China Segment

Beijing is constantly talking about harmony - like 3 years of it now.  It’s a case of trying to repeat something often enough that you start believing it, and once you believe it, it’s true.  So there are some people out there who actually believe that this country is harmonious.  Which it is not.

Now China is actually doing fairly well for a country that not long ago was a repressive, centrally planned state, reforming to a free-market economy, laying off millions from state-owned factories, etc.  The one area the state feels compelled to enforce harmony is where it comes to territorial integrity of the nation.  Minorities in areas like Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, the far north-east, and if they could, Taiwan, are carefully watched in order to prevent secessionist movements and all quests of independence or real autonomy from Beijing is quashed.

The insecurity of the Chinese state is partially understandable, as Chinese leaders all study the long history of unity and break-up of what is now China.  They know that control of places outside the Yellow river heartland was often sketchy at best.  Thus, they are careful, and ‘harmony’ must be maintained, both in ethnic relations and labor relations.  But at some point, terms become so overused, they become meaningless.  Harmonious is becoming like the word comrade (tongzhi).  Comrade means homosexual or gay in many contexts for young people, but the Communist Party leaders are quite ceremonial, and still feel obliged to use the term, resulting in giggles from the non-state press.  ‘Harmonious’ is already scoffed at - down the road it might even become a dirty word, a hypocritical whitewashing of what’s really happening.  That is, unless the government and the Party actually come through with policies that appease ethnic groups and their fear of sinofication, provide assistance to people out of work, and stop land confiscations and official corruption - the things that cause the thousands of mass protests this ‘harmonious’ country experiences each year.

Otherwise, please, in 3 years when a new group of leaders takes over, think of a different term.  More than a few people are already sick of this harmony.

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