Life Under the Dome Part 2

Chai Jing’s documentary Under the Dome is important to watch, because it is a very rare(if not unprecedented), hard hitting and honest look at where China is failing, from within.  If this had been made by a laowai, the China Daily would have front page denials and xenophobic editorials being published on a daily basis.   Indeed, many Chinese would probably think such a revealing expose could only have been made by an “anti China clique”.   This speaks volumes of Chai Jing’s abilities. 

And as it has been made by a local Chinese, it has put China in a quandary as to how to respond.  Chai Jing, right or wrong, has shown the People’s “dirty laundry” (something of course all nations have), to the world. 

Though she has revealed nothing that the West(sigh) did not already know, as an insider, the Chinese have finally been forced to take seriously  issues not just effecting the Wealth of China but the Health of China,  as well.  She has shown in a little under two hours that the Future of China is on the line.   As such, she has taken away the power and ability of the CCP to create and shape the narrative, and put it on the defensive.   The problem has been laid out for all to see, and China’s leaders have thus lost the ability to control how it will be told, or conveyed.  

In short, nothing this time can be blamed on the West. Chai Jing neatly explodes the widely held Myth that all countries must go through hell ie the Curse of Industrialization, in order to prosper.  In neatly displayed bar diagrams, she shows this is simply not the case. 

Upon reflection, it’s quite sad when progress cannot be made until only someone from within stirs the pot so openly and brazenly.

Among the things in her documentary:

Industrialization is not to blame,

Yes, the curse of coal usage laid waste to England, continental Europe and America, unchecked.  But there was a tipping point, and the difference between the West and China is that the West faced up to it.  This is because yet again that “root of all evil”(a free press), was able to speak up.   This forced government officials to face up to the belief that lives do matter, and that no, the end did not justify the means as long as The End was the declining health of its own populace.  

China, to its shame, simply has not taken the interests of The People to heart.   Too tedious.  Those with decision making power simply flee overseas, to blue skies and green trees.  There is a phrase in mandarin 我们有人  or 中国有人.   This callous disregard for its own people has been a thread throughout both Chinese and Russian history.  (Indeed, Russia’s willingness to sacrifice its own soldiers in battle horrified even the German Army, and is perhaps the real reason the Wehrmacht was overwhelmed.)

Did not Mao at one time even brag that he welcomed a nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union? After all the radioactive dust had settled, China would still have half its population!

China has of yet to have this discussion openly in any public forum.  China doesn’t hold Town Hall Events.  China is still stuck in victim mentality mode, and as such is more than willing to “burn the village in order to save it”.    China’s sense of Manifest Destiny is scary, but real.  China must be made strong at all costs.   And until Chai Jing’s documentary came out no one of any influence had been willing to publicly come out to challenge this precept. 

Chai Jing’s documentary is not anti-Chinese.  Rather, she simply wants the leadership to understand that China can still become strong and prosperous without having to force everyone to wear a mask everyday on a street.    China can still industrialize without endangering The People’s Health.  If only it would think smart.

The laws are there….

Where is the enforcement?  As anyone who has ever lived in China knows, China’s casual indifference to enforcement of laws is staggering and incredulous. 

I bring You The Electric Motor Bike in Shenzhen. 

Banned for several years now, they are still as ubiquitous as a pair of discarded wooden chopsticks on the street.  Their on sidewalks, the alleyway, in parks, everywhere.  Silent killers that have come within an inch of taking flesh off of me more times than I can count.  But their banned.  So why are they still there? 

Chai Jing rightly…dangerously…attacks this chronic penchant for simply not enforcing the laws.  She talks about the polluting emissions of cargo trucks, which everyone knows are amongst the biggest polluters in China.  In a provocative manner, she compares Los Angeles to Beijing, and how trucks are inspected in each city. 

One truck is vital to the daily supply of a city’s essential needs, and though it fails inspection, it gets a PASS.  Another truck in another city is within range of emission standards, but as it does not have the proper anti-pollution device, it still gets a fine equal to 25% of the drivers monthly salary.  You’ll need to watch the documentary to find out which event occurred in which city.

