My copy of this book is about as dog-eared as this one

This week’s entry is going to be fairly light, as it’s late at night and the ‘works of substance’ that I’ve finished in the last few days (India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha and To Change China by Jonathan Spence) aren’t ones that I really want to tackle at the moment.   Instead, I’ve chosen to take a look at a book that I picked up about a year ago at a used bookstore in Little Italy for a couple bucks: The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block.   It’s a fun and forgettable book, and one that can be easily read in about an hour and a half.   Or at least that’s how long it took me to re-read it while sitting in my easy chair and drinking bad, home-made Vietnamese coffee while half-watching a Jackie Chan movie on my TV.   (Maybe these are things better left unsaid…)

Bruce Lee was a childhood hero of mine, as he has been (and continues to be) for millions around the world.   When I was in the third grade, I took part in my school’s annual public speaking contest by presenting a speech that I had written about the Little Dragon in front of the whole school, a feat for which I was rewarded with the prestigious title of ‘honourable mention’.   However, I was especially proud because I had convinced myself that Bruce Lee’s spirit was present in that room as I delivered my speech.   Why Bruce Lee should have taken a respite from the constant feasting and boozing on Mount Penglai to listen to the basic details of his life being recounted with torturous exactitude by a scrawny 8-year-old Canadian boy was a question I chose not to consider.

All this is to say that I loved Bruce Lee, his movies, and the mythology that had been created around him.   To me, he was like some wicked angel, both frightening and reassuring, a model of classical heroism to emulate.   Frankly, I don’t know what confused impulse clouded my dad’s judgement and compelled him to let me watch Fists of Fury when I was eight (what with its awesome violence and, at the time, disturbing displays of female chests), but it certainly was a watershed moment in my life.   I soon rented his other films from the library and watched them in quick succession (including the embarrassingly unfinished Game of Death), and in the process reconfirmed my nascent interest in China.   It’s been sixteen years since first watching Fists of Fury and I’ve been imitating those stances and that famous feline shriek ever since.   I think later on in my childhood I came to enjoy Jackie Chan’s films more.   But I never lost my admiration for Bruce Lee, that half stoic, half feral power-house of a man.

As for Block’s book: as a cursory look at Bruce’s life and the larger culture of martial arts that surrounded it, it’s not much to write about.   I mean ‘cursory’ here in the strongest possible sense.   This is a very thin book and I imagine there have been far better biographies on Bruce released since it was published.   Block’s book is certainly a product of its time – specifically, the period immediately following Bruce Lee’s untimely death when unscrupulous movie producers billed mediocre talents (like Dragon Lee and Bruce Li) as the successors to the Little Dragon.   This isn’t to impugn Blocks book.   He certainly has an earnest interest in the man and his legacy.   But the book was obviously hastily put together to capitalize on Lee’s death in 1973 (the book came out the following year) and reads more as a loosely-assembled collection of above-average gossip columns than a cohesive look at its subject.

It’s amusing to read Block’s floundering attempts, sometimes successful, more often not, to make sense of the world of ‘Oriental’ martial arts and the genre of films they produced.   For every insightful passage on Bruce Lee’s personal philosophy concerning martial arts, of for every interview the author conducted with Run Run Shaw or Angela Mao, there are a few pages detailing the shadowy secrets of the Malaysian ‘delayed-death-strike’ and Chinese herb poisons ‘Western doctors have never seen’.   (You can almost hear Block’s hushed tone as he recounts these apocryphal tales of ‘Eastern black magic’.)   There’s an air of exoticism and mystery that Block brings to Bruce’s life that is unnecessary and quite at odds with the more human details of Bruce’s life and work (which are fascinating in their own right and in no need of any embellishment).

But, really, I didn’t expect much more from this book, which looks (and often reads) more like a pulp novel than a biography.   (Come to think of it, I might have picked The Legend of Bruce Lee up along with a hard boiled detective novel by Mickey Spillane.)   And frankly, if you approach it as would a wide-eyed ten year old in search of any and all information related to Bruce Lee, from the salacious to the mundane, it’s actually quite a fun read.   Block was obviously in much the same mindset when he wrote his book.   I can just picture Block heading down to his local library and picking up 1001 Chinese Sayings and The Wisdom of Buddhism (both of which he sites in the bibliography) and quickly scanning them for appropriately wise and/or sardonic quotes to act as epigrams at the beginning of each chapter, much as an overly ambitious and precocious fourth-grade student might do when composing a short essay for class.

This may all sound very flippant.   But there is a place in the world for disposable literature.   It’s necessary, now and then, to allow yourself to be distracted by a gossipy pulp biography.   This is the kind of book that fits comfortably in ones back pocket and can be pulled out on the subway, in a waiting room, or over lunch to provide some modicum of lively distraction from the thoughtless routine of city life.

I know that it’s not much of a ringing endorsement to praise a book as an effective time killer – that’s certainly not the kind of purpose to which most books should be put.    But there’s room enough for all sorts of books in the world, some of which best serve to deliver us, if only temporarily, from boredom.    This is one of them.

As for Bruce Lee: he deserves better than this.   Bruce Lee was, above all else, a beautiful poet of the body.   Like Gene Kelly or Charlie Chaplin, Bruce Lee made magic out of physical articulation.   Every gesture appeared thoughtless, and yet every gesture was deliberate.   His grace, speed, and force of movement appeared to burst sponateously from his slight frame – and yet such movements, like those of a dancer, disguised years of disciplined training.   One can’t help but feel infantile when observing the films of a man who had such total command over his body as Bruce Lee did.

In a way, Block’s naive enthusiasm for his subject is where we all began when we were first introduced to the Little Dragon.   Some of us have moved beyond our earlier childish fascination for the man and his movies; others, like me, continue to hold dear to that fascination and allow that insouciance to inform our otherwise dull, adult lives.

And, by the way, it’s my wish to one day look as good in a suit as Bruce Lee did.

I think we should view this report put out by the Department of Homeland Security concerning the potential for right-wing extremism with a healthy degree of scepticism.   Not so much because the concerns raised by the report are unfounded  (as many conservative commentators in the US alleged), but because of what these concerns may seek to justify or disguise.

It is easy to whip up fear over the potential for political extremism of any stripe in the United States, precisely because such extremism is seen (correctly) as a challenge and a threat to the democratic ideals of American society.   That being said, we should not allow this report to distract us from the issues which are at the root of political extremism in the United States.   Other than the obvious and deeply objectionable racist and/or nativist claims made by many of these extremist groups, there are legitimate concerns raised by those on the fringe of American political life concerning the extent of federal power and the seemingly marginal influence citizens have on their government.   These concerns can be debated, but they cannot so easily be dismissed.   And I think it would be a mistake to dismiss these concerns simply because they are shared by many whose political views are labelled, justifiably, as extremist.

