Posts tagged ‘Cultural Revolution’

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08/12/2013

China sees renewed enthusiasm for Confucius – Xinhua | English.news.cn

The Chinese President\’s recent remarks on reviving the country\’s traditional culture have refocused attention on Confucius and sparked vibrant discussions about how the ancient sage can inspire modern China.

Confucius

Confucius (Photo credit: JayPLee)

During his visit to Confucius\’ hometown of Qufu in east China\’s Shandong Province in late November, Xi Jinping said scholars should follow the rules of \”making the past serve the present\” and \”keeping the essential while discarding the dross\” when researching ethics passed on from the nation\’s forefathers.

Xi called for the promotion of morality across society and \”a pursuit of a beautiful and lofty moral realm from generation to generation.\” He also stressed the importance of cultural prosperity while talking with experts at the Confucius Research Institute during his stay in Qufu.

His comments have helped draw a wider readership for the country\’s ancient philosophical classics, which have seen brisk sales in recent days, leading publishing houses to hastily print additional copies.

A bookseller with TMall, a large Chinese e-commerce platform, told Xinhua that some previously less-known works that interpret Confucian teachings have sold out, \”but orders have continued to flood in.\”

Xi\’s positive remarks indicate there has been a \”consensus\” on the value of traditional Chinese culture, characterized by Confucianism, with a history of about 2,500 years, according to Yang Chaoming, head of the Confucius Research Institute.

Yang Yitang, another Confucian researcher in Shandong, believed that the leader\’s emphasis on traditional culture showcases the confidence and pride of the Chinese nation. \”In the country\’s rich ancient culture, the 90-year-old Communist Party of China (CPC) has found its DNA and the nourishment to grow,\” he said.

Preaching moral righteousness, harmony and peace, in addition to hierarchy and order, Confucian doctrines were generally worshipped by ancient monarchs, but denounced a century ago by some intellectuals who blamed Confucian thought for China\’s decline at the time. The anti-Confucius sentiment later climaxed during the Cultural Revolution.

However, the official endorsement of the ancient thinker has become increasingly clear. In September, the State Council released a draft plan to move the present Teachers\’ Day, Sept 10, to what is believed to be the birthday of Confucius (551-479 BC) on Sept. 28.

In another sign, a communique issued following a key CPC meeting that concluded last month highlighted the need to build a socialist culture, enhance the country\’s cultural soft power and improve education in traditional culture.

The doctrines of the much-revered thinker have been spread worldwide with the establishment of more than 420 Confucius Institutes in over 100 countries to teach Chinese language and culture.

via Xinhua Insight: China sees renewed enthusiasm for Confucius – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Posted in China alert, Confucius, Politics, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

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23/08/2013

In Bo Xilai Trial, Some See Positive Signs for Legal System

WSJ: “Many China watchers see the trial of Communist Party insider Bo Xilai as scripted and staged, unveiling flaws of a closed Chinese judicial system. Yet amid the criticism, some are seeing positive signs emerge from Jinan, the northeastern Chinese city in Shandong province where Mr. Bo is facing corruption charges, including allegations that he took bribes with the aid of his wife.

The following are opinions of legal experts who have been following the trial:

Many Western critics of the Bo trial are comparing it to the stage-managed show trials of China’s past, including Jiang Qing [the wife of Mao Zedong] and victims of the Cultural Revolution. But this criticism misses the point. The Bo trial is exactly 180 degrees different in nature. In the show trials of China’s past, the politics would drive the criminal prosecution. In other words, the target would fall out of favor politically and then be legally persecuted as a result. In this trial, we have the opposite: the criminal prosecution is driving the politics. A towering and influential figure is being prosecuted in spite of his political influence, and the trial is driven primarily by the criminal allegations against him. Instead of being accused of serious crimes because his political standing has collapsed, his political standing has collapsed because he has been accused of serious crimes. –Geoffrey Sant, adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and special counsel at Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Despite the degree of supervision provided for the trial, there are nevertheless grounds for opening up the administration of justice to the supervision of the people. We’ve seen that in China there are many cases and trials that are not open, that attendance is constrained. Yet leaders have shown that they are willing to open up this case—to a certain extent—to the media, creating the perception that they are moving toward creating a more accessible judicial system.

