text original in English with web links:

Being now halfway into his first mandate as China’s supremo, Xi Jinping has become the object of many probes—another form of “new normal”—, mainly because of his apparent clean break with the previous leadership—the so-called “lost decade” of Hu Jintao—as well as the depth and reach of everything he has undertaken or designated as a priority in terms of policy-making, among which the fight against corruption stands a distant first. Assertiveness at home and abroad has become his trademark and his self-confident and earthily personal style has made his ultimate goal to salvage the perennial rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC) very convincing for many.

In a recent “educated poll” run by Foreign Affairs flashily entitled “Will China Crumble? ,” some 32 experts and scholars from various sectors and background were asked whether or not they agreed with the assertion that “The current Chinese regime will not survive the next decade without major reform” and quite surprisingly 19 of them disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, 6 stayed neutral and only 7 agreed or strongly agreed. Despite the relative vagueness and ambiguity of the question—are we talking exclusively about political reform? Does it necessarily mean a breakthrough towards liberal democracy? Is it “reform” versus “revolution?—this is a clear indication that beyond the two major dangers of soul-searching anti-graft purges and declining economic growth—the backbone of the Party’s legitimacy—there is a significant level of confidence regarding the ability of the Party-state under Xi’s helmsmanship to overcome the seemingly inconsistence of having economic reforms without ultimately engaging into far-reaching political reforms. In the enduring contest between the idea of “authoritarian resilience” coined by Andrew Nathan in the early 2000s and the one of inescapable “collapse” because of inherent internal contradictions popularized by Gordon Chang, Pei Minxin or more recently David Shambaugh, resilience appears to have the upper hand. Yet, all these experts do not see China as an alternative model to liberal democracy and none for sure agree with Daniel Bell’s latest claim that “Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy”.

The resolve of Xi’s action has thus translated into a perceived renewed capacity of the Chinese state to deliver on its promise of modernity, but Xi the “Born Red” leader is still pretty much a puzzle, despite his impeccable princeling credentials and being the most “advertised” Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong—several books of his selected works have already been published, including a “Study China” (xuexi zhongguo) smartphone App providing his complete writings, favorite poems and travel agenda, and “Xi Dada”, “Big Uncle Xi” as he was nicknamed by the state news agency, can be found on stickers, pins, as a statuette and even comics and animated cartoons. Many an observers have highlighted that this could amount to a revamped form of cult of the personality, and yet Xi Jinping is portrayed as being genuinely “accessible” to the people—in one of these cartoons, the presidential Chinese dream becomes the one of winning the World Cup! Despite the many references to the Maoist era and the heavy crackdown on civil society and any form of dissenting view—more so if it is suspected to be under a “Western influence”—most of the reforms in the economic and social realms appear to be guided by pragmatism. If the wish for a Chinese rejuvenation or renaissance, as argued by Willy Wo-Lap Lam in his Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping, is hard to refute and has been part of the political master narrative since the humiliation of the First Opium War, other ulterior motives are less ascertained.

In a somewhat traditional neo-authoritarianism perspective, the concentration of power in the hands of a single enlightened leader is made necessary to keep stirring the boat in the right direction, and clearly the cape to avoid at all cost is the one that has presided over the demise of the Soviet Communist Party, precisely because of a lack of confidence and resolution—obviously quite an obsessive thought. For Willy Lam, the excessive monopolization of power that forces even Premier Li Keqiang to play second fiddle, the ad hoc creation of leading groups and committees that somehow circumvent the collegial power of the Politburo Standing Committee, the lack of promotion of the so-called 7^th generation of leaders, together with the admiration that Mr Xi holds for Vladimir Putin and his 15 years of uninterrupted exercise of power in Russia are an indication that the design might go beyond the salvation of the CPC and suggest a wish for Mr Xi to stay in power at least up to 2027. For a liberal thinker like Wu Jiaxiang, this tight grip over power and the fending off of rival factions and vested interests within the party correspond to a consolidating stage that necessarily precedes further reforms. The puzzle remains though: depending on the tightness of the grip, one always risks choking off the potential for innovation and reform.