Chai Jing is well traveled.  She is thus more aware, compared to her fellow Chinese, of the differences between countries.  So she is emboldened.  Every country has its own problems with the enforcement of regulations.  Not just China.  Every One.  But only India and China have the scale to cause major damage if their unwillingness to enforce laws continues.  

Her well laid out explanation of why China’s pollution laws are not enforced is painful to watch.  We listen as one fellow comes out and says “if I don’t cheat, I’ll be the first one to go bankrupt”. 

Another one says, when inspectors come to check his gasoline, “You may have the obligation, but you do not have the power”.   Heady stuff.

(remember those students caught cheating during Gaokao?  Were the parents embarrassed?  Not at all.  Rather, they were pissed off others weren’t caught as well.  They were so convinced of the need to cheat not to get ahead, but just to keep abreast of everyone else.)

While it goes unsaid, the unspoken is that cheating is indeed overlooked at the higher levels of government, where deals and understandings are made,  thus countering the work and efforts of earnest mid ranking officials. 

Power of Big Business

Chai Jing lays out nicely the eternal struggles between the needs of society as a whole and the needs of the above.   In stark language, she explains how many oil companies, or pipe laying companies there are in the US, as opposed to in China.  

She explains that in essence, China, with the goal of becoming a modern developed economy, will fail at achieving this status as long as Old School 老思想 policies are still in place.   A country cannot innovate if the power of key industries is in the hands of a monopoly.   It’s just good old fashioned common sense.   But as long as the government runs China Petroleum, and also runs the banks that give out the loans, will anything change?

One would think with the needs of oil pipe in China, that the safety and integrity of these pipelines would be important.  But as only one or two Chinese companies control this business, is there really a high level of innovation?  Thus are these pipelines really of a high quality? 

Don’t forget a country needs its fair share of risk takers.  Trying to get these types of businessmen to work in a big corporation with all its rules and politics and overwhelming procedures is like fitting a square peg into a round hole.   China in essence, “talks the talk” about helping the little guy, but doesn’t back it up by allowing them entry to closed industries.   And this hurts the Chinese People. 

Chai Jing bluntly and in very un-Chinese like fashion humiliates Big Business.  (this is probably the real reason her documentary got taken down so quickly)

She educates all by showing how “out of control” these behemoth corporations are.  It’s a sight to see. 

This is just the air….what of the water and soil?

Left unspoken is the above.   I’ve ranted in the past that the only reason China is even having a sense of urgency about the Air is because it is visible for all to see.  Not so the water, or the soil.  My guess is it will be a very long time before we truly understand just how bad things are in China.  The water will probably be cleaned up first, as it’s easier to visualize than polluted soil. 

How can one be dirty and the other not?  They are all connected.   And this in my view is the unspoken inference of the story.   I think we’re only at the beginning of understanding just how badly polluted China is.  But doesn’t China only have itself to blame?  As long as there is no freedom of the press to report these matters on a regular basis, and as long as Big Business is able to do as it wishes unchallenged, nothing will change.  Nothing.  Because no entity will be allowed to freely “report to the people”.   

Remember it was The Press that brought down the Rockefellers one hundred years ago.   A country needs to have the protected tradition of a muckraker, or else it has neither a future nor hope.   China does not have this tradition.  (And it seems to have failed in Russia.)  You think Chai Jing will have another opportunity to so freely hop and skip around the country investigating on its ills and woes?  Fucking guess again, Pilgrim.  Rest assured she will be followed, and hampered for a long time to come.  Such is the price of trying to make your country a better place to live. 

Someone else will have to take up the mantle now. 

And that brings me to courage.  Lech Walesa started his campaign to create a Union in Poland by jumping over a wall, knowing in advance he was going to get the shit kicked out of him.  And when he was released he did it again.   And again.   Who in China is going to do this? (forget about it…better to spend your energies on having a son and buying a house, right?)

Such is life "Under the Dome".