In short, I think we should all be sceptical of anything that seeks to justify an increase in the coercive powers or an expansion in the surveillance powers of the state – which this report would seem to do.   I understand the necessity of monitoring potentially violent extremist groups within the US.   And I understand that, in all likelihood, a certain amount of extremist sentiment will always be in evidence in the US.   But I would argue that the only permanent solution to the problem of violent political extremism – and the only one that does not come at the expense of political liberties and the culture of democracy – is an expansion of democratic institutions and the further introduction of consultative mechanisms that would allow for greater participation of citizens in government.   Extremism arises from a sense of powerlessness and marginalization.   Ensuring that such sentiments do not arise in the first place by giving people greater control over the lives of their communities (and by preventing economic, social, and political power from being monopolized by minority interests) is, I think, the best solution to political extremism in the United States – and the best solution to political extremism in all countries around the world.

Watching the footage coming out of Iran these days, I am struck by the overall youthfulness of those marching through the streets of Tehran.   Not surprising, perhaps – protests around the world are usually youthful affairs.   But this led me to wonder whether demographics might play a larger role in the current troubles in Iran than in comparable protests elsewhere.   Could demographics, along with more obvious and potent political factors, be at the root of these protests?

Anyone who has read Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner will find this sort of speculation to be quite familiar.   Remember, it was in Freakonomics that Levit/Dubner proposed a connection between the collapse of the Cheausescu regime in Romania and the demographic shift (produced, in part, because of a national ban on abortions) towards a larger, younger population whose poor employment and social prospects left them more willing to agitate against dictatorship.

I think something similar may be at work in Iran as well.   According to a 2008 study by the RAND Corportation, Iran enjoyed a surge in its fertility rate following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, due largely to official policies discouraging the use of contraception and government rationing of food and consumer items which by design favoured large families.   The population of Iran grew at rates of up to 4% during this period.   Yet by the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1989, the Iranian government “reversed course” and encouraged women to both space out their pregnancies and use contraception.   Iran’s current fertility rate is now one of the lowest in the region.

Given that the demographic explosion occurred in the 1980s, it’s progeny would now be in their early-to-late 20s – the very group which appears to comprise the majority of those currently out in the streets of Tehran.   It is this group which is entering a job market marked by 25% inflation and, according to the IMF World Economic Outlook for 2009, declining rates of real GDP growth.   Add to this official estimates that put unemployment at 13% (with unofficial rates going much higher) and one is left with the feeling that there are simply too many young Iranians for the meagre number of jobs available in a shrinking economy.   In short: Not good for the youth of Iran, and certainly not the sort of situation conducive to stable electoral politics.   Vote-rigging and a system designed to guarantee clerical interference in the government don’t help, either.

I imagine another factor underlying the recent protests is the rapid rate of urbanization experienced by Iran over the last two decades.   As the RAND report suggests, rapid urbanization, encouraged by investment and internal migration from rural areas to the cities, has placed greater strains on public infrastructures and led the government to attempt to retard further growth by limiting housing permits.   Informal housing is growing as a result, and I would imagine has exacerbated the social/economic tensions between lower-income and middle-income citizens which have been produced, in part, by a highly competitive job market.

I should add that the demographic, economic, and social pressures indicated above does not necessarily translate into support for the challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi.   From what I can gather, President (?) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s support lies among the rural and urban poor who have borne the brunt of the social pressures produced by such a large demographic shift.   That being said, there seems to be a special kind of anger that college-educated youths (like those out in support of Mousavi) feel when facing a grim economic future that threatens to upset their hopes of upward social mobility (remember Tiananmen, 1989).

Again, though, corrupt political institutions don’t help.

- Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera English

American terrorist

So I just finished reading The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1977 by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab.   I’d been meaning to read something of Lipset’s for a while and, given the Department of Homeland Security’s recent declassifying of a document warning of the potential growth in right-wing extremism in the United States, as well as the recent murders of an abortion doctor in Kansas and a security guard at the Washington D.C. Holocaust museum, this seemed like a pretty good start.

I thought I’d look at the Department of Homeland Security’s report in light of my recent readings and see if there is anything that Lipset/Raab might be able to tell us about these groups.    First, let’s look at the connection between (illegal) immigration to the United States and the growth of right-wing extremism in the same.

The DHS report contends that, as in the mid-1990s, potential right-wing extremism may arise out due to “frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration”.   This is certainly in keeping with Lipset/Raab’s analysis, which finds right-wing movements in America as historically characterized by a nativist aspect which seeks to sustain or restore a sense of social privilege which appears threatened by newly arrived immigrant communities.   This nativist sentiment usually grows in step with increased friction between native-born American communities and newly arrived immigrant groups, both of which are usually at the lower end of the economic spectrum and often compete over the same low-paying jobs.   Lipset/Raab analysis specifically focuses on the anti-Catholic activities of the Know-Nothing Party, the American Protective Association, and the Ku Klux Klan, all of which at various times blamed Catholic immigrant communities for driving wages down, growing crime rates, and shifting political and economic power from rural Protestant communities to urban Catholic ones – charges which (save for the last one) have been levelled at today’s population of primarily Hispanic illegal immigrants living in the United States.

In recent months, the issue of illegal immigration has largely fallen off the media’s radar as attention is focused instead on the economy, North Korea, and Iran.   Yet the ire expressed by many on the right about Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the supreme court certainly reminds us of a strong nativist streak among many in the far right, which balks at anything that appears to chip away at white male privilege.   While the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has declined in the last three years, I imagine that this will have little impact on the prejudice against illegal immigrants which the DHS cites (given that such prejudice has more to do with popular perceptions rather than careful analysis).

However, it is important to remember that while negative perceptions of illegal immigrants among a more right-leaning segment of the American public are unfortunate, they are not merely the product of uninformed and unthinking bigotry.   For while the belief that illegal immigrants ‘steal’ American jobs or drive down wages is inaccurate, it does reflect widely shared frustration among America’s low and lower-middle classes concerning the fact that wages in real dollars have stagnated or even declined over the past two decades.

The linkage between declining economic fortunes and right-wing radicalization is not surprising.   As Lipset/Raab demonstrate, it is historically the low and lower-middle class, who have often lacked the capital, skills, or education needed to effect upward social mobility, that have been most open to the lure of extreme nativist rhetoric.   New immigrant groups – legal or otherwise – simply (and unfortuntely) form a corporeal target upon which right-wing anger might direct itself.   If more effort is not made to bring the salaries of low-paid Americans in line with real prices and inflation, nativist anti-immigrant sentiment and the potential for radicalization among America’s labouring poor will likely remain unchecked.

