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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, May 10, 2015

What does the future hold for Chinese civil society?

Last Monday, the Chinese government finally published the second draft of the Foreign NGO Management Law, a law that could completely alter the way foreign NGOs operate in China.  With the proposed layers of government control and final oversight by the China’s Public Security Bureaus (“PSB”), NGO work will become extremely difficult if the law is enacted in its current form.  While foreign NGOs will feel the initial pinch, the true victims will be the Chinese people.

Currently in China, Chinese NGOs – grassroots groups that seek to alleviate poverty, eliminate discrimination and conduct other activities that benefit the average citizen – are largely funded by foreign NGOs, especially those groups whose issue is considered “too political.”  And even where foreign NGOs do not offer funding, they provide essential training, informal advice and moral support that helps grow China’s nascent civil society.  Unfortunately though, the current draft Foreign NGO Management Law will result in fewer foreign NGOs able to work in China and as a result, will set the Chinese people back in their ability to vindicate their own rights.

Why would the Chinese government seek to squash civil society at this juncture?  Many of the government’s own social reform agenda items – ending corruption, ending re-education through labor, reforming the hukou system – have come from these civil society groups. So why now would the Chinese government look to pass a law that could severely limit the growth of civil society?

Make No Mistake, This Law is Not About Greater Transparency

Foreign NGOs have largely remained unregulated in China and there is something to be said about a law

Foreign NGO Management Law – a show of force by China’s PSB (Photo by TPG/Getty Images)

that adds greater transparency to the sector.  For groups that are lobbying government officials or seeking to change the law, knowing the source of funding – even if the funder does not meddle in the organizations daily affairs –  is something we deem important to know.  The Chinese government is no exception nor should it be.  Only months ago were Americans shocked to learn that foreign governments donate money to many U.S. think tanks, with the implication being that this source of funding impacts the organization’s research direction.  It is why many Americans despise the Citizens United decision – it hides who is donating to a politician, with the inference being that the money sets the politician’s agenda.

But transparency is not what this law is about.  If it was, foreign NGOs could easily continue to be regulated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.  But the Ministry of Civil Affairs is nowhere to be found in the draft law itself.  Instead, it has largely been replaced by China’s public security apparatus.  It is the PSB that has ultimate say if the foreign NGO can establish a representative office or conduct temporary activities in China (see Art. 47).  The PSB can, on its own volition, conduct on-site inspections of the China office, question individuals involved with the “matter being investigated,” copy or “seal” documents and when the PSB determines necessary, “seal” the venue related to the “matters being investigated” (see Art. 49).  The law is silent on what would give the PSB cause to disrupt the work of a foreign NGO, allowing for potential harassment.

Increasing Strength of the Domestic Security Apparatus Within the Chinese Government

The role of the security apparatus should not come as a surprise.  Since April 2013, with the drafting of Document No. 9, an internal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) communiqué highlighting what the CCP leadership perceived at the greatest security threats to its rule, civil society has been one of “seven perils” to the CCP’s power.  In November 2013, Xi Jinping, China’s new president, announced the formation of a National Security Commission, answering directly to him and that would  handle both foreign and domestic security threats.  In April 2014, the National Security Commission held its first meeting.  A  “penetrating review of foreign NGOs” was on the agenda.  In December 2014, Yang Huanning, the Vice Minister of Public Security, introduced the initial draft Foreign NGO law to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.  Although circulated among Chinese who would be effected, the first draft was never officially circulated to the foreign NGOs who would be impacted.

Public security’s larger role in society is likely its way to justify its ever ballooning budget.  In 2013, spending on domestic security outstripped the government’s spending on the People’s Liberation Army.  Since that milestone and the attention that fact received in the foreign press, the Chinese government no longer publishes the full domestic security figure.  But it likely still continues to rival the amount spent on foreign security.  The Ministry of Public Security, and now the National Security Commission, must find ways to justify that spending, and arguably part of that justification is the threat of “Western agents” acting through foreign NGOs.  The Foreign NGO Management Law embodies that paranoia.

Will Foreign NGOs Even Have the Resources to Follow the New Law?

The law itself does not shut down foreign NGOs in China or prevent foreign NGOs from hosting events in China.  Instead, through an onerous, supervisory structure, it makes getting anything done in China time-consuming and expensive.  Survival of the fittest will dictate which NGOs go and which stay.

Under the draft law, foreign NGOs that want to establish a representative office in China must first have the consent

Will this cooperation be allowed to continue?

of a Professional Supervisory Unit (PSU) (see Art. 11), presumably a government agency or government-approved organization in the foreign NGO’s field.  A legal-oriented foreign NGO would seek to establish a relationship with the Ministry of Justice as its PSU.  Only after it receives this consent can the foreign NGO apply for approval with the PSB (see Art. 12(6)).

But here is the rub, how many foreign NGOs can one government organization sponsor?  Would the Ministry of Justice establish a relationship with every legal-oriented foreign NGO seeking to establish an office or would it pick one, two, or maybe a handful?  It’s not their business to sponsor foreign NGOs and presumably, these government agencies have limited capacity to do so.  Even if a foreign NGO can partner with a quasi-government organization, there are still not enough of these to cover the number of foreign NGOs with offices in China.  By one estimate, there are close to 1,000 foreign NGOs in China.  As a result, some will inevitably be forced to leave China because of their failure to establish a relationship with a Chinese PSU.

But the relationship with the PSU does not end with registration.  Every year, the foreign NGO will have to submit two documents: (1) an activity plan that delineates the implementation details for the following year’s projects (see Art. 24) and (2) an annual work report which must include financial accounting and audit reports (see Art. 37).   For smaller foreign NGOs with limited resources, hiring someone to handle this paper work might not be the best use of its funding.  Even if a foreign NGO can establish a relationship with a Chinese PSU, at some point it will become debatable if it is even worth it economically.