Leaders are going farther than they could have to make the trial available. It’s a show trial, but not all trials are for show in China. To the extent that openness reveals shortcomings of the judicial system and promotes civil liberties is a positive thing. –Lester Ross a Beijing-based attorney with U.S. law firm WilmerHale.”

via In Bo Xilai Trial, Some See Positive Signs for Legal System – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in China alert, Justice, Law suit, Openness, Politics, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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10/07/2013

Returning students: Plight of the sea turtles

The Economist: ““I LEFT in 1980 with only three dollars in my pocket,” recalls Li Sanqi. He was one of the first allowed to study overseas after the dark days of the Cultural Revolution. Like most in that elite group, he excelled, rising to a coveted position at the University of Texas, while launching several technology firms. Now he is a senior executive at Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant, enticed back by the chance to help build a world-class multinational.

Mr Li seems the perfect example of a sea turtle, or hai gui (in Mandarin, the phrase “return across the sea” sounds similar to that animal’s name), long applauded in China for bringing back advanced skills. In the past such folk reliably reaped handsome premiums in the local job market, but no longer. Sea turtles are not universally praised, the wage differential is shrinking and some are even unable to find jobs. Wags say they should now be called hai dai, or seaweed. This is a startling turn, given their past contributions.

Wang Huiyao of the China Western Returned Scholars Association, which celebrates its centenary this year, observes that sea turtles have returned in five waves. The first, in the 19th century, produced China’s first railway-builder and its first university president. The second and third, before 1949, produced many leaders of the Nationalist and Communist parties. The fourth wave, which went to the Soviet bloc in the 1950s, produced such leaders as Jiang Zemin and Li Peng.

The present wave began in 1978, and is by far the biggest. Since then, about 2.6m Chinese have gone abroad to study. The exodus has grown of late to about 400,000 per year. The majority stay overseas, but the 1.1m who have come back have made a difference. Mr Wang argues that whereas the first three waves revolutionised China and the fourth modernised it, the fifth wave is globalising the country.

Sea turtles are helping to link China’s economy to the world. They founded leading technology firms such as Baidu. Many are senior managers in the local divisions of multinational firms. They are helping to connect China to commercial, political and popular culture abroad.

Why then is their importance declining? Several studies show that sea turtles on average must now wait longer to find a less senior post at a smaller salary premium over local hires. The weakening job market for all graduates is one reason. Another is that, as China’s domestic market has taken off, industries such as e-commerce have evolved in ways unfamiliar to those who spent years abroad. Gary Rieschel of Qiming Ventures, a venture-capital firm, says that investors who a decade ago would have funded only those returning from Silicon Valley are now backing entrepreneurs from local universities, who are more familiar with local consumption patterns, computer-gaming habits and social media such as Weibo and Weixin.

As China has boomed, its managers have started to shed their inferiority complex. A senior executive at Tencent, a Chinese social-media giant, says he still poaches sea turtles from foreign firms, but finds they have difficulty managing local engineers. A European investment banker says turtles often cling to quaint Western notions like transparency, meritocracy and ethics, which puts them at a disadvantage in China’s hyper-Darwinian economy, where locals are more willing to do whatever the boss or client wants.

Even foreign firms in China are getting pickier about whom they hire. Yannig Gourmelon of Roland Berger, a German management consultancy, believes the broader profit squeeze at multinational firms that killed off gilded expatriate packages has also sharply reduced the salary premium offered to sea turtles.”

via Returning students: Plight of the sea turtles | The Economist.

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07/06/2013

Premier Li Keqiang Wants More Chinese in the Cities

BusinessWeek: “Li Zuobing is adjusting well to urban life in Chongqing’s Yubei district, where he lives in a massive housing complex built to house former farmers. He enjoys his job as a supervisor in the community service office, his wife says she is delighted to have a kitchen with natural gas (rather than coal), and his daughter has opened a clothing store. It’s a great improvement on their life growing rice and corn on a small plot. “A few years ago, the idea I could ever live this well was unimaginable,” he says, as instructions on living a “civilized life” drone from loudspeakers on the grounds.