Olho mágico: Verdificação / Peephole: Greenisation

A 24 de Março, o Politburo do Partido Comunista da China (PCC) abraçou oficialmente, e pela primeira vez, o conceito de “verdificação” (绿色化). Com um empurrão decidido, e sem que nada o fizesse anunciar, os escalões mais elevados da estrutura orgânica do Partido, entronizaram a necessidade de adicionar uma “cultura de conservação” às “quatro novas modernizações” (a industrialização, a urbanização, a informatização e a modernização da agricultura), política que constituiu o alfa e omega do PCC tal como foi definido pelo 18º Congresso do Partido em 2012. A medida constitui uma decisão de monta, ainda que a ausência de pormenores mais pragmáticos e de políticas concretas tenham contribuído para que passasse quase despercebida. [...]

For the rest, see Ponto Final, April 15 2015 & Ponto Final, April 19 2015

My original text in English:

On March 24th, the Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) espoused the concept of “greenisation” (绿色化) for the first time ever. In a powerful push, at the highest echelon of Party politics, all of a sudden, the need to develop a “conservation culture” is being embedded in the “new four modernisations” (industrialisation, urbanisation, informatisation and modernisation of the agriculture), the alpha and omega of the CPC as defined by the 18th Party Congress of 2012. This is no small feat even though we are still short of pragmatic details and policy-making, and yet it has gone fairly unnoticed.
The very fact that greenisation appears to be meant to cut through the “new four modernisations” should have raised a few eyebrows.
First of all because these revamped magic four are a direct reference to Deng Xiaoping’s own “four modernisations” that launched the “opening up and reform” era back in November 1978. They are thus symbolically powerful and meaningful. For the present leadership, both the ambition and the imperative are of the same magnitude as it was at the end of the 1970s: the survival of China’s model depends on its ability to adapt and several indicators have already shown that the economic drivers of the past three reformist decades are dwindling, hence the need for a vast overhaul that will put both (shrinking) human resources and capital investment (with diminishing returns) to a better use.
Secondly, the crucial need to develop a “conservation culture” is supposed to infuse a new momentum to some of the priorities already defined and appears to be taking overall precedence: the greenisation of China is to be the one of its “production, economy and lifestyles” as a whole. “Green development” implies to go beyond the mere “promotion of sustainable development” as one of the eight tasks for the “deepening of economic reform” as defined by the Third Plenum of the Congress in November 2013. And “green development” is not only being embedded in the general program that ambitions to fix the engine of growth, stabilise the economy and better the quality of life of the citizens, but is also seen as being “part of national soft power and a new advantage in international competition”.
Finally, a decision made by the Politburo itself regarding a shift of that nature should not be downplayed, especially because Xi Jinping’s “strong leadership” style follows a pattern we could ourselves characterise as a shrivelled version of democratic centralism. Mr Xi’s interpretation of Lenin’s “freedom of discussion, unity of action” is quite restrictive and, as already noted by several perceptive observers of Chinese politics, in the two crucial areas of security and economic reforms the Politburo itself is dominated by two “super organs” created in late 2013 and both of them are chaired by President Xi himself: the Central National Security Commission and the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms.