And if that is enough to discourage a foreign NGO from establishing a representative office, the procedures are required to be repeated every five years. (see Art. 15).

Even Academic Exchanges are Not Exempt from This Law

Harvard University President Drew Faust Meets China’s President Xi Jinping on a recent trip to China

Those foreign NGOs that think working from abroad will be less onerous will have a rude awakening.  Under the draft law, they must also establish a relationship with a PSU before applying for a “temporary activity permit” from the public security bureau. (see Art. 20(3)).  Again, it will be interesting to see how many eligible PSUs will establish relationships with foreign NGOs.

As the law stands now, foreign universities are not exempt from the draft law.  What foreign NGO is covered by the law is unclear and the vagueness means that anything that is a not-for-profit abroad is covered by the law.  Even the state-run Global Times highlighted the negative impact the first draft of the law could have on academic exchanges.  It appears those issues remain in the second draft as well.

Where Will All The Funding Go?

Any argument that the draft Foreign NGO Management Law will lead to necessary transparency is belied by the rigorous regulations that will make it impossible for many foreign NGOs to legally do work in China.  For many that will mean a decision to leave China.  But, as Thomas Carothers and  Saskia Breechenmacher highlighted in their prescient report, Closing Space: Democracy and Human Rights Support Under Fire, some organizations committed to staying in a country with increasing harsh laws against foreign NGO funding, might implement a policy of “distancing.”  Distancing is essentially the opposite of transparency – trying to hide the source of funding through various offshore means.

But this avenue, with its greater risks to the foreign NGO and in particular to its partners in China, will be used by very few.  The ultimate result of the draft Foreign NGO Management Law is that a large number of grass-roots Chinese NGOs that are doing essential work in China will close.

To see how the spirit of the draft Foreign NGO Law is already being implemented,  for Part 2 of this three-part series, please click here. 

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, April 20, 2015

China Law Translate’s founder Jeremy Daum

In the past ten years, the number of Chinese-speaking foreign scholars of Chinese law has increased dramatically, and the number of Chinese lawyers who speak and read English has increased even more. Inevitably, this raises the question of whether translations of Chinese legal materials are still necessary and likewise for American laws translated into Chinese.?

For Jeremy Daum, the creator of China Law Translate (www.chinalawtranslate.com) and Senior Research Fellow at the Yale China Law Center in Beijing, a community-based translation website, the answer is yes, and more so now than ever. China Law Translate (“CLT”) uses internet resources and a volunteer army of netizens to translate various legal documents – laws, regulations, articles, interpretations and news stories from Chinese into English and vice versa.

Over the last two years the site has become an important resource as foreign interest in Chinese law continues to grow. Cited by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the United States Congress, China Law Translate is a novel attempt at crowd-sourced collaboration for this kind of translation. To understand its success and impact, China Law & Policy interviewed CLT founder Jeremy Daum to better understand the site and its planned future.

[In the interest of full disclosure, China Law & Policy is a proud participant of China Law Translate’s community translation project.]

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EL: What caused you to create China Law Translate?

JD: Pure selfishness–I use our translations constantly.

In creating the site, I had three goals. First, to allow experts, students and other interested folks to contribute their time and efforts without making a big commitment. At the same time, I hoped to incorporate technological tools to make translation easier. Finally, I also wanted to create a forum for discussing the accuracy of the translations, so our group could begin to standardize commonly used, but uniquely Chinese legal terms.

Also, while it sounds hokey, I honestly believe that communication leads to increased understanding, and hope that

China Law Translate – making it as easy to translate like pushing a button!

the site helps contribute something to foreign legal professionals’ understanding China’s situation and vice versa.

In 2013 when I started the site, there were a number of major new laws and interpretations released, not the least of which was the revised Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) with its 290 articles, the Supreme People’s Court’s accompanying 548-article interpretation, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s accompanying 708-article interpretation and the Ministry of Public Security’s 376-article implementation regulations. That’s a lot right there, and even reading through it can take an enormous amount of time.

There are a lot of us translating various documents, but we too often translate the same work, duplicating efforts constantly but rarely sharing the successes in any meaningful way.

EL: In introducing this interview I mentioned that with the increased number of bilingual experts, translation might be less relevant. The positive response to your site indicates that you aren’t alone in valuing translation—so, why is translation still important?

China Law Translate’s mascot, Judge Bao, a general in 1000 AD but also a symbol of justice.

JD: It’s a legitimate question, but I suspect that anyone who has ever practiced or studied law in China knows that language can still be a barrier. Translating legal texts requires a big skill set- not just excellent language ability, but also an understanding of both the Chinese and foreign legal systems. Law itself is already a kind of second language, and ensuring accurate communication across national languages and legal systems is not so easy.

The number of foreign nationals and organizations involved in China is still increasing, and they all have a practical need to understand Chinese law. At the same time, Chinese law is becoming more and more sophisticated, and this also makes translation more important. Where a quick summary might once have been enough to get a feel for the law, it is now necessary to actually parse the text and follow through to read its interpretations, local implementing regulations and so on. If China’s ongoing legal reforms are to be taken seriously, you have to understand what they really say.

EL: Your site has been used by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Congress. Have you been surprised by the response to your site?

JD: Well, we get fairly steady traffic of readers despite slow service times behind the firewall, but only about 1% of visitors have ever even opened the translation panel to contribute. Still, that the media and various governments find the translations useful means we are making a contribution.