This brings us to another prediction made in the DHS report concerning the potential for economic hardship to encourage right-wing extremism.   Again, having read Lipset/Raab, this is not surprising – and I would imagine not surprising for most of us who remember high school history lessons about the Great Depression and the rise of European fascism.   It was during the depression of 1893 that the American Protective Association grew to its greatest level of nearly 2.5 million members and inspired mass panic in communities across the US when it released what it claimed was a secret papal document instructing American Catholics to exterminate heretics.   Gun sales soared as Americans prepared for what many believed to be an imminent insurgency of Catholic assassins – only to discover later that the document had been a forgery.

The connection between economic hardship on the one hand and right-wing demagoguery and conspiratorial fear mongering is further evidenced by Lipset/Raab’s analysis of Father Charles E. Coughlin and his National Union for Social Justice.   This Canadian-born Catholic priest’s radio program became a ‘beacon’ of  populist rhetoric, anti-Semitism, and fascist ideology during the Great Depression – and won him nearly 9 million regular listeners.   Railing against the communist subversives and ‘Jewish bankers’ who he claimed were behind Roosevelt’s New Deal, Coughlin called for the dismantlement of America’s democratic system and the creation of a corporatist state along the lines of Mussolini’s Italy.

This kind of hysteria is certainly familiar in today’s current economic climate.  FOX News pundits have made much noise about the rise of a socialist dictatorship under Obama, while the rumour that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has created concentration camps across the US to detain millions of US citizens in the event of a collapse of law and order continues to spread through the Internet.   Such ideas would be risible were they not coming at a time when gun sales in the US have nearly doubled (a frightening indicator of general unease among the American public and one specifically cited in the DHS report).

The labelling of Obama as a proto-dictator by his critics on the far right is a sharp reminder of the continued currency of conspiratorial views among many on the edges of American political life.   It would be foolish to dismiss such views as that of a lunatic fringe, though, given that such views about the pervasive influence of a malevolent elite in the American government have been a marker of political discourse in America since the emergence of anti-Illuminati/anti-Masonic instigators in the late 18th century.   While the DHS report is correct in pointing out that a troubled economic climate and the election of the first African-American president have increased the potential for right-wing extremism, it is important to remember that such extremism – and the conspiratorial anti-elitism it espouses – is, unfortunately, as much a historical feature of American society as the continued development of a more inclusive political culture.

That being said, Lipset/Raab’s analysis does provide a modicum of hope for those of us disturbed by the DHS report.   First, the appeal of extreme right-wing groups throughout American history, though substantial, has never led to electoral success at the polls.   Third party alternatives created by these groups have fared poorly in American elections (as, unfortunately, have all third party alternatives, regardless of political stripe) and the personal appeal of men such as Father Coughlin does not translate into support for the political candidates such men endorse.   While these groups often do manage to influence policies within either the Republican or Democratic parties, they do so at the expense of their more extreme views, which they must partially moderate in order to work within either party, and at the risk of being abandoned out of political expediency by their Republican or Democratic backers (such was the case with the APA, the Ku Klux Klan, and Joseph McCarthy) when their politically toxic views become an electoral liability.   So despite the continued popularity of men like Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh, it is doubtful how much direct influence they command over their sizable combined audience.

I will end this by noting that the DHS report, in paralleling today’s ‘fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists’ and the growth of right-wing extremist activities during the early years of the Clinton presidency, cites those factors that led to the decline in right-wing activities as,

“increased government scrutiny as a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and disrupted plots, improvements in the economy, and the continued U.S. standing as the preeminent world power.”

While improvements in US (and global) economic fortunes are certainly to be hoped for, I am slightly disturbed that the diminution of extremist strength was seen as conditional upon the growth of a security industry and the predominance of American global hegemony.   Neither ‘solution’ is particularly palatable in its own right, and I doubt whether either of them are feasible solutions to the problem of extremist activity in the long term.   In fact, it was the brutal exercise of force by the American government in Waco, Texas that inspired Timothy McVeigh to plan and execute his savage, criminal bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.   (Disturbingly, the DHS report cites the potential for returning US servicemen to become, like McVeigh, involved in violent extremist activities – something suggested as much by a January 2008 article in the New York Times.)   And if right-wing extremism is as much a fixture of American political life as Lipset/Raab’s work would seem to suggest, perhaps the most we can hope for is an amelioration of the violent excesses of these groups, rather than the disappearance of them from the national scene.

- Photo courtesy of TheSmokingGun.com

A prefiguration of a meeting to come?

I was listening to News Hour with Jim Leher recently, a podcast that I’ve only recently added to the increasingly bloated list of newscasts that I have convinced myself I need to listen to on a regular basis.   Zbigniew Brzezinski and Philip Zelikow were on to discuss the politics of nuclear development in Iran and North Korea.   It was an interesting, though unremarkable, fifteen or so minutes of speculation on what America should do in light of North Korea’s provocative nuclear and missile tests.   However, I was struck by this comment that Zelikow made about five minutes into the segment:

‘It’s really hard to question that the United States has gone the extra mile on diplomacy with North Korea – some might argue too far.   But the United States has given that a good faith try and most importantly our allies in the region all agree we gave this a good faith try.   Well, diplomacy is not working.   Now it’s time to concentrate on how to defend ourselves.’

Now, I think we can dispute Zelikow’s claim that diplomacy has failed on the grounds that Zelikow has conflated the failure of ‘diplomacy’ in general with the failure of the Six Party Talks in particular.   What Zelikow is forgetting (or, if you want to be less charitable, choosing to ignore) is that, for the North Koreans, diplomacy has not meant the multilateral talks with regional powers but bilateral talks with the United States.    North Korea has consistently demanded direct state-to-state talks with the United States and has (with the exception of a visit by Clinton’s secretary of state Madelaine Albright in 2000) been continually rebuffed by Washington.

To be honest, I have never understood the US government’s intransigence on this issue.   Like US relations with Iran and Cuba, nothing seems to have been gained by refusing direct talks with the North Korean government, while much has been lost in the realm of international credibility and regional influence.   If the leadership of the other four powers in the six party talks have been able to hold direct talks with the North Korean government at various times over the last decade, I can’t for the life of me understand what the US government feels it has to lose (other than some nebulous sense of credibility in the eyes of its domestic critics) by talking, face-to-face, with Kim Jong-il.

That being said, the idea of direct talks with the North Korean government is something that has at least been entertained recently by both Bush Jr. and Obama.   During the last years of the Bush administration, the US government stated that it would consider opening bilateral talks with the North Korean government if Pyongyang made progress in it’s international obligation to denuclearize.   And during the recent presidential campaign, Obama hinted that he would be willing to open up direct dialogues between the United States and many of it’s international ‘foes’, including North Korea.