A woman waits for the bus at a junction along the main road in Dongling village, Anhui

Such success stories are essential for China’s future. As President Xi Jinping tries to bolster China’s international standing, the most daunting challenge at home is getting urbanization right, a task that falls to Premier Li Keqiang. Li is embarking on one of the most radical reconfigurations of Chinese society since the Mao era. His goal is to cut the rural population of 642 million roughly in half by nudging, urging, and sometimes forcing farmers and their families to settle in China’s cities.

Theoretically, this process will create a new, willing workforce to staff the cities’ service industries and factories. The ex-farmers’ incomes will rise, their children will get a better-quality education, and when they grow up they’ll land better jobs than their parents. The multiyear process will increase average income in China, where annual rural incomes of 7,917 yuan ($1,291) are less than one-third the income of city dwellers. “Urbanization will usher in a huge amount of consumption and investment demand, increase job opportunities, create wealth for farmers, and bring benefits to the people,” said Li in his first news conference after being named premier. This grand population shift comes as China’s three-decades-long export and investment-led boom starts to lose steam.

The 57-year-old Li is China’s first premier to have a doctorate in economics, earned at prestigious Peking University. He worked in the countryside during China’s Cultural Revolution and has made transforming farmers into city dwellers a career theme, including during his time as governor of Henan and Liaoning provinces. Li recently asked the World Bank to work with his administration in drafting sustainable urbanization proposals. (World Bank officials were unavailable to comment.)

Cities such as Chongqing have been experimenting with urbanization for years, and Li wants to speed up the process across all of China. Another benefit of this policy, Li says, is that it will be easier to launch large-scale agriculture as farmers move to the cities. Chinese farmers tend plots that average a little bit more than one acre in size: Farms are three times larger in South Korea and Taiwan, 30 times larger in Europe, and 300 times larger in the U.S., says Cai Jiming, director of the Political Economy Research Center. “With such a small scale, it is impossible for any one farmer to become wealthy.”

It won’t be easy to get the economic payoff China’s leaders are counting on. One obstacle is China’s hukou, or household registration policy, which designates all citizens as officially either rural or urban, depending on what family they are born into and regardless of where they reside. Hukou prevents some 230 million migrant workers who already live in China’s cities from enjoying the health care, education, pensions, and access to lower-cost housing available to those with urban hukou. “None of them enjoy the rights of full urban residents. That makes their consumption ability much lower,” Cai says.

Another obstacle: Under the constitution, all rural land is owned collectively, a legacy of when agriculture was produced by people’s communes. That means farmers have no right to rent or directly sell their leased land, allowing them to set up life in the city.

Li hopes his policy will stop local governments from continuing their forcible takeovers of rural land. Local officials provide limited compensation to the farmers, then sell the long-term leases to factory owners and real estate developers. The authorities usually sell the seized land for 18 times what they paid the farmers, estimates Li Ping, senior attorney at the Beijing office of Landesa, a Seattle-based nonprofit that focuses on land-rights issues. “Local governments have an incentive to push this distorted urbanization, to grab all that profit,” says Landesa’s Li.”

via Premier Li Keqiang Wants More Chinese in the Cities – Businessweek.

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07/03/2013

* Could Mao Zedong’s great grandchildren be making long march to US universities?

SCMP: “Could Harvard be on the cards for the great grandchildren of China’s revolutionary leader Mao Zedong?

bo_pek10_27983265.jpg

Granted, they are currently still 10 and five years old. But their father, PLA major general Mao Xinyu, said he would be open to the possibility of his children studying abroad. Mao Xinyu is one of the founding leader’s four grandchildren, and the only one fathered by a son.

“We won’t stop them from studying overseas providing they are willing and capable,” Mao Xinyu said of his son, 10, and daughter, 5, on People’s Weibo, a state-owned microblogging service similar to the more popular Sina Weibo.

Mao Xinyu, a military researcher and a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was in Beijing this week to attend the annual parliamentary meetings, where he is a media favourite – known for his off-the-wall comments and comical behaviour.