One thing that has surprised me is the percentage of readers who are Chinese speakers coming to read Chinese

If only this guy had come to China Law Translate first! This tattoo means “Chicken Noodle Soup”

language materials. That is to say, about 20% of the traffic is people in China, with their computer set to Chinese, reading Chinese law in Chinese. Sometimes when you set out to solve one problem you end up meeting another need entirely. My only guess as to what’s going on is that other online versions of Chinese laws just aren’t as searchable as ours are—they are often divided up into several pages and you can’t just search the text easily. We always talk about access to law—well, the site seems to be accidentally helping some Chinese people access their laws.

EL: What have been the most important or most cited translations?

JD: I sometimes say that instead of “China Law Translate” the site should be called “China Law Translated”, because in addition to straight translations, we do also provide explanations, commentaries and a real-time newsfeed. These include blog posts and original articles by me, (and anyone else who wants to submit) and also annotations made through a great comment system called Factlink that lets people make sidebar comments on specific chunks of a law.

So, some our most heavily trafficked pages have been translations of draft laws that other places aren’t likely to bother translating: The draft domestic violence law and the draft counter-terrorism law have both been among the site’s busiest pages. Others have been original pieces like an explanation I wrote about the crime of provocation (“ picking quarrels”) a poorly understood offense that has been used to detain a number of prominent activists. We’ve also had a lot of traffic on important case documents of interest to a wider foreign audience, such as the verdict of Xu Zhiyong.

EL: What’s the benefit of CLT’s translations over more formal and traditional processes, like a law school hiring a translator?

Don’t get lost in translation!

JD: I love it when law schools, NGOs, governments etc. hire translators to create reliable bilingual versions of laws and documents to share with everyone. It just doesn’t happen very often. Translation is expensive, and usually still requires expert staff time to review if quality is to be assured, so its takes time on top of the translation fees. We avoid a lot of that by working together.

Also, those few translations that are shared publicly aren’t usually kept in a single location where everyone can find them all. But CLT isn’t just a repository for translations either, it’s truly collaborative. Once something is online, it keeps evolving, getting better through contributors comments and additions.

Finally, there are a few pay services that put out translations of key documents, but the pay wall limits the number of people who can use them, and honestly, I think we match them for quality. More importantly, they tend to cater to a different audience, focusing on documents involving business and transactional law, rather than the public law materials CLT emphasizes.

EL: Just to explain it to those who may not have ever seen the site, how exactly does it work?

JD: The documents on the site are broken into single sentence units of meaning for translation purposes. When you open the translation/editor mode, you can click on any of these translation units to make changes, and after you approve the change, it changes the way everyone coming to the site sees that translation.

Even if you don’t want to make changes, you can also use the translation mode to compare the translation to the original language. In reading through translations, I’ve found that I generally see at least one typo that I want to correct, so I encourage others to do this too.

On the off chance that vandals come through and change all the text of the translations, a record is kept of every change to every block of text, and they can be rolled back without any heartache.

EL: If you start translating a law, do you have to finish it? What’s the time commitment for your volunteers?

Not a big time commitment

JD: There is no minimum or maximum time commitment; it’s an ad-hoc ongoing collaboration. And there is certainly no need to finish a translation in one sitting – many of the translations on the site are works in progress, and any portions that haven’t been translated just get displayed in the original language.

It’s a funny thing, I made the site precisely because nobody has time to translate everything by themself, but lots of colleagues still say they’d love to contribute if they only had the time. My thought is this, if you are looking for a certain part of a law, check our site, see if we have it and if that part of the law has been translated yet. If not, translate it so it’s there for the next person.

If you are really devoted, you could translate a random sentence or two a day, it’s a great way to practice language skills!

EL: What if someone who does a translation wants credit for it? Are you willing to allow that person’s name to appear on the translation?

JD: As long as you log in to the site, any translations you make are attributed to you, and anyone who looks at the translation history of a given translation block will see what you did. Most people seem to want NOT to be detected, and translate anonymously by not logging in.

If someone submits a completed full-text translation, I’m happy to put it up with their name (or logo) clearly indicated and an explanation that they submitted it. I do like to keep the entire site editable, so I would probably also put up a PDF of the document as originally submitted so that nobody would wrongly attribute any subsequent changes to the donor.

For folks who consider themselves active members of our community, we have a system where frequent users earn points for visiting the site and commenting and can earn badges or even t-shirts. Of course, if a regular participant wants to put their CLT participation on their resume or what have you, I’d be happy to vouch for them.

EL: How do you guarantee accuracy?

JD: Oh, hah, I don’t. We do our best, and I’ve corrected a few obvious mistakes more than once, but at least at CLT every reader can correct mistakes they see.

As I mentioned above, the secondary goal of the site, beyond creating translations, is creating a forum for discussing translations. There’s room for disagreement about what terms mean even between native speakers discussing their own language’s legal terminology, and it only gets worse when you start translating.

If something on the site seems wrong or bizarre, bring it up in the comments and see if others have something to contribute. This is a conversation that needs to be happening for the benefit of both Chinese and English speaking users.

EL: China Law Translate has been around for a little over two years. Where do you see it going in the future?

JD: In addition to trying to expand our translator and editor base, I’m trying to encourage other organizations doing translations to let me cross post their content. I know that lots of groups do translations for a meeting or case that they only use once, maybe not realizing the value that these documents have for a wider audience. This is just one more way to make the site more complete and collaborative.

EL: Well, thank you again Jeremy first off for creating such an amazing resource and this interview. In case any of our readers are inspired by this interview, they should go to www.chinalawtranslate.com, right?

JD: Yes! Go to China Law Translate to translate your first sentence today!