So is it conceivable that Obama might be able to perform the sort of diplomatic coup with North Korea that Nixon did with the Chinese back in 1972?   One hopes so.   Certainly much of the fear that these tests have engendered in the region, and here in North America, is due to our collective ignorance of what, exactly, is going on inside North Korea – a state of ignorance that is encouraged by our refusal to deal directly with Pyongyang.

This is not to say that direct diplomatic relations with North Korea would definitively solve the animosity underlying US-North Korea relations, or make the operation and intentions of the North Korean government transparent to outside observers.   Even South Korean sources, which are more reliable in their analysis of North Korea than the talking-heads that pop up on news programs in the United States,can only make educated speculations on what is going on in North Korea, despite a recent history of direct cross-border relations and a common language, culture and history.

But I do think that, given the disinterest the North Koreans have recently shown in the multilateral Six Party talks, there is little to be lost in engaging them in the manner that they have always wanted – directly, state-to-state, as equal parties.   If nothing else, direct and sustained diplomatic relations between the two countries might help to introduce an element of predictability to the actions of the North Korean state – and to the actions of the United States.   For let us not forget how furious the North Korean government has been when South Korea and the US surprised them by engaging in war games which the North (correctly, I think) saw as a demonstration of military might aimed directly at them.   Or how mad North Korea is over South Korea’s surprise decision to join the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a move which North Korea sees (again, I believe correctly) as aimed squarely at them.

Look at US-China relations today.   Certainly there remains an element of suspicion underlying relations between the two states, especially in the military matters.   But such suspicion is far more preferable to the fear that characterized relations between the two states before 1972, a mutual fear born out of ignorance of each others intentions and capabilities.   Look at where we are with North Korea today.   At the moment, all we have to go when examining their recent actions are the reports of North Korea watchers who see the recent nuclear tests and missile launches as part of an effort by Kim Jong-il to secure the military’s support for the future succession his son Kim Jong-un (apparently a big fan of booze and Jean Claude Van Damme) as supreme leader of the North Korean state.   But maybe the recent sentencing of two American journalists to twelve years of hard labour in a North Korean prison will force the US government’s hand and compel them to negotiate directly with the North Korean government for their release.

Could detente between the two states come from the unfortunate detention of Laura Ling and Euna Lee?   I, for one, hope so.

A tired solution from an exhausted government

Well, so far this blog has tended heavily toward Asia-related topics.   I suppose it’s inevitable, given my own personal and academic interest in the region.   That being said, I feel like I should make an effort to touch on topics beyond the Asia-Pacific region.   However, not this time…

This came out back in April but I thought I’d offer my own two-cents.   This program exemplifies just how short-sighted the Japanese government can be.   Even following Japan’s decision to begin fingerprinting immigrants back in 2007, I still find this surprising.  

My Spidey-senses tell me that paying these people to head back to South America is not going to seriously alleviate the problem of unemployment or underemployment in Japan.   Immigrants in Japan make up just 1.2% of Japan’s population (according to the Statistics Bureau of the Mininstry of Internal Affairs and Communication), of which barely 1% are of working age.   I’m not sure how many have so far accepted the Japanese governments offer of a cash payment in return for their departure, but even if it was half of all working age immigrants, and all those who left were either unemployed or gave up their jobs to a Japanese national, we are still only talking about a drop in the unemployment rate of .5%, or from close to 5% to close to 4.5%.   These numbers are negligible and, in any case, do not support what looks to many outside of Japan as an nonviable solution to Japan’s economic woes, but one that conveniently rids the nation of a few of its ‘less desirable’ elements.   Truly pathetic stuff, this.

With Japan’s fertility rate close to 1.2 births per woman (far below the 2.1 births per woman needed in most industrialized countries to simply replace the existing population), Japan currently faces a rapidly aging population that is threatening to over-burden the already taxed pension system and turn Japan into an East Asian-version of a Florida retirement community.   As Japan’s population continues to age, I suspect Japan will have to begin to overcome its xenophobia and rely on a steady supply of low-paid (and over-worked) nurses and live-in caregivers from the Philippines and the rest of the developing world.

But a more likely prospect is that the Japanese will increasingly bank on some sort of technological silver bullet to solve the problem of an aging population.   The silver bullet in question: robots.   I’m not even kidding.   Watch this and tell me that you aren’t just a little bit tempted to purchase stock in the company that will certainly be mass producing Mamoru in the future.   The market for such products can only grow as Japan’s population continues to decline.

This week I finally got around to reading Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy, published in 1970 and written by Peter Van Ness.    To be honest, other than feeling compelled to read this book because it had been sitting on my bookshelf for much of the last few years, there was not much motivating me to devote a few days to this particular work.   It’s not a terribly useful book if one approaches it as a comprehensive look at the interests that drove China’s foreign policy in the 1960s.   Even as an examination of China’s relations with the so-called ‘Third World’ during the Mao years, it is a book of quite limited focus.    Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy is not much more than an examination of public declaration of support made by the Chinese state in the press for foreign revolutionary or national liberation movements during the rule of Mao Zedong, specifically those in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.    Furthermore, only such declarations of support made in the year 1965 are examined, though the first part of the book does do a good job of sketching the broad outlines of Maoist approaches to China’s role as a global communist power vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.   

I won’t go into great detail about the book other than to say that it does make a generally compelling argument that Chinese foreign policy was, even in the Mao years, dictated more by the interests of the Chinese state than by the demands of the state’s radical communist ideology.   China was, to put it briefly, more interested in fostering friendly relations with other states and only issued public statements of support for foreign revolutionary organizations after the states against which these organizations fought rebuffed Chinese diplomatic overtures.   In short, China was behaving like most nation states.   

However, this book does afford me the opportunity to discuss a topic that is more relevant to the China of today.   Putting aside the examination of China’s support for revolutionary movements during the mid-’60s, there are two observations Van Ness makes towards the end of the book that can be applied when looking at China’s current economic interests in the African continent, a topic that has been in the news recently and is of much more interest to me.   First, China is a nation state and will, at the end of the day, act according to it’s own specific interests when conducting it’s foreign relations.   And second, China (again, like any other state) will assist foreign nations only insofar as such assistance serves their particular (foreign policy) interests.