The seriousness of China’s environmental upheavals is now widely acknowledged, both inside and outside of the country, and is proving to be quite challenging as well as extremely sensitive. The success of Chai Qing’s “Under the Dome” documentary at the time of the convening of the National People’s Congress is more than telling. This often very personal 103-minute video detailing the appalling air pollution problem faced by China produced by a renowned investigative journalist and financed out of her own purse had been seen 100 million times in just 48 hours before it was removed from the popular video-hosting website Youku. No doubt that this Ted-talk style report nourished by dreary statistics à la Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and jaw-dropping interviews with admittedly powerless local officials might have proved a (too) perfect enthusing illustration of Premier that Li Keqiang’s own characterisation of pollution as being “a blight on people's lives”.
A World Bank study indicates that the overall cost of China’s degraded environment corresponds to 9% of its Gross Domestic Product, and a recent Tsinghua University study concludes that tiny particulate pollutants were linked to 670,000 premature deaths from strokes, lung cancer, coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2012 alone! ! No wonder then that the reforming of the “ecological systems” in China appeared in the first sentence of the broad-sweeping economic reform plan of November 2013 issued during the Third Plenum! In one of the few studies that have looked precisely and comprehensively into the substance of all the reforms publicised by the new leadership, Daniel Rosen goes to great lengths in showing that indeed the authorities have been busy making these announcements a reality by setting in motion “populist campaigns against polluting facilities, energy and coal policy reforms, a revamped environmental protection law and [stepping-up] regulatory activism”. But, partly thanks to often self-imposed greater transparency in actual reporting, the fact remains that the situation has worsened, that extremely polluting coal remains king and environmental protection comes a distant second behind the constraints to deliver GDP growth and economic performance, especially at local level.
Since January 1st 2015, China is equipped with regulatory standards widely recognized as being both extremely progressive and stringent. And yet, watchful observers Bo Zhang and Cong Cao warn us in the journal Nature that the brand new Environmental Protection Law could easily be confronted by four kinds of adverse “gaps”: first, being outclassed by other pieces of specific legislation dealing with agriculture, forestry, grassland and water; second, being “hampered by the fragmented and overlapping structure of environmental governance”; third, being crippled by the lack of acknowledgment of “citizens’ basic right to an environment fit for life”; and fourth, because enforcement could easily be contravened “by a lack of capacity and by conflicts of interest”. In conclusion, they argue that this very promising law thus now “requires robust implementation mechanisms, accountability regimes and institutional arrangements”, and they concur with Alex Wang from the University of California (Los Angeles) that environmental protection needs to be raised to “a level of priority previously reserved only for the most important party-state mandates, such as economic growth, social stability, and the one-child policy.” Could the “greenisation” concept vouched by the Politburo be it?