His remark about his children is the latest to draw the attention of journalists, who every year chase down the chubby major general in hopes for a good quote. Once in 2010, he was followed around  Tiananmen Square for so long that he forgot where his car was parked. Disoriented, he left reporters with only one word about the parliamentary sessions: “Good.”

via Could Mao Zedong’s great grandchildren be making long march to US universities? | South China Morning Post.

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12/11/2012

* New Chinese leaders in transition

This is a most insightful article about the new cohort of Chinese leaders. Unlike any other country where national leaders come from all ages and backgrounds, the new Chinese leadership share more in common between them than there are differences. It will give our readers a better understanding of what is about to come once the leadership transition is complete next Spring.

Xinhua: “More than 2,200 delegates to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) began on Sunday to deliberate a proposed name-list of nominees for the candidates for the Party’s new leadership.

 

Within days, they will elect members and alternate members of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the leading body of the world’s largest ruling party.

China’s leadership transition, which began last year from township level, will surely determine the future of the world’s second largest economy, and influence the world.

A new standing committee of the CPC Beijing municipal committee was elected on July 3, marking the completion of the leadership change at the provincial level.

Since the beginning of the year, main leaders of some central departments and centrally-administered enterprises have been replaced. The seventh plenum of the 17th CPC Central Committee early this month appointed two vice chairmen of the CPC Central Military Commission.

The local leadership transition and central-level reshuffle are preparations for the leadership transition at the 18th Party congress, Dai Yanjun, a scholar on Party building with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said.

From central to local levels, the new army of CPC officials bear the distinctive characteristics and personal styles and they are to lead China’s new round of reform and development, said Dai.

GROWING UP UNDER RED FLAG

Among the delegates to the 18th Party congress, a number of CPC officials born in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, were under the spotlight.

Dai said they grew up in a totally different historic and social environment from their predecessors, which will, to a great extent, lead to a different administration concept and approach.

Unlike the founding fathers of the People’s Republic of China and previous generations of leading officials who grew up in wartime, the new leadership, mostly born around the founding of New China, grew up in peacetime.

This allowed them to have a complete and systematic education of the mainstream socialist ideology, and shaped their worldview and value orientation.

In their youth, they underwent severe tests during the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and “three years of natural disasters” (1959-1961). The turbulent Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a hard time for them. Some, in their teens, were forced to live and work in the poorest villages after their parents were persecuted.

“In short, they all went through starvation and had the experience of working hard in rural areas,” said Dai. “They are victims of the Cultural Revolution. They witnessed the ups and downs of China’s development and the success of the national rejuvenation. They are firm supporters of reform and opening up.”

The leading officials born after 1950 and with experiences as “educated youth” are an idealistic and realistic group. They are closely watched by foreigners who are looking into China’s future, said Cheng Li, director of research and a senior fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution.

FULL UNDERSTANDING OF NATIONAL CONDITIONS

Elites have become the backbone of the CPC and the country. The people elected into the top leadership at the 18th Party congress will showcase the Party’s governing ideals and value orientation in the future, said Dai.

A notable feature of the leading officials born after the founding of New China, no matter what families they are from, is that they all have grassroots working experiences. They had worked with ordinary farmers, workers and soldiers, and been promoted step by step.

Such experiences are valuable, said Dai. This gives them a full understanding of the society and country, so that they will address state issues from the viewpoint of common people and focus more on improving people’s livelihood.

Chinese leader Hu Jintao said, at the 90th founding anniversary of the CPC last year, that alienation from the people poses the greatest risk to the Party after it has gained political power.

At the ongoing Party congress, Hu stressed efforts to “put people first, exercise governance for the people and always maintain close ties with them.”

China is undergoing rapid social transformation and many thorny problems emerged first at grassroots levels.

The leading officials were working at grassroots levels when China launched the reform and opening-up drive and profound changes took place in social interests and structure, Dai said.

They met with and handled quite a lot of new problems, Dai said. “Such working experiences enable them to know what the people need most. This is an ability that cannot be learned from books and also their big advantage.”

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND AND INTERNATIONAL VISION

Another feature of the leading officials is that they have abundant learning experiences and a sound professional background.