So let’s turn now to China’s current economic relations with Africa and examine each of Van Ness’ observations in turn, starting with the second one.   Unlike the 1960s, when China issued declarations of support to revolutionary groups in the Congo and Angola, China’s interests in Africa are primarily, though not exclusively, economic.   Africa presents China with both a source of raw materials to feed China’s energy and manufacturing sectors, and as a potential source for capital investment abroad.   Between 2000 and 2006, China’s trade with Africa rose form $11 billion to $56 billion, with the number of Chinese firms operating in Africa doubling to 2 000 over the last two years.   Much of this trade is comprised of Chinese purchases of African raw materials, particularly petroleum.   China currently purchases more than 60% of Sudan’s oil exports, while Angola supplies China with half of all of China’s African oil imports.   Aside from oil, China is purchasing copper and cobalt from Congo and Zambia, platinum and chrome from Zimbabwe, and timber from a range of African states.   And while investment into Africa accounts for only 4% of China’s total global FDI, the rate of growth is quite astounding, with Chinese FDI growing from $100 million in 1999 to $1.25 billion in 2006.   According to the Guardian, the year 2007 saw $4.5 billion of investment by China made into African infrastructure development.

China’s growing presence in Africa is not without it’s critics.   While many African leaders have hailed China’s model of state-directed (but not market disregarding) economic growth as an alternative to Anglo-American neo-liberalism, there are well-founded fears that China’s growing economic investment in Africa is retarding the growth of regional light-manufacturers and the development of a skilled work force, buttressing corrupt or autocratic governments, and giving China considerable (and undue) political leverage over African states (as indicated by the recent decision of the South African government to bar the Dalai Lama from attending a conference of Nobel laureates in the country).   The first of these charges appears well substantiated.   Despite demands from the African Union that the majority of raw materials be processed on African soil before export, China is primarily importing unrefined raw materials from Africa, and exporting cheap consumer items which are able to successfully undercut local manufacturers, running many out of business.   China’s insistence on using Chinese labour on large scale infrastructure programs has drawn criticism, both because skilled workers are locally available and because Chinese labourers are often brought over illegally by Chinese firms to work at wages less than those paid to local African workers.

The charge of buttressing corrupt or autocratic governments is even more serious.    Looking at many of China’s major trading partners in Africa – Sudan, Zimbabwe, Angola – and one sees a culture of pervasive corruption.   While China is not at fault for having caused such systemic corruption, it certainly can be faulted for encouraging it through high value investment and trade deals with the corrupt regimes of these countries, knowing full well that some of this money will go to lining the pockets of government officials abd businessmen.   China itself is no stranger to corruption.   Reading over the Transparency International Bribe Payers Index 2008, I was not surprised to find China once again near the bottom of the twenty-two country list (along with Russia, India, and Mexico).

I found it interesting, however, that the same report notes that Chinese companies were less likely to engage in bribery in Africa and the Middle East (where China’s Bribe Payers Index, or BPI, rating is 7.8, with 0 representing bribes always being paid and 10 representing bribes never being paid) than in Latin America (BPI 7.3), Asia Pacific (BPI 6.0), and Europe and the United States (BPI 5.6).   This data can be interpreted in any number of ways.   However, I am inclined to see it as substantiating (if only slightly) anecdotal reports that suggest that the Chinese government is warning both state and private firms to be more sensitive to local African concerns about corruption.   It is not in China’s national interests to appear to be supporting crony capitalism in the region, even if in effect it is.   Reducing direct Chinese contributions to a culture of corruption on the continent is, I would imagine, one way China is attempting to manage it’s image in Africa. 

Let me be clear.   I am not attempting to white-wash Chinese business practices at home or abroad.   As a BPI rating of 7.8 indicates, Chinese firms are hardly clean when it comes to their dealings in Africa.   That being said, I think it is unhelpful to think of the Chinese government as deliberately encouraging government corruption in Africa, given how sensitive the Chinese government is to corruption in it’s own ranks at home.   China is aware of the high price, both in economic performance and social stability, that is to be paid for tolerating a culture of corruption and I would argue that it is no more in China’s long-term interests to support corruption among their African trading partners than it would be to for China to support government corruption at home.

However, China can – and must – be faulted for deliberately propping up autocratic, murderous regimes on the African continent.   While China cannot compete with the United States, Western Europe, Israel, or Russia as a global supplier of high tech weaponry, China has become a favoured supplied of small arms for many African despots, specifically Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.   Between 2003 and 2006, Chinese arms transfers to the developing world accounted for $4.5 billion, $900 million of which was directed towards Africa.   These arms tranfers, and the degree of political control they permit these despots to exercise in their respective nations, are intimately linked to China’s desire to secure the natural resources they have to offer.   As a 2007 US Congressional report on arms transfers to developing nations makes clear:     

“Although the prospects for significant revenue earnings from these arms sales are limited, China views such sales as one means of enhancing its status as an international political power, and increasing its ability to obtain access to significant natural resources, especially oil.”

One can argue that China’s recent moderate criticisms of al-Bashir and their support for a UN peace keeping mission in Darfur indicate a shift away from an earlier policy of carte-blanche support for his regime.   However, I just don’t think there is much evidence to support such a position.   China’s attitude of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states is, frankly, untenable when it is seen to be deliberately favouring one side in a divided country over another (al-Bashir over the people of Darfur, Mugabe over Morgan Tsvangirai).   China clearly prizes it’s regional interests over the interests of the citizens of those states it helps to prop up – and in that way, is behaving much like any other great power (including the United States).   I think we in the West tend to over-emphasize how closely Chinese foreign policy adheres to this ideal of non-interference and are prone to mistake government rhetoric for the real application of state power. 

This brings us to Van Ness’ first observation: that China, as a state, will ultimately act in it’s own best interests when conducting it’s foreign affairs.   In this regard, China is, I suspect, like most other states.   China is interested in assisting the development of the African continent – but only insofar as such development advances Chinese interests in the region and satisfies appetites for raw materials and profits at home.   If falling commodity prices have left many African countries decling state coffers and in a weaker bargaining position relative to China, it is to the advantage of China’s economic planners and their desire to exert a greater influence over the setting of commodity prices worldwide – and to the marked disadvantage of those African states dependent on high commodity prices. 

China’s economic interests in Africa will continue to grow so long as economic development remains a fundamental goal (and tool) of the Chinese state.   I think it is safe to assume that, despite the current global recession, Chinese FDI into Africa will continue to grow at an accelerated pace when compared with investment into other regions.   African markets remain open to Chinese investors and, let’s not forget, China is nothing but patient when it comes to economic planning (as evidenced by it comes to seeing through it’s own domestic economic reforms).   While China is no longer enjoying the double-digit growth rates of the late ’90s-early ’00s, it is certainly doing well by any current standards and is in a much better position to expand outward FDI than the United States and much of Western Europe.   I wouldn’t be surprised if China used the current crisis as an opportunity in Africa to slip in and fill the voids left by retreating Western capital investors, and emerge stronger for it.   The Chinese government has, in fact, hinted as much. 