To help get you started, here is the intro video that guides you in how to translate on China Law Translate:

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, April 14, 2015

Normally it is an embarrassment when you get something wrong, but in this case, I could not be more relieved to be completely mistaken.  Yesterday, I blogged that Wang Man, Wei Tingting, Zheng Churan, Li Tingting and Wu Rongrong would likely be officially arrested.  However, last night, each was released “on guarantee pending further investigation” (取保候审), a concept akin to bail in the United States. 

Human Rights in China goes into detail on the legal requirements of “release on guarantee pending further investigation” and as a result, we won’t go into further detail other than to say, this is not complete freedom.  Basically, for the the next 12 months (CPL Art. 77 limits bail to 12 months), the women are at the whim of the local public security bureaus, allowed to be called in for questioning as the police further investigate the charges.  Under the Criminal Procedure Law (“CPL”), the women’s freedom will be limited.  They must remain in their home city and depending on what the police determine should be the conditions of their bail, they may be prevented from organizing any further demonstrations, activities or working together (see CPL Art. 69(2): may not meet or communicate with designated persons; CPL Art. 69(3): must not engage in designated activities).  Their passports may also be taken away.

But again, although there is a written document that lists the conditions of their “release on guarantee pending further investigation,” no where in the Ministry of Public Security Regulations (“MPS Regulations” or “MPS Regs”) does it state that this document must be physically given to the suspects.  In fact, the MPS Regulations only require that the conditions of bail be read aloud to the suspect (MPS Regs. Art. 79).

However, the fact that there is a release on “bail” is a positive development and many have praised the international outcry for precipitating the women’s release.   Certainly the international and media attention to the detention of these activists on the eve of International Women’s Day likely played a role in influencing some in the government to realize that backlash would only increase if these women were formally arrested. 

But one can’t help but wonder whether this international influence is a double-edged sword in the current NGO environment in China.  Presently, Chinese grassroots NGOs, who operate in a legal netherworld, have been under increasing scrutiny by the Chinese government with a draft Charity Law in the works that could make life more difficult for these organizations.  The government’s goal: to determine how much funding the the domestic NGOs receive from abroad.  It’s this international funding and influence that the Chinese government has begun to increasingly fear and view as a Western attempt to undermine the Chinese Communist Party (see Julia Famularo’s brilliant essay on this in The Diplomat).  And it is not just domestic NGOs that the Chinese government is seeking to restrain.  Allegedly a confidential, draft regulation or law, colloquially called the “Anti-Foreign Agent Law,” is in the works to regulate foreign NGOs working in China. 

International demonstration to Free the Five

Thus, the international uproar, likely also a result of Chinese NGO Yirenping’s effective advocacy campaign for the freedom of their staff and former staff (three of the women are currently or have been affiliated in the past with Yirenping), while being applauded in the West, might be the type of example that will give supporters of a harsh Charity Law and severe Anti-Foreign Agent Act the evidence they need to make sure it passes as is. 

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, April 13, 2015

Women Hold Up Half the Sky? And Half the Detention Centers?

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Beijing police requested that the local prosecutor formally arrest the five Chinese women detained for planning an anti-sexual harassment demonstration on Intentional Women’s Day (March 8).  According to the detained women’s lawyers, the recommended charges are “organizing a crowd to disturb public order” (Article 291 of  China’s Criminal Law), a charge different than the initial basis for detention: “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (Article 293(4) of China’s Criminal Law). 

Since the inception of these detentions on March 6, 2015, little has been transparent, even to the lawyers for the women.  In fact, according to the New York Times, the women’s lawyers were not even informed that a request for arrest had been made to the prosecutors on April 6, 2015.  According to a phone interview with Liang Xiaojun, one of the detained women’s attorneys, the police’s April 6 request for arrest means that the prosecutors must decide by today if there is enough evidence for such an arrest.  (see also Criminal Procedure Law (“CPL”) Art. 89 requiring that the prosecutor’s office determine within 7 days whether to formally arrest the suspect).  But like everything else that has been happening in this case, likely the detained’s lawyers will continue to be kept in the dark of today’s decision.   

Two years ago the Chinese government heralded the passing of its amended

Clockwise from top left: Zheng Churan, Li Tingting, Wang Man, Wu Rongrong, and Wei Tingting

Criminal Procedure Law, which was intended to bring China more inline with the international community.  Scholars and government officials praised the law for its greater protection of criminal suspects’ rights and improved access to defense lawyers early in the process.  But the detention of these five women, exemplifies the continued weaknesses of the Criminal Procedure Law and its failure to protect suspects’ rights.  Where it does offer some protections, what’s happened to these five women, demonstrate that Chinese police and prosecutors continue to skirt the law with impunity.  This post will review some of the major issues with the detention of China’s five women activists.

The Police Have Not Issued Any Document with the Charges. Is That Legal?

China’s Amended Criminal Procedure Law

No.  In a phone interview with Liang Xiaobin, Wu Rongrong’s attorney, Mr. Liang informed China Law & Policy that the police have yet to issue any formal document regarding the detention or potential charges against his client.  But Art. 123 of the Ministry of Public Security’s “Procedural Regulations on the Handling of Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs (revised 2012)” (“MPS Regulations” or “Regs”) which implements the CPL, a detention notice must be issued to the family of the detained within 24 hours of detention.  That detention notice would list the charges being investigated. Presumably if such a notice was provided to Wu’s family, it would be transmitted to Liang.  But Liang has yet to obtain any verification of any charges other than those verbally communicated to him.

The Police Did Not Inform the Five Women’s Lawyers that it Had Recommended Arrest.  Is This Legal?

Yes, and this is where one of the major weaknesses in the new Criminal

Will the five women be formally arrested?