Olho mágico: Ser um defensor da teoria do colapso / Peephole: Being a collapsist

Na véspera da reunião da Assembleia Popular Nacional, em Março, a publicação de um artigo de opinião por um dos mais reputados especialistas em China contemporânea dos Estados Unidos, que previa o desmoronamento do poder comunista, criou uma convulsão em muitos círculos de observadores da China. Estava em causa o ‘timing’, naturalmente, já que antecedeu a ocasião em que o regime exibe a sua determinação e força e o artigo criava assim uma espécie de quiasmo cognitivo, tal como o meio de difusão: o Wall Street Journal (WSJ) é um diário com autoridade e construiu uma reputação de excelência no que diz respeito aos assuntos da China, e não apenas no sector financeiro. [...]

For the rest, see Ponto Final, March 27 2015

My original text in English:
On the eve of the convening of the National People’s Congress in March, the publication of an op-ed penned by one of the United States’ most prominent specialists of contemporary China and predicting the crumbling of communist rule in the near future created quite a stir among the many circles of China watchers. Timing was of the essence, of course, as this was prior to an occasion for the regime to showcase its determination and prowess and the article was thus somehow creating a cognitive chasm, and so was the channel: The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is indeed an authoritative daily and has built a reputation of excellence when it comes to China matters, and not only in the financial sector.
Then the personality of the author added an extra layer of loudness in what was intended as an awakening call. David Shambaugh is a professor of political science at George Washington University, and benefits from a high degree of recognition both internationally and in China proper, and was even recently distinguished by a Chinese government think-tank as the second-most influential China expert in the United States. Moreover, Prof. Shambaugh is a regular invited guest to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Communist Party School in Beijing. One of his recent books, published in 2008, was indeed describing how the Party had taken “a number of ‘adaptive’ steps to legitimize, reinstitutionalize and save itself”, largely because of the lessons learnt from the demise of the Soviet Union and its neighboring lookalikes.
Indeed, Prof. Shambaugh does not belong to a well-established tradition of “collapsists” and he even warns in his WSJ’s essay that “predicting the demise of authoritarian regimes is a risky business.” Clearly, what he means by “risky” essentially involves the complete failure to observe and characterize an upcoming watershed—the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011—, to miss out on the obvious, even though he aptly recognizes that ever since “the regime’s near-death experience in Tiananmen Square in 1989, […] several seasoned Sinologists have risked their professional reputations by asserting that the collapse of CCP rule was inevitable.” The term “collapsist” is derived from the famous 2001 book by Gordon Chang, an American Lawyer, entitled The Coming Collapse of China, in which he argued that communist rule in China would disintegrate by 2011 because of state-sponsored economic inefficiencies and the incapacity of the regime to reform itself towards a more opened polity. Chang tried to convince his readership in 2011, at the occasion of a re-edition, that his prediction was wrong by only a year, but then he was again off the mark.
Prof. Shambaugh’s estimates are of course of a different nature and he purposely does not provide a precise time frame for what he calls “The Coming Chinese Crackup”. Yet, he delineates “five telling indications of the regime’s vulnerability and the party’s systemic weaknesses” that seem to have become ever more pressing since the rise to power of President Xi Jinping. First, there is the idea that the economic elites have lost confidence in the regime and “are ready to flee en masse if the system really begins to crumble.” Second, the government is believed to be insecure because of the multifaceted and severe crackdown that has affected civil society in its many guises — lawyers, journalists, scholars, bloggers, militants, etc. With confidence in oneself should comes tolerance of others. Third, the support of the regime is characterized as “simulated” or purely perfunctory, and thus slogans do not permeate the mind and heart of the cadres anymore. Fourth, the fight against corruption, even if Prof. Shambaugh’s fully acknowledges its unprecedented scope and depth, is a lost battle as it has to do with a systemic problem, and thus require the establishment of transparency mechanisms that suppose the institution of the rule of law. And finally fifth, the proposed economic reforms are failing to materialize to the full because their ambitious goals are challenging much too powerful and deeply entrenched interest groups.
In an interview given to the wonderful China matters blog of The New York Times, Sinosphere, Prof. Shambaugh further explains the motivations behind his article and somehow his disappointment at the reverse course observed after the fading away of Vice-president Zeng Qinghong in 2007. In fact, the stiffening of the regime does not date back to 2012, but rather to 2009, when what he calls the “Iron Quadrangle” — propaganda, internal security, the People’s Liberation Army and People’s Armed Police, state-owned enterprises — managed to convince President Hu Jintao that further crack down and control over society was a matter of survival for the Party.
There are of course limits — robust ones — to Prof. Shambaugh’s arguments. Geremie Barme, a great Australian observer of political culture in contemporary China, is absolutely right in remarking that “officials are always bored” and that “the leader’s works never sell” (I would add, willingly). He is equally right when he states “Xi's China is uglier, more repressive and narrow, yet it's more confident, more articulate and more focused than at any time since Mao Zedong.” Additionally, as remarked by an astute blogger well versed in Chinese politics, “the collapse of a political force does not necessarily mean the CCP’s collapse” and the Party is indeed “like an octopus with many arms, […] depending on its political objective at a given moment, it decides which arms must be tough and it keeps switching arms”. Yet, Prof. Shambaugh’s call resonate, and not because “the West” simply cannot see a political future beyond democracy, but rather because the systematic unforgiving repression of what is deemed “abnormal” or “dissenting” necessarily ends up as some form of new totalitarianism, and that, we know it collapses.