But, I would argue that China cannot afford to disregard the growing criticism of it’s presence in Africa, the contours of which I have attempted to outline in this brief piece.   It might be enlightening to remember that, according to Van Ness, China tended to view US economic aid to Africa during the 1960s as,

“a typical instrument through which the neo-colonialists attempt to extend control and exploitation, even to interfere in the internal affairs of or to subvert the recipient countries.”

Might China be opening itself up to similar criticisms today?   China has come a long way from the Bandung Conference of 1955, when it attempted to forge a collective political consensus among the newly independent nations of the under-developed world, or from the 1960s, when the Chinese state attempted to present Mao’s revolutionary ideology as an alternative to the rhetoric of both the USSR and the US.   China has grown and become, not merely a challenger of global powers, but a growing global power itself.   So much the better for China and the model of state-directed capitalism that it seeks to export to the nations of Africa.   But China is, I would imagine, already discovering that it’s new-found power has opened it up to the very same charges of neo-colonialism that it once levelled at the United States.   

While it might have been possible for China to present itself as a leader among the non-aligned or developing nations of the world during the Cold War, it can no longer do so.   The kind of scrutiny that has been directed towards China’s activities in Africa suggest not only the immense growth in China’s global economic and political reach, but also a significant shift in national identity from the Mao and early Deng years.   China is no longer the wonder kid scrambling to catch up to its older, more highly developed neighbours in East Asia and the West.   China is a global power and soon will reassert itself as the imperial power it once was.   The criticisms emerging from Africa concerning such imperial influence are just a taste of a larger debate that is yet to come.   

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References:

Akwe Amosu, China in Africa: It’s (Still) the Governance, stupid

Tania Branigan and Julian Borger, China looks to British experience for African expansion

Deborah Brautigam and Adama Gaye, Is Chinese Investment Good for Africa?

Congressional Research Service, Conventional Arms Transfers to Devloping Nations, 1999-2006

Stephanie Hanson, China, Africa, and Oil

Barry Moody, Does crisis give China new opportunity in Africa?

Lydia Polgreen, As Chinese Investment in Africa Drops, Hope Sinks

Lydia Polgreen and Howard W. French, China’s Trade in Africa Carries a Price Tag

Transparency International, Transparency International Bribe Payers Index 2008

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Asian Foreign Direct Investment in Africa

Given the recent passing of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit one of the less-contentious aspects of his political career: his campaign’s utilization of the Internet during the 2002 presidential race.

Much as President (then candidate) Obama is to be credited with making full use of Web 2.0 during his 2008 presidential campaign, he was hardly the first candidate to do so.   I might remind Wired Magazine that, despite the well-deserved accolades they bestowed upon Obama for his ‘use of the internet as an organizing and fundraising tool’, it was South Korean Roh Moo-hyun who first realized the importance of the Internet in the electoral politics of the 21st century.   I don’t think it would be a stretch to refer to Obama (at least in regards to his use of the Internet during his presidential campaign) as an American Roh Moo-hyun.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that it was in South Korea that first discovered the full potential of the Internet as a political tool.   The South Korean government has been actively promoting the use of the Internet among its citizens since the mid-1990s through large-scale investment in telecommunications and information infrastructure.   In the words of the 1995 Presidential Commission on Education Reform, this was designed to create “an education welfare state—a society of open and lifelong education to allow each and every individual equal and easy access to education at any time and place.”   By the time of the 2002 presidential elections, 68% of South Korean households were connected to broadband.   This figure is all the more astounding when it is compared with a rate of only 8% connectivity in Western Europe and 15% in the United States during the same year.   If any country’s community of Internet users was ready to be utilized by a tech-savvy political campaign, it was South Korea’s.

Let’s look, then, at the three dimensions of Roh’s Internet campaigning.   First, the Roh campaign created a web-based fan club called Rohsamo (short for ‘people who love Roh’).   This club grew to 80 000 members and was influential in coordinating the activities of Roh’ s supporters in the lead-up to the election.   Second, fund raising for the Roh campaign was organized by and channeled through it’s web-based activities.   Of the more than 203 000 donations made to the Roh campaign, almost half were on-line donations.   These donations equalled more than 4 trillion of the total 7.2 trillion won raised by the Roh campaign.   Furthermore,  Rohsamo was able to organize their members to coordinate small scale, local donation drives, which significantly increased the Roh campaign’s war chest.   And third, the Roh campaign solicited the suggestions of it’s supporters through the use of web forums, on-line polling, e-mails, text messages, and short video web-addresses given by Roh.   These suggestions gave the Roh campaign almost instantaneous feedback on its campaigning and allowed them to tailor their message to the interests and demands of the electorate (or at least their electoral base).  

In all three respects, the Obama campaign followed in the footsteps of Roh Moo-hyun.   And, I might add, the skillful use of the Internet by both men’s campaigns helped (in part) to secure the (Internet-savy) ‘youth vote’ for both candidates, with youths (here meaning voters under the age of 30) voting for both Roh and Obama by a ratio of roughly 2 to 1.   In effect, both Roh and Obama benefited from the seeming proclivity of those under-30 to communicate, socialize and organize through the Internet.   However, it should be remembered that Roh’s campaign did not so much create Internet-based political organizing as it expanded upon and professionalized pre-existing networks of citizens and potential voters.   Roh saw an opportunity to secure and expand his base on the ‘net and he grabbed it.   This is not to diminish the tactical brilliance of Roh’s use of the Internet to rally voters to his cause, but only to give South Korea’s netizens their due. 

With his untimely death, the legacy of Roh Moo-hyun’s presidency is already being reexamined by both his supporters and detractors.   Regardless of our respective opinions of Roh, I thought it timely for us to remember his campaign’s success in securing the support of South Korea’s Internet generation during Roh’s 2002 presidential campaign.

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References:

Ronda Hauben, The Rise of the Netizen Democracy: A case study of netizen’s impact on democracy in South Korea

Insung Jung, Korea: Can Edutopia Become A Reality?

Bon-Soo Kim, E-Democracy in the Information Age: The Internet and the 2002 Presidential Election in South Korea

So I thought for this entry that I would take a break from books and turn instead to a bit of economic wonkery entitled Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Financial Industry: 1909-2006.   Written by Thomas Phillipon of New York University and Ariell Reshef of the University of Virginia, Wages and Human Capital examines the relationship between government deregulation of the financial sector and the expansion of corporate activities linked to Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and credit risk, and the remuneration of workers in the US financial sector.   It is a very dry, very thorough examination of the subject, but if you can get past the frequent mathematical models cited in the body of the text, it is well worth reading.