Procedure Law and its implementing regulations is obvious.  During the pre-arrest phase, even when a suspect has retained a lawyer, that lawyer has very little ability to access any of the police or prosecution documents.  In fact, neither the CPL nor the MPS Regulations require that the police or prosecutor inform the lawyer of what is happening in the case.  There is some information that has to be told to the detained’s family (that the suspect has been detained (CPL Art. 83 & MPS Reg Art. 123); that the suspect has been formally arrested (MPS Reg. 141)), but the police do not have to affirmatively inform the family that the police have recommended arrest to the prosecutor, even though there is a paper trail for all of this (see CPL Art. 85 & MPS Reg. Art. 133 both requiring a written formal request be made by the police to the prosecutor)  Without this information, it becomes difficult to hold the prosecutor to the 7-day limit to decide whether to arrest (CPL Art. 89).

Chinese defense lawyers kept in the dark

But no where in the CPL or the MPS Regulations does anyone have to inform the retained lawyers of anything.  It is not until the prosecutor begins to investigate for indictment (审查起诉) do rights attach to the defense lawyer.  When that occurs – and again, the law is unclear if anyone has to be affirmatively informed that such a review is occurring – can defense counsel access information from the state.  At that point, the prosecutor’s office is required to share the case file (CPL Art. 38).  But up until that point, keeping the defense attorney in the dark is completely legal.   

Allegedly, the Women Were Denied Easy Access to their Lawyers & When Able to Meet, Conversations Were Recorded.  Is this legal?

No.  The amended CPL was specifically modified to rid the Chinese criminal justice system of these patently unfair practices.  But according emails issued by Yirenping, a Chinese-NGO that many of the women are affiliated with, many of the lawyers’ requests to meet with their clients have been ignored.  The few times the lawyers have been able to meet with their clients, according to Yirenping, the conversations have been recorded. 

Article 37 of the CPL clearly requires that detention centers promptly schedule meetings between lawyers and their clients when the suspected charges do not include national security; such meetings must be scheduled no later than 48 hours after the request.  The MPS Regulations reiterate that right (MPS Regs. Art. 48).  Further, Article 37 of the CPL plainly states that conversations between the lawyer and his or her client are not to be monitored (see also MPS Reg. Art. 52).

Is the Limit for Detention 30 days?

Detention in China

This is unclear.  Although the lawyers for the five women have stated that detention can only be for 30 days before moving to the next stage of the case (here, the police formally requesting that the prosecutors arrest the women) and the police have conveniently stated that it did in fact move the case forward on April 6 (approximately 30 days after the initial detentions), it is unclear whether there is in fact a 30 day limit to detention.  Article 89 of the CPL states that detention, without a request for arrest, is generally limited to three days.  But the police can unilaterally extended that limit for an additional four days (making for a total of seven days). 

But for suspects being investigated for “multiple crimes” (like the women here) or “crimes across multiple regions” (again, like the women here), the police may add an extra 30 days to the detention (CPL Art. 89).  In both the English and Chinese, it is unclear if that 30 days is added on top of the seven that was permissible or if 30 days is the outer limit of detention before request for arrest.  Although both the attorneys in this case and the police seem to maintain that 30 days is the limit, the law is not clear.  But at the most, 37 days is limit for detention. 

Was it legal to bring Wu Rongrong and Zheng Churan to Beijing for detention?

One of the five detained, Wu Rongrong

Yes.  Of the five women detained, two – Wu Rongrong, director of the Hangzhou-based Weizhiming Women’s Center and Zheng Churan, staff member at Yirenping Guanzhou, live outside of Beijing.  Both  were planning their International Women’s Day demonstrations in their respective cities and both were initially detained by the public security officials in each city.  But both were eventually transferred to Beijing’s Haidian Detention Center where the other three women, Wang Man, Wei Tingting and Li Tingting, all residents of Beijing, were being held. 

Both the CPL and the MPS Regulations permit the easy movement of suspects between cities, counties and provinces when appropriate.  Although the default presumption is that jurisdiction of a criminal case is where the crime was committed (see CPL Art. 24; MPS Regs Art. 15), both the Criminal Procedure Law and the MPS Regulations contemplate instances where that might not be the case, especially when there are multiple crimes and/or multiple defendants.    

In fact, an entire Chapter of the MPS Regulations – entitled Cooperation in Case-

One of the detained, Zheng Churan

Handling (Chapter 11, encompassing Articles 335-344) – specifically deals with these situations.  Unlike in the United States, where extradition from one state to another is a formal affair, here the transfer of a criminal suspect is more informal (see MPS Regs Art. 335 requiring local public security bureaus to cooperate with a request to detain a suspect & Art. 336 requiring only a “letter of cooperation” to obtain the locality’s cooperation). Presumably the Beijing PSB provided such a letter to the Hangzhou and Guangzhou PSBs in order to detain and eventually transfer Wu Rongrong and Zheng Churan to Beijing. 

Will the Women Be Arrested?

Their Fate is in the Prosecutor’s hands

Increasingly likely.  The fact that the police have changed the charges and have added more incidents to the charge, such as the women’s street performance demonstration against domestic violence where they dressed up in wedding dresses with fake blood and their “occupy men’s toilets” day to demonstration the insufficiency of women’s toilets in public places, provides for more evidence for arrest.  Further, adding extra incidents and making this multi-crime case, arrest and continued detention is all but certain.  According to Article 139(1) of the People’s Procuratorate’s Criminal Procedural Regulation (revised 2012), the prosecutor’s implementing regulations of the CPL, arrest is necessary when the criminal suspect may commit a new crime.  What provides evidence that the suspect might commit another crime if not detained?  The fact that “the suspect has committed multiple crimes, changed locations in committing multiple crimes, committed related crimes…” 

Within 24 hours of the police’s decision to arrest, the police must inform the family (MPS Reg. Art. 141).  Under Chinese law, the world should know by Tuesday if an arrest was made.  But that’s assuming that anyone actually follows the law.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, March 15, 2015

While the rest of the world celebrated International Women’s Day (March 8) with gender equality marches, women empowerment conferences, and female-oriented concerts, the Chinese government opted for a decidedly different approach: detaining a number of Chinese women activists.