Many of them went to the best colleges in China after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and some others took in-service educational programs and managed to acquire master and doctorate degrees. Well-educated officials are nowadays common in central and local authorities.

With the academic degrees and professional background, they meet better the requirements of the current economic and social development, Dai said.

A feature of their academic backgrounds is that more people studied humanities and social science, and some of them majored in political science, law and management, giving them confidence in pushing forward reform in all respects, Cheng Li said.

Unlike the previous generations who studied in the Soviet Union, many of the leading officials were sent or chose to study in the United States and developed European countries, gaining a broad international vision.

Xie Chuntao, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said that the leading officials are not rigid or conservative, and they will guarantee the adherence to reform and opening up and the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

“They participated in, witnessed and benefitted from reform and opening up, and know what was it like before, so none of them will look back,” said Xie.

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29/09/2012

* China at critical time as CPC congress approaches

The article below is amazingly frank and open to be published by any official Chinese organ. It mentions the Cultural Revolution in negative terms, and it refers to “uninhibited and widespread abuse of power and corruption among government officials”. The article has obviously been vetted by senior officials before its release. If this level of frankness and openness continues, then true reform cannot be far behind. But, of course, as the article states at the end ” … the country’s new leaders, as what they say and do may signal the beginning of great changes in China …”

Xinhua: “There may be no better time than today to observe how China will change in the future, as the Communist Party of China (CPC) is gearing up for a key meeting that will see a once-in-a-decade leadership transition in the world’s most populous nation.

In a year of global elections, the world is closely scrutinizing the CPC 18th National Congress, to be convened on Nov. 8, and waiting to see how it will stand up to challenges facing the country and the CPC, as well as how it will influence the world at large.

After more than three decades of rapid growth thanks to the reform and opening-up drive, China has ushered in an important era of transition in which the country must transform its economy and make it more sustainable.

No matter how one views the event, the CPC’s 18th National Congress comes at a critical time for China, as the leadership it selects and the decisions it makes will have a profound impact on the world’s second-largest economy, and more importantly, on its people.

The Chinese have experienced many such critical moments in the past century, during which time incredible changes occurred in the country and the CPC itself.

One apparent distinction is that the CPC has grown incredibly large, with the number of members exploding from about 50 when the Party was founded in 1921 to more than 82 million on the eve of the CPC 18th National Congress, a number equivalent to the entire population of Germany.

Since it became the ruling party in 1949, the CPC has suffered twists and turns, such as the self-inflicted Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, but managed to restore China’s economic strength in the global arena through reform and the introduction of a market economy.

Over the past decade, China has become the world’s fastest growing economy, with an average annual growth of 10.7 percent from 2003 to 2011, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. China took up about 10 percent of the world’s gross domestic product while contributing more than one-fifth of global growth last year.

Yet unprecedented challenges are still ahead for the CPC, even though its top leadership has defined the current transition period as a time that is full of strategic opportunities to build China into a prosperous society by 2020.

The CPC 18th National Congress comes at a time when the economy is facing mounting downward pressure after three decades of almost two-digit growth.

The era of ultra-high economic growth will soon be fading in China, where policymakers will have to get used to an economy that expands by about 8 percent annually, according to a study conducted by a research team from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.

But the most pressing issue for the Chinese public is the uninhibited and widespread abuse of power and corruption among government officials and businessmen. A series of systematic and structural problems that have impeded the healthy development of the Chinese economy and society have yet to be resolved.

Addressing problems that concern the people’s vital interests and giving more respect to the will of the people in making policies will continue to be a challenge for the CPC.

Challenges have also appeared from outside, as the external environment has never been as complicated as it is now.

Due to the deepening of the sovereign debt crisis and massive economic restructuring that occurred after the global financial crisis, developed economies may sink into long-term recession, thus creating new uncertainties and posing increasing risks for emerging economies like China.

While maintaining the continuity of its policies, China must also adjust its relations with major powers, developing countries and neighboring countries according to the latest changes in the global situation. Any change in China will inevitably affect the rest of the world in an era of economic globalization.

All of these problems and challenges will have to be addressed when the CPC’s 18th National Congress is convened.