Let me be clear: I have no background in the study of economics, whether macro or micro.   It is only the constant media harping about the ‘Great Recession’ and the looming realization that I will be attending the London School of Economics in the fall of this year that have finally convinced me that my policy of deliberately ignoring the Business section of the newspaper is just no longer tenable.   So over the last few months, I’ve tried my damndest to pour through as many introductory economics textbooks as I can, as well as pick up a few of the canonical works of economic theory (started with Adam Smith and, well, am still on Adam Smith) and follow a few of the wonkish economics blogs out there (so far I’ve only been following Paul Krugman’s and Willem Buiter’s – if anyone has any suggestions for further reading, please send them my way!).  

It was on Krugman’s blog that I came across this paper.   I’d just finished reading Hayne Johnson’s Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years and was interested in seeing if the process of financial deregulation that had begun under Reagan really had managed to create a second Gilded Age on Wall Street.   The short answer is yes, with the long answer being yes, and much in the same way that a lack of financial sector regulation had encouraged sizable salaries for financial analysts in the years leading up to and immediately following the Great Depression.

Phillipon and Reshef portray the US financial sector as a high skill, high wage sector during these two periods (roughly 1920 to 1933, and 1980 to 2006) when the financial sector was largely free of (or in the process of removing) government regulation.   It was during these two periods that a substantial growth in new firms entering the market led to a similarly substantial increase in the credit risk held by major financial institutions lending to or investing in these firms.   Given the complexity of assessing the value and/or credit risk of new firms entering the market with unproven business models and no prior track records, as well as the increasing need for such assessments, the demand for and remuneration of highly skilled workers in the financial sector grew apace.  

This would not be surprising were it not for Phillipon and Reshef’s conclusion that:    

“…the occurence of a crisis, high unemployment, bank failures, or a long bear market have no predictive power for relative wages and skills employed in finance, while regulation does.” (p.21)

What does this mean?   In effect, while financial analysts were being rewarded for the complexity (defined by the authors as tasks of ‘non-routine cognitive intensity’ (p.13)) of their work, they were not being punished for any failures on their part to properly assess credit risk.   As the authors point out, it was not the crash of 1929 that signalled the end to high wages of financial analysts, but rather the direct intervention of the government into the financial sector that severely curtailed risky investment and lending strategies, the establishment of new firms, and the associated need for highly skilled analysts to examine the credit worthiness of these  firms and their IPOs.   This in turn drove wages down and convinced those who might have previously been enticed into the financial sector with the promise of generous salaries to seek employment elsewhere.   

Their analysis does not end here, however.   The authors take this one step further and attempt to determine by how much financial analysts have been over-compenstated during the last decade.   Comparing the wages of financial analysts to individuals of similar academic background (in this case engineers, who are selected as a comparable group given the high number of trained engineers who have entered the financial industry), the authors find that wage differentials between the two can be accounted for, in part, because of the complexity of work in the financial industry.  

But, and here is the key point, for financial analysts working in the financial sector since the mid-1990s, rents accounted for anything from 30% to 50% of wage differentials.   If their estimation is correct (and I have no reason to assume that it is not), it would be a sharp rebuke to those who are convinced the market, and the market alone, is best able to determine a fair wages and rewards for those in high value sectors of the economy.

The authors do their best to avoid normative statements throughout the paper, offering only the possibility that higher wages might entice the skilled and motivated to consider a career in America’s now (but hopefully not-for-long) eviscerated regulatory agencies.   So let me offer a normative statement of my own (one that echoes something Krugman said some time ago): the financial sector needs to go back to the spirit of what now appear to have been the good old days of the 1950s to the 1970s, when remuneration in the financial sector was appropriately modest, given the prudence with which financial analysts were expected to exercise their trade.   Rather than being defined by their appetite for risk, financial analysis should go back to being the intelligent but shockingly dull people they used to be.

In other words: less Gordon Gecko and more Mr. Anchovy.

This week’s entry is The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley.   I will freely admit that I am new to the history of Thailand, it’s monarchy, and it’s political culture.   I picked up this book largely due to media coverage of the recent protests in Thailand, first by those against the former (and now exiled) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (which were led by the yellow shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD)) and later by the pro-Thaksin (and red shirted) United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UFDD).   Scenes of masses of yellow-shirted demonstrators seizing Bangkok airport last year, and red-shirtted protestors forcing the cancellation of the ASEAN summit in Pataya in April, made me realize how paltry my understanding of this country was.   (I could say the same thing about the recent elections in India and my decision to finally get around to reading Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi.)   Leave it to the BBC and Al Jazeera to shame me into heading off to my local library and (*shudder*) picking up a book.

Admittedly, it was a rather partisan choice on my part to choose Handley’s book, given that I first heard about it when it was banned by the Thai government upon it’s publication in 2006.   Had I dug a little deeper, I might have come across a book on Thailand’s recent history of greater topical breadth and one that took a less “jaundiced” view of its subject.   Unfortunately, I have a strong preference for muck-racking journalists (see: Fisk, Robert), which tends to colour my decision to pick up books on supposedly controversial topics.

The King Never Smiles follows the life of Thailand’s king Bhumibol Adulyadej from his early years growing up as an exiled royal in Switzerland, to his ascension to the throne after the mysterious death of his brother Anand, to his reign as the supreme patriarch of the nation.   Given the harshness of the country’s lese majeste laws and the genuine love for the king displayed by his subjects, the standard depiction of Bhumibol as an enlightened, selfless, jazz-loving patriarch has gone largely unchallenged within Thailand, and even without.   In the standard account of the king’s rule, Bhumibol has been said to reside high above the corruption of day-to-day politics, intervening only in the rarest and most dire of circumstances.  

Handley’s book, however, issues a compelling alternative to this narrative.   Rather than an apolitical Buddhist king, Handley presents Bhumibol as a one who, over the course of his reign, became an increasingly active (even Machiavellian) participant in the politics of his kingdom.   And despite Bhumibol’s noble efforts in favour of rural development, it was his support for the county’s corrupt military establishment, as well as Bhumibol’s personal distrust of democratic institutions, that came to define the character of his political involvement over the course of his sixty-plus year reign.

It is the frequent incursion of the military in Thailand’s parliamentary democracy that has come, in Handley’s mind, to define Bhumibol’s sixty-plus year reign.   (I wish I could cite the precise number of military coups, but frankly, I lost count after the fifth one.)   And while Thailand’s military-led governments may have differed in certain areas of tactical concern, they have all been thoroughly corrupt, decidedly anti-democratic, and (most importantly) resolutely in favour of the throne.   And while the Thai court came to exert immense influence in Thai society through the Ministry of Education and the Crown Property Bureau (the agency in charge of handling the royalty’s numerous and substantial investment and development projects), it was their alliance with the military establishment that proved to be of the greatest benefit to their rule, and of greatest harm to the development of democratic institutions in Thailand.      