On March 6 and 7, 2015, in various cities across China, public security officials rounded up at least 10 women, each of whom sought to mark International Women’s Day with a nation-wide campaign highlighting the increase in sexual harassment on public transportation.  Their goal?  To pass out leaflets and stickers calling for the end of such sexual harassment and for the police to take some action against sexual harassment on public transportation.

One of the five detained, Wu Rongrong, founder and executive director of the Weizhiming Women’s Center in Hangzhou

While five of these 10 women have been released, five were officially criminally detained on Friday allegedly under the Chinese government’s increasing catch-all for ideas and speech it does not like: “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” (Article 293(4) of China’s Criminal Law).

“It is extremely alarming that these five young women have been criminally detained for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’” Dr. Leta Hong Fincher, author of Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, wrote in an email to China Law & Policy.  “The women were merely planning to commemorate International Women’s Day by raising awareness about sexual harassment on public transportation – hardly an issue that would threaten the central government’s power or social stability in any way.”

In fact, the Chinese government itself has noted the growing problem of sexual harassment – including groping, rubbing and pictures taken under one’s skirt – on public transportation.  Unfortunately, instead of stepping up law enforcement of this quality-of-life crime, the Chinese government has largely left it to women to combat this harassment, urging female riders to forgo wearing mini-skirts or “hot pants” and looking to have women-only subway cars during rush hour.

Another of the detained, Wei Tingting (right), 27 and director of Ji’ande, an LGBT rights organization based in Beijing

“The detention of these women reveals the hollowness of [the] Chinese government claims of commitment to gender equality, particularly as China prepares to co-host the 2015 Global Women’s Summit at the United Nations, and the world marks the 20^th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing” Dr. Hong Fincher wrote to China Law & Policy.

But if you think detaining people for leafleting an issue we can all get behind is scary, here is the real frightening part: these five women – Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting, Wang Man and Li Tingting – never actually committed a crime, even under Chinese law.  By detaining these women prior to March 8 – when they were going to distribute their stickers and pamphlets – the women never caused a public disturbance as required by Article 293 of China’s Criminal Law.  Pu Zhiqiang, Cao Shunli, Xu Zhiyong, all detained, arrested or jailed for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” were at least able to partake in their “public disturbance” before the authorities took them away.  These women did not.  At most, in their attempt to make this a nation-wide campaign, they amassed an online following, all eager to partake in the March 8 events.

One of the detained, Zheng Churan, 25, and staff member of Yirenping based in Guangzhou

But, as Jeremy Daum at China Law Translate has noted, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s (SPP) Joint Interpretation of Article 293 (July 2013) makes it clear that causing a disturbance by picking quarrels must happen in some kind of public venue – a bus station, a market, a train station, a park, or “other public venue.” In prosectuting an Article 293(4) case, the courts are required to analyze the totality of the circumstances, including the type of public venue, the number of people attending the event, etc.  (See Article 5 of the Joint Interpretation of Article 293).

Further, as Daum has highlighted, even the SPC’s and SPP’s controversial Joint Interpretation on Internet Speech Crimes (Sept. 2013), which does interpret Article 293(4) of the Criminal Law, would only apply in situations where the individual has spread rumors on the internet or other online network.  The only public prosecution under Article 293(4) involving the internet – the case of blogger Qin Houhou – is precisely this situation.  In addition to being charged with violating Artcile 293(4) – the picking quarrels provision – Qin was also charged and convicted of criminal slander.

Another detained activist, Li Tingting, 25 and Beijing-based manager of the LGBT program at the Beijing Yirenping Center

By criminally detaining these women, the Chinese police have stepped up this game, making a formal arrest and prosecution more likely.  While prosecution under Article 293(4) usually has a maximum prison sentence of five years, that sentence can be extended to 10 years where the defendant organizes others to commit the disturbance multiple times.  Given that these women likely were the organizers of the event, a 10 year prison term is a possibility.  Even though the current charge is groundless under Chinese law.

On Friday, the U.S.’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, tweeted her disgust with the Chinese government’s detention of Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting, Wang Man and Li Tingting.  But the United States, and the rest of the world, must maintain this rhetoric.

Fifth detained activist, Wang Man, Beijing-based coordinator for the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP).

Twenty years ago, in Beijing China, Hillary Clinton ignored Chinese pressure to soften her remarks at United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women.  Instead, she rocked the world by forcefully stating that ” human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”  It’s time that Secretary Clinton, a potential presidential candidate, renew that sentiment and call for the release of these women – innocent even under Chinese law.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, February 17, 2015

Happy Lunar New Year!

On Thursday, the world says goodbye to year of the horse and welcomes year of the…..what? Is it a sheep? A ram? A goat? For this Lunar New Year, it’s okay to be confused. And walking down the streets of Chinatown does not make things any clearer. Fuzzy stuffed sheep abound, as do cute little billy goat statutes and the occasional muscular ram. What in heaven’s name is going on with this Lunar New Year?