Olho mágico: O senhor Wong vai a Pequim / Peephole: Mr Wong goes to Beijing

O encontro anual em pleno daquilo a que nos referimos como as “duas reuniões” (兩會) é um momento importante da vida política da República Popular da China (RPC). Os media nacionais e regionais, incluindo também os nossos, de Macau, têm dedicado um número significativo de páginas a estes encontros. Tal não é apenas verdade para jornais como o Diário do Povo: a página de acesso da secção de notícias do Baidu, o motor de busca chinês dominante no qual acontecem quatro em cada cinco pesquisas feitas no Império do Meio, apresenta-se actualmente com um portal em vermelho vivo e clicável adornado de uma bandeira vermelha esvoaçante, nuvens brancas e a imagem evanescente da estrela vermelha em espiral que está no tecto interior do Grande Palácio do Povo. O título que se sobrepõe em dourado brilhante é simplesmente “Duas reuniões nacionais 2015” – não é algo que possamos imaginar o Google a fazer por ocasião das sessões do Congresso dos Estados Unidos.

O mais importante dos dois órgãos que tradicionalmente se reúnem em sessão plenária por menos de duas semanas na primeira metade de Março é a Assembleia Popular Nacional (APN). No papel – ou seja, na Constituição – a APN é o órgão mais elevado do poder do Estado. Pode rever a Constituição, aprovar e rever leis, ratificar e revogar tratados, aprovar o orçamento de Estado e planos para o desenvolvimento económico e social, eleger e afastar os principais dirigentes do Estado e do sector judiciário (incluindo o Presidente), e fiscalizar o trabalho do Conselho de Estado, da Presidência, da Comissão Militar Central, do Supremo Tribunal Popular e Suprema Procuradoria Popular. Porém, como nota Susan Lawrence, “a APN exerce muitos desses poderes apenas na forma”, e tal deve-se em primeiro lugar ao facto de competir à APN meramente dar aval a decisões já tomadas pelo Partido Comunista – daí o epíteto frequente de que é “uma assembleia-carimbo”. Além disso, o partido nomeia todos os candidatos à posição de delegado – há ainda assim sempre mais candidatos que assentos disponíveis – e mais de quatro quintos dos delegados são também dirigentes do Partido e do Estado.

Ainda que aqueles que detêm cargos no Estado, no sector judiciário e na Procuradoria estejam impedidos de estar no Comité Permanente da APN, o órgão de topo que efectivamente conduz os assuntos da APN e se reúne a cada dois meses, o presidente do Comité Permanente da APN – actualmente, Zhang Dejiang – é também membro do poderoso Comité Permanente do Partido, e o terceiro em hierarquia de um grupo de sete membros actuais, atrás do Presidente, Xi Jinping, e do primeiro-ministro, Li Keqiang. Xi foi “eleito” Presidente da República em Março de 2013, mas antes tinha já sido designado como Secretário-Geral do Partido, em Novembro de 2012, e uma vez que a China não valida o princípio de separação de poderes – a pedra angular dos sistemas políticos das regiões administrativas especiais de Macau e Hong Kong, apesar da preponderância do Executivo – Xi é também membro da APN, tal como o primeiro-ministro.

A Conferência Consultiva Política do Povo Chinês (CCPPC) é a outra instituição que actualmente se está a reunir em Pequim e a sua natureza é bastante diferente, tendo apenas uma “função consultiva”. Em conjunto com oito partidos políticos menores, a CCPPC e as suas versões locais são aquilo que permite aos líderes da RPC caracterizarem o seu sistema político como tendo por base “a cooperação multi-partidária e a consulta política dirigida pelo Partido Comunista Chinês” – uma ficção que tem sido mantida viva desde os primeiros dias da RPC. Mas não é pelo facto da CCPPC não ter poderes e a APN estar subjugada ao Partido que estas duas instituições não são “centros de poder” por direito próprio. Ao examinar – e, em última análise, aprovar – orçamentos, relatórios de agências governamentais, e nomeações, os delegados da APN têm a possibilidade de se absterem “marginalmente” e assim exibirem uma forma de “abordagem pluralista” quando decidem aprovar apenas por menos de 80 por cento o relatório do Supremo Tribunal Popular ou o orçamento do Ministério das Finanças. Além disso, não é de negligenciar o papel que os delegados têm na defesa de algumas questões de interesse, não sendo raro assistir a fortes posições a favor do desenvolvimento de reformas nos vários sectores, incluindo nos trabalhos específicos da APN. E, porque os membros da CCPPC vêm de diferentes sectores sociais e são sempre figuras destacadas dentro da comunidade, podem ser aventadas propostas inovadoras e progressistas com respeito a políticas públicas, ainda que, em última análise, o Partido não tenha qualquer obrigação de agir de acordo com as sugestões apresentadas.