Hopefully, the CPC will draw lessons from its past successes and failures and establish a future direction for the country through resolutions on ideology-building, political routes and personnel management.

When the congress opens, people inside and outside China should closely watch the country’s new leaders, as what they say and do may signal the beginning of great changes in China and the rest of the world.”

via China at critical time as CPC congress approaches – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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27/08/2012

* Is a Youth Revolution Brewing in India?

NY Times: “Among the world’s major countries, India has the youngest population, and the oldest leaders. A startling four-decade gap between the median age of India’s people and that of its government officials most recently reared its head with a heavy-handed and widely-maligned crackdown on free speech on the Internet.

A protester jumped over a police barricade during a demonstration near the prime minister's residence, led by India Against Corruption member Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi, Aug. 26, 2012.

History shows us that generations with an exceptionally high youth ratio create political movements that shake up their systems and leave a profound impact on history. America’s baby boomers – the 79 million people born between 1946 and 1964 – led the charge in the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution.

In China, out of the stormy Cultural Revolution emerged the country’s current crop of leaders, who have taken it to remarkable heights of prosperity and power. More recently, in the Arab Spring there is evidence of a strong correlation between the ratio of the population under 25 and the urge to overthrow unresponsive governments.

Whether India will follow the same path may become apparent in the very near future.

There are some signs that the beginnings of India’s own youth revolt are stirring – the “India Against Corruption” protests, which swept Delhi on Sunday, involved a about a thousand protesters, mostly young men, who broke through barricades meant to protect their elder politicians’ homes and battled with the police.

The India Against Corruption political movement unleashes youth disenchantment against the establishment, using new means of communication like Twitter and Facebook as its fuel. Still, it is headed by an iconic 75-year-old Gandhian – call it shades of a youth movement, with the structure of a traditional Indian family.

India now has around 600 million people who are younger than 25, and nearly 70 percent of its 1.2 billion population is under 40. It is an unprecedented demographic condition in the history of modern India, and in absolute numbers it is unprecedented anywhere in the world. It also comes at a time when much of the developed world and China have aging populations.

The country’s median age of 25 is in sharp contrast to the average age of its cabinet ministers, 65, which is a far bigger gap than in any other country – Brazil and China are next with age gaps just under 30 years. In the United States the gap is 23 years, and in Germany it is less than 10.

Beyond the Internet crackdown, there are other disturbing signs that the age and thought gap between the majority of India’s citizens and their aging leaders is stifling India’s teeming youth.

We see this at play when the chairwoman of the National Commission for Women tells women to “be careful about how you dress,” after a young woman was sexually assaulted in public by a group of men in Guwahati.

We see it when a police officer wielding a hockey stick cracks down on Mumbai’s buzzing night life, and is defended by the state’s home minister. We see it in the inability to overhaul the country’s jaded bureaucracy that stifles fresh ideas.

Most tellingly, perhaps, we see it in the lack of political will to open up key sectors of the economy like retail to foreign competition, under the populist pretense of protecting existing jobs. This protectionism is far removed from the economic realities of the past two decades – India has been one of the clear winners of globalization. But as one writer put it, “The decision-makers in the Indian political class are still stuck in the mental framework of the 1970s, which is when they were blooded in politics.””

via Is a Youth Revolution Brewing in India? – NYTimes.com.

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05/04/2012

# Deciphering Chinese names

Chiang Kaishek with Muslim General Ma Fushou a...

There are around 100 common Chinese surnames and, apart from possibly Ma (馬), there is no religious or regional clustering. The colloquial for ‘the public’ is lao bai xing, which literally means “old hundred surnames”. The surname Ma, more often than not, is used by Muslim Chinese; and is thought to be derived from the Prophet Mohammed.

Traditionally, for many centuries, most Chinese families followed the standard practice of using three mono-syllabic words for their names, such as Sun Yatsen, father of modern China.
Maybe surprisingly, Dr Sun is revered in both the Peoples’ Republic and Taiwan. Both have huge memorials to him. The photo courtesy –
http://hcyip.wordpress.com/tag/nanjing-massacre/ – is of the mainland memorial.