The confusion stems from the Chinese word used to describe the upcoming year – 羊 (yáng). Each of the animals – the sheep, the goat, the ram – use this character in its name. In Chinese, sheep is 绵羊 (mián yáng), literally meaning “soft, horned, hoofed animal;” goat is 山羊 (shān yáng), a “mountain, horned, hoofed animal;” and ram is 公羊 (gōng yáng), meaning a “male, horned, hoofed animal.” For sure if you go into a Chinese restaurant and order a dish of yang, it will be lamb meat. But the same doesn’t hold true for the Lunar New Year. Does yang mean sheep, goat or ram?

In Vietnam, a country that also celebrates the Lunar New Year (known there as Tet), they dispensed with this

Year of the Sheep, Goat or Ram? You decide!

problem a long time ago, declaring the zodiac sign a goat. But in China, the debate still rages. While many feng shui experts declare that goat is the more fitting translation (because of the “horns” that appear a top the character yáng), the attributes given to a person born under the Yang sign resemble a sheep: kind, polite, creative, filial, timid in nature, and sensitive.

It is these sheep-like characteristics that have caused couples in China to delay having a baby for a year. For those couples who get one bite at the apple, they do not want their only child to be a “follower.” As a result, the Chinese state-run media has launched a campaign encouraging couples to have sheep babies. CCTV ran a segment entitled “Hardly a Terrible Sign if People like Bruce Willis and Whoopi are Sheep.” Others listed, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner (both sheep!). Unclear if this will do the trick.

What’s so bad about being a sheep? These guys are fun!

But at any rate, year of the sheep, with its more docile personality, should be a bit calmer than last year’s horse. As every year is on its own five element cycle (wood, fire, earth. metal, water), this year is year of the Wood Sheep, However, each zodiac animal is associated with its own element – here, sheep’s intrinsic element is earth. Unfortunately, according to feng shui master Raymond Lo, wood – 2015’s element – conquers earth – the sheep’s internal element. Thus, the two are in a destructive relationship causing disharmony, but given the nature of the sheep, while 2015 will be filled with conflicts, these conflicts will be easily resolved through compromises.

But what Year of the Sheep has in store for you depends on YOUR sign. How will you do this year?  Check out your personal horoscope here (note you may have to do a Bazi test to determine the strength of your birth year element.  You can do that here – note that birth date is entered day-month-year).

To all of our friends who celebrate the Lunar New Year, may you have a healthy, happy and prosperous Year of the Sheep!

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, January 28, 2015

Dr. Leta Hong Fincher, author of Leftover Women

Sure women might not demand that their names be on the deed even after giving money to purchase the house, but does that matter in the case of divorce in China?  As Dr. Leta Hong Fincher points out in  Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, you bet that matters.  Changes in the law in 2011 – requiring physical proof of monetary contribution – has diminished women’s ability to claim their rightful part of the marital property in the case of divorce.  By why this change?  And why now?  Fincher expounds upon these questions in Part 2 of her interview with China Law & Policy and informs us why the rest of the world needs to wake up and  care about what is happening to women in China.

Read the transcript below of Part 2 of this two-part series or click the media player to listen to the podcast.

Length: 10:15 minutes

For Part 1 of this interview, please click here.

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EL: To switch gears a bit, you mention in your book some of the laws that impact this. You discuss the Supreme

Who gets the ugly couch in the case of divorce?

[People’s] Court 2011 Interpretation of China’s Marriage Law. You basically argue that this Interpretation – which in cases of divorce only allocates property to those whose name is on the deed absent some exceptions – denies women even more rights in the property market. Can you give a little bit more background on this Interpretation? Also, do you have any background on what caused the Supreme People’s Court to issue this Interpretation?

LHF: Effectively the Marriage Law was originally a real cornerstone of the Communist Revolution and it gave women rights to property, the right to divorce, all sorts of new rights. Over the years actually women’s rights to common marital property were strengthened. But in 2011, with this new judicial interpretation, effectively if the woman is unable to prove through legal, financial receipts that she put in a certain amount of money toward buying the home, she’s not entitled to that home in the event of a divorce. None of the women that I interviewed kept any receipts of their financial contribution to the homes. Moreover, money is fungible. So there many ways in which women’s money – if they are working women working for pay – there are many ways in which their pay is supporting the household. The man’s money may be going directly to paying off the mortgage so there is a receipt for the man’s contribution to the home.

This law is really detrimental to women’s property rights. Now, what I have heard anecdotally – I wasn’t specifically researching why the court issued this new judicial interpretation – but what I’ve heard anecdotally from some lawyers is that the Court was deluged with letters from parents of men who wanted to protect their sons when they got married. They didn’t want the wives of their sons to have any share in the home because the parents tend to put up so much money to buying these homes for their own sons. Because of China’s rapidly rising divorce rate, I’ve also heard that the Court simply wanted to simplify divorce rulings; just get these cases through the court fast.

But it has been an incredibly controversial interpretation and a lot of women across China are very upset about it but there’s no organized movement to protest it because organizing and protesting is so difficult [in China].

EL: I guess in looking at the Supreme People’s Court interpretation and how that has a negative impact on women, one of the things though that has happened recently is that China has had its first gender discrimination lawsuit in employment. That seems like a positive development in terms of women’s rights. So how do you gel the fact that in a country where the court can reject cases, so they allowed obviously this case to be heard and even though it settled, they did allow it and its been published in the newspaper. How do you gel that kind of a development with the leftover women and the 2011 Marriage Law Interpretation?

LHF: Well, Chinese society is certainly not static and there are some legal success. That gender discrimination lawsuit was very important and it set an important precedent. But the fact is that there are so many other systemic ways in which women’s rights and gains are being reversed in the past two decades. One successful lawsuit here or there doesn’t fundamentally change the situation for the vast majority of women. Most notably there is still no specific law on domestic violence. Feminist lawyers and activist had been lobbying for over a decade to pass a law. And they’ve drafted the language, it’s all ready, but it simply hasn’t been passed.