Os 12 delegados da APN que representam Macau – de um total ligeiramente inferior a três mil – e os cerca de 40 membros de Macau na CCPPC (incluindo os que representam interesses nas áreas da economia, trabalho e segurança social) de um total um pouco superior a dois mil têm por conseguinte um papel importante no futuro da nossa região administrativa especial. Em linha com as “quatro expectativas” propaladas por Xi Jinping durante a sua visita em Dezembro último – governar de acordo com a lei, diversificar a economia para promover o desenvolvimento sustentável, construir fundações sólidas para a estabilidade e harmonia sociais, e fortalecer a educação dos jovens – várias das declarações e sugestões feitas pelos delegados de Macau têm alimentado de forma positiva uma visão para Macau, o que faz com que estas reuniões comecem a aparentar ser muito mais do que meras oportunidades convívio social –, e, segundo as “oito directivas”, os habituais banquetes ensopados em Maotai tiveram de passar a dimensões mais modestas. Porém, durante as reuniões plenárias e de grupos, as “três expectativas” de Zhang Dejiang, bem como a preocupação manifesta de Li Gang com o significado real das enormes manifestações de Maio último em Macau – tendo em mente o movimento Occupy Central de Hong Kong – servem para nos lembrar que os nossos delegados têm por missão cumprir a tarefa inequívoca de promover a integração de Macau na RPC – daí que o caminho de diversificação seja descrito nos termos da cooperação regional e haja o repetido instar do “fortalecimento do Estado”. Muitos dos delegados andam nisto há muitos anos e, lamentavelmente, parecem ter entendido a admoestação das autoridades centrais como a necessidade de um maior alinhamento com a linha do Partido. Mas deve a resposta ser meramente restritiva e defensiva, especialmente quando Pequim deseja que as regiões administrativas especiais se mantenham atraentes e inclusivas? Infelizmente, um número importante de personalidades que assumirão a responsabilidade de responder aos desafios próximos consiste nas mesmas pessoas que demonstraram bastante impermeabilidade ao ritmo rápido de mudanças que estão a moldar uma sociedade mais complexa.

Published in Ponto Final, March 10 2015

And the original in English:

The yearly convening in full attendance of what is referred to as the “two meetings” (兩會) is an important moment in the political life of the People’ Republic of China (PRC). National and regional media, including our own in Macao, are devoting a significant number of pages to the gatherings. And this is not only true for the like of the People’s Daily: the entry page of the news section of Baidu, the dominant Chinese search engine that tackles 4 searches out of 5 in the Middle Kingdom, is presently enclosed with a clickable bright red doorframe portal adorned on top by a floating red flag, white clouds and a fading image of the red star converging swirl-like ceiling of the Great Hall of the People, the overlapping title in bright gold being simply “2015 Two national meetings” — not something you can easily imagine Google doing when the American Congress is in session.
The most important of the two bodies traditionally gathering in plenary session for less than two weeks during the first part of March, is the National People’s Congress (NPC). On paper — meaning the Constitution — the NPC is the highest organ of state power. It can amend the constitution, enact and amend laws, ratify and abrogate treaties, approve the state budget and plans for national economic and social development, elect and impeach top officials (including the President) of the state and judiciary, and supervise the work of the State Council, the Presidency, the State Central Military Commission, the Supreme People’s Court, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. However, as pointed out by Susan Lawrence, “the NPC exercises many of those powers in name only”, and the main reason is to be found in the very fact that the NPC merely has to give the nod to decisions already taken by the Communist Party, hence the sticking characterization of a “rubber-stamp assembly”. Additionally, the Party nominates all candidates for positions as deputies — there are nevertheless always more candidates than seats available — and more than four fifths of the deputies are also Party or state officials.