The first, Sun (孫), is the family or clan name. After all what is most important, your antecedents, of course rather than you yourself – back to the collective mindset of Chinese.

The second, Yat, is the ‘generation name’. It is given by the parents to each of the siblings. So, all of Yatsen’s brothers and sisters would have Yat plus another word as their name. And, indeed, all his paternal first cousins. In some families, the boys and girls may have variants of this name.

If the family is conforming to old traditions, then the middle name (the generation name) is taken from a poem specially composed for the family, with each generation taking a successive word from the poem. Typically, the poem will be about something noble and aspirational, such as: “World peace, national unity; Social harmony, family prosperity”. So, the first generation’s middle name will be world, the next peace and so forth. Of course, in most families, long before they reach the eighth generation, some successor would have thought to create his own couplet to be more modern and so the cycle restarts.

The third, sen, is the personal name and can be any word in the Chinese vocabulary. Having said that, some words are regarded as more masculine and others more feminine.

Just to confuse everyone, some families use the second name as the personal name and third as the generation name. So, for example, Sun Yatsen’s wife Madam Sun was named Soong Chingling and her two sisters were Soong Ailing and Soong Meiling. Although Sun and Soong sound similar, Soong is a differnt name altogether (宋) incidentally, Meiling was Chiang Kaishek‘s wife, Madame Chiang.

Despite being a feudal society until recent times, women kept their names after marriage. So the wife of the disgraced leader Bo

 

Xilai is Gu Kailai; rarely – but confusingly – called Bogu Kailai.
In places like Singapore and Hong Kong sometimes married women, esp business women, would keep their maiden name along with the husband’s surname, making it four names. Sort of like the British ‘double-

barrelled‘ surnames such as the actress Helene Bonham Carter.

Most Chinese who live in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and other enclaves of Chinese emigrees tend to keep to the traditional way of naming.

Her Excellency Wu Yi, Vice Premier of the Peop...

But since the revolution in 1949 and especially since the Cultural Revolution in the 70s, many mainland Chinese have stopped using the generation name and use just one name after the surname such as Madame Wu Yi, retired senior leader who led China into the WTO and who managed the SARS crisis of early 2000s.

This causes huge problems for the authorities as, it is not uncommon, at roll call in school, several kids would raise their hands– for example – to Wang Ta (= Wang senior). The authorities are encouraging parents to revert to a middle name when naming their children.

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14/03/2012

* Premier Wen says China needs political reform, warns of another Cultural Revolution if without

Extract from Xinhua: “Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday that China needs not only economic reform but also political structural reform, especially the reform of the leadership system of the Party and the government.

Wen warned at a press conference after the conclusion of the annual parliamentary session that historical tragedies like the Cultural Revolution may happen in China again should the country fail to push forward political reform to uproot problems occurring in the society. …

He noted although after the crackdown on the Gang of Four, the Party adopted resolutions on many historical matters, and decided to conduct reforms and opening-up, the mistake of the Cultural Revolution and feudalism have yet to be fully eliminated. …

As the economy continues to develop, Wen said, such problems as income disparity, lack of credibility and corruption, have occurred.

“I’m fully aware that to resolve these problems, we must press ahead with both economic structural reforms and political structural reforms , in particular reforms on the leadership system of the Party and the country,” he said. …”

via Wen says China needs political reform, warns of another Cultural Revolution if without – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Over the past year or two Premier Wen has become very outspoken (for a senior Chinese politician) about issues normally not aired in public. For instance, the Cultural Revolution seldom features in speeches and if it does, it is not usually put in clearly negative terms.

In some ways this reminds me of the (in-)famous speech by Chairman Mao when he launched the ‘let the 100 flowers bloom‘ campaign in 1957. This was soon followed by the dreadful ‘anti-right’ campaign when too many intellectuals and party members took Mao’s ‘let 1000 thoughts contend’ exhortation at face value. 

But, this time, the whole circumstances and environment are very different. So, hopefully, the next step will not be another anti-right campaign, but genuine discourse and debate with a (relatively) open mind.

Related page: https://chindia-alert.org/prognosis/chinese-challenges/

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