The union of royal and military interests over the course of Bhumibol’s reign proved attractive to both parties.   In claiming to protect Bhumibol and the royal family from real and imagined left-wing political opponents, the military found a much-needed source of legitimacy for their numerous and unpopular coups against Thailand’s nascent democratic institutions.   For Bhumibol, the military’s involvement in politics afforded him a degree of direct influence over Thai politics that would have been obtained with far more difficultly through an elected civilian government.   Bhumibol was able to ensure that constitutional revisions ensured the continued centrality of the king in Thailand’s political culture.   The constitutional rights granted to the king over the course of his reign have included the guarantee of direct royal appointments to the unelected upper house of the parliment, the enshrinement of a royal veto over bills as a royal prerogative, and the granting of emergency powers (such as the right to declare a state of emergency or martial law) to the king.   Constitutional law, a pillar of the parlimentary democracy Thai political reformers sought to build, was used instead to embed an unelected monarch into the political landscape of Thailand.    

Furthermore, there seems to have been an ideological tinge to Bhumibol’s support for the military, despite it’s obvious authoritarianism, the brutality it exhibited towards civilian demonstrators in 1976 and 1992, and it’s devastating counter-insurgency campaign against the rural Communist Party of Thailand in the nation’s impoverished north eastern hills, and it’s shocking corruption.   Unlike many of the students and elected parliamentarians who sought to expand and entrench civic participation in state affairs – reforms that Bhumibol (correctly) saw as contingent on the diminution of his royal prerogatives – the conservative military establishment was far more willing to act as the king’s political proxy in national politics (given the supposed non-involvement of the king in political affairs).   For their part, the military was happy to guarantee the king the right to intervene in national politics when he felt it necessary, so long as they were left alone to rule (and ruin) Thai society as they saw fit.

The alliance thus crafted between military juntas, pseudo-fascist government militias like the Village Scouts and Red Guar, and right-wing politicians on the one hand, and the royal family on the other, secured royal influence over national politics while inhibiting the development of political independent political institutions.  Though Bhumibol is hardly the sole culprit responsible for Thailand’s current political woes, it certainly does not reflect well on the royal image that Thai politics continues to be defined by corruption, factionalism, mob violence and military interference, despite (and perhaps because of) his supposedly beneficent attempts to intervene on behalf of the national interest.

Given the harshness of Thailand’s lese majeste law, and the extent of the criticism of Bhumibol and royal family meted out in The King Never Smiles, it was no suprise that Handley’s book was immediately banned by the Thai government even before it’s release.   If Australian Harry Nicolaides could be jailed in 2008 for a few sentences of mildly critical prose about the royal family written in a novel that sold all of seven copies in Thailand since being published in 20o5, then I am assuming Mr. Handley (a former correspondent in Thailand for the Far Eastern Economic Review) is now a persona-non-grata in Thailand.   

Lese majeste laws, like laws against blasphemy, would strike me as risible were they not so horribly unjust.   While the ostensible purpose of such laws is to safeguard the sacred against profane desecration, they instead seem to reduce their object of veneration to the status of an overly-sensitive child whose ears must be muffled against anything that might upset it’s delicate emotional balance.   The pardoning of Nicolaides by the king this February reads less as an act of royal charity and more as a cynical display of royal privilege.   Given that a similarly unfortunate foreigner, Swiss Oliver Jufer, was also pardoned by the king for insulting the monarchy (while drunk, Jufer had, unwisely, desecrated a portrait of the king), may I suggest that lese majeste laws in Thailand exist as much to offer Bhumibol the chance to display his Buddhist tolerance of uncouth foreigners as they do to punish any Thai brazen enough to even whisper anti-monarchical sentiments.

But, of course, it is not the merely the subject of veneration that is being protected.   The associated political or social order which upholds lese-majeste laws also aims to ensure it’s own immunity from criticism by associating itself with the sacred or divine.   Handley’s book demonstrates the lengths to which opposing political parties, social movements, and especially the military in Thailand have presented themselves as the true embodiments of royal will in order to both gain the moral high ground over their opponents and to insulate themselves from charges of acting contrary to the interests of the throne.   The tradition of bringing charges of lese-majeste against political opponents of the royalty’s favoured political camp continues with the intended charging in absentia of former Prime Miniter Thaksin Shinawatra (no saint himself) with lese majeste.

But as an article in the December 4, 2008 edition of the Economist (that edition was banned in Thailand) points out, it may be that the royal family has finally and fatally exposed it’s political leanings to the masses.   The Economist points to the leniency displayed by the police and military to last years anti-Thaksin/pro-monarchy People’s Alliance for Democracy demonstrations as evidence of blatant royal favouritism towards the anti-Thaksin camp.   This is a message that is surely not lost, so the Economist argues, on Thaksin’s largely poor, rural supporters who have been vilified by the PAD as too “uneducated” to participate fully in the electoral system.   Looking at this year’s counter demonstrations by the Thaksin’s red-shirted supporters and the initial unwillingness of the military to quash their often violent demonstrations, one wonders if the factionalism that has come to bifurcate the Thai political landscape into two opposing camps of primary colors has not also come to infect the Thai military as well.   

I’m sceptical, however.   For if Handley’s book demonstrates anything, it is the unwavering ability of the Thai people to ignore their king’s most egregious flaw: his unwillingness to resign himself to a life of prolonged comfort as a symbolic regent and leave the business of managing the nation to the Thailand’s elected representatives.   Time and again, the Thai people have been willing (at least publicly) to offer their unwavering devotion to the king, even as his repeated political interventions, as well as his political allies in the government or the military, actively work to subvert the very democratic institutions he, as sovereign, represents.   Given the extent of his involvement in politics, and the unanimously agreed upon refusal to publicly discuss the consequences of his involvement, I don’t think I’m wrong in expecting little to change in Thailand’s public attitude towards the monarchy so long as Bhumibol remains on the throne.   Perhaps, though, an opening for the renegotiation of the role of the monarchy in Thailand’s political life might present itself in the battle for succession that is sure to follow Bhumibol’s death.

I’ll end this with a selection from an unsigned academic essay (widely believed to have been written by a royal prince) that Handely quotes on page 228 of The King Never Smiles.   I think it sums up the main criticism of the throne made by Handley, as well as the views of many inside and outside of Thailand who look worriedly upon the influence of the court in Thai politics: 

“The monarchy is attempting to act as both a symbol of national unity and a power seeker, without realizing that the two roles are inherently and fatally contradictory.”