Even though people who hold state, judicial, and procuratorial positions are barred from serving on the NPC Standing Committee, the top body that actually conducts the affairs of the NPC and convenes every two months, the chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC — presently Zhang Dejiang — is also a member of the powerful Standing Committee of the Party, and third in rank out of only seven members today after the President, Xi Jinping, and the Premier, Li Keqiang. Mr Xi was “elected” President of the Republic back in March 2013, but he had been previously designated as the General Secretary of the Party in November 2012, and because China does not validate the principle of the separations of power — the cornerstone of both the Macao SAR and the Hong Kong SAR political systems, despite being Executive-led — Mr Xi is also a member of the NPC, and so is the Premier.

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is the other institution currently congregating in Beijing and is quite different in nature, having only a “consultative role”. Together with the eight minor political parties, the CPPCC and its local versions are what allow the PRC’s leaders to characterize their own political system as being based on “multi-party cooperation and political consultation led by the Communist Party of China” — a fiction kept alive since the very first days of the PRC. But it is not because the CPPCC is toothless and the NPC subdued by the Party that these two institutions are not “centers of power” in their own right. While examining — and ultimately approving — budgets, agency reports, and personnel appointments, NPC deputies have the possibility to “marginally” abstained and thus display a form of “plural approach” when they decide to only support by less than 80% the Supreme People’s Court’s report or the Ministry of Finance’s budget report. Additionally, the “advocacy” aspect of the deputies’ role is not to be neglected, and it is not rare to see strong stands being taken in favor of further developments of reform in all sectors, including the specific workings of the NPC. And because CPPCC members come from all-walk of life and are always prominent figures of the community, innovative and forward thinking proposals pertaining to public policies can be aired, even though ultimately the Communist Party has absolutely no obligation to act upon those suggestions.

The 12 NPC deputies representing Macao — out of a bit less than 3,000 in total — and the close to 40 CPPCC members from Macao (including the ones representing economic, labor and social welfare interests) out of a bit more than 2,000 thus have an important role for the future of our SAR. In line with the “four hopes” aired by Xi Jinping during his visit in December — grounding governance in the law, diversifying the economy in order to promote sustainable development, building strong foundations for social harmony and stability, and strengthening the education of the youth — several of the reports and suggestions made by the Macao delegates have nourished very positively a vision for Macao, thus starting to make these gatherings to look much more than mere social networking occasions — and under the “eight directives”, the usual Maotai-spilled lavish feasts had to be scaled down. Yet, during plenary and small group meetings, Mr Zhang Dejiang’s own “three hopes” as well as Mr Li Gang’s openly expressed worry about the actual significance of last May’s huge demonstrations in Macao — with now Hong Kong’s Occupy Central movement in mind — are reminders that our delegates are entrusted with a unequivocal duty in carrying out further the integration of Macao into the PRC — hence the diversification path described in terms of regional cooperation and the oft repeated urge to “strengthen patriotic education”. Many of the delegates have been around for many years and seem to have regrettably understood the admonition made by the central authorities as further towing the Party line. But can the answer be only restrictive and defensive, especially if Beijing wants the SARs to remain both attractive and inclusive? Unfortunately, quite a number of personalities who will take the responsibility of harnessing coming challenges are also the ones who have proven themselves to be quite impervious to the fast pace of change shaping up a more complex society.