EL: To go back to that because your book ends where you do discuss some individuals that are trying to change things a little bit, incrementally, but I have to admit it didn’t seem like there was going to be a lot of change from them even though they’re brave in what they are doing. It sounds like, based on what you say you don’t see a lot of change happening soon. Is that correct? Or if you do see any change, where do you see it coming from?

LHF: I certainly don’t see change coming from an organized nationwide women’s rights movement simply because

Will there be an organized and vocal women’s rights movement in China?

the political atmosphere is too severely oppressive for that to happen. But what does give me hope is that individual women can make choices in their own lives to avoid getting trapped in a very discriminatory system.

For example, there are women in their late 20s who have told me that they refuse to ever get married because marriage is a bad institution for women in China. They see this as an empowering choice. That doesn’t mean that they’re never going to have a lover or a boyfriend or maybe they’re lesbian. But there are individual ways in which women can act to empower themselves. But once they enter the institution of marriage it is very, very difficult. Marriage as an institution doesn’t protect women’s rights.

Contrary to the myths that are spread by the propaganda of the state media that single women in China are extremely miserable and lonely, I see the reverse. Single women are the ones who tend to do better. They don’t have husbands holding them back, telling them what to do; they have a lot more freedom. Women who are married, if there is any problem at all in the marriage, they’re extraordinarily vulnerable.

EL: And just in closing, you’re book is a fascinating book and I do recommend for everybody to read, especially if they really want to understand China today and women in China today. But why do you think the rest of the world should be paying attention to this issue if at all?

“Working women are a great revolutionary force”

LHF: Well the thing is that, let’s put aside the issue of fair treatment for women. Obviously women are being treated unfairly in China and are being discriminated against. But, as an economic issue, it’s very important. China’s obviously becoming increasingly a driver of global economic growth. The fact that women are basically being told by the government that they should stop working so hard and return to the home is going to end up having very damaging long-term economic consequences for China.

There’s already a declining labor force participation among women, particularly in the cities according to the latest census results; there’s a dramatically widening gender income gap. These are the most talented women in the country and if you’re telling the most talented female workers in China – it’s okay just leave the workforce – that’s going to hurt China’s economy. Of course if China’s economic development is hurt, if it is destabilizing, that’s going to affect the rest of the world. So it is something the rest of the world should be interested in.

EL: I want to thank you again for spending time with China Law & Policy. Just so our readers know, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, that can be purchased at amazon.com. Thank you again.

LHF: Thanks so much for having me.

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For Part 1 of this interview, please click here.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, January 27, 2015

Dr. Leta Hong Fincher, author of Leftover Women

The opening of China to market forces in 1978 unleashed tremendous benefit for the Chinese people – raising hundreds of millions out of poverty, establishing China as the world’s second largest economy.  But it has witnessed a lot of bad – enormous environmental degradation, rampant corruption, and severe income disparities.  Unfortunately, one negative effect has gone less noticed: the declining status of women in Chinese society.   In emancipating women from traditional roles, Mao Zedong once proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky.”  But as Dr. Leta Hong Fincher has revealed in her new book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China,today, women don’t even hold half of the deed to marital property.

In an interview conducted in July 2014 with China Law & Policy, Fincher explained how women – through the pressure to marry at all costs – have been excluded from one of the largest accumulations of wealth in the history of the world: China’s hot real estate market.  And as Fincher shockingly explains, this phenomenon is not merely an accident of China’s growth.  It is very much an intentional government policy.  (Note that posting of this interview was delayed as a result of CL&P’s backlog)

Read the transcript below of Part 1 of this two-part series or click the media player to listen to the podcast.

Length: 14:05 minutes

Please come back tomorrow to read or listen to Part 2 of this interview.

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EL:   Thank you for joining us today. Let’s start with the title of your book – Leftover Women. Can you explain more what this is; when the concept first came about?

LHF: The term leftover women or shengnu (剩女) was defined by the All-China Women’s Federation in 2007 to mean an urban professional woman over the age of 27 whose still single. And the same year, China’s Ministry of Education adopted the term as part of its official lexicon. Ever since 2007, China’s state media has very aggressively disseminated the term through its news reports, columns and commentaries. And you also see a lot of cartoons insulting single, urban educated women in their 20s; basically sending the message that these women are too ambitious they should stop focusing on their careers and they should instead look for a good husband before time runs out and they remain single forever.

EL: So you mention the state-run media promoting this and that also that this was a term created by the All-China Women’s Federation which is a government-backed organization. So is this an intentional concept that the Chinese government is pushing on women and if so, why?

LHF: I think there is no question that it is a deliberate campaign. If you look at the news reports that Xinhua put out in 2007 and 2008, there are quite a few of them that re-appear over and over and over again over the years and are still re-appearing even in 2013 with only slight changes in the wording. And maybe they will change the picture.

“Participating in the establishment of an industrialized nation makes us proud”

So there’s no question that the Propaganda Department wants to get these reports out and is pushing them out continuously. When I looked into the origins of the term, I noticed that in January 2007 China’s State Council issued a population decision which was a very important statement about what they called unprecedented population pressures facing China in part because of the sex ratio imbalance which they described as a real threat to social stability. And they said that China has a problem of so-called low quality of the population which would make it very difficult for China to compete in the global marketplace. So they set a key goal of so-called upgrading population quality. This term “population quality” or [renkou] suzhi (人口素质)can refer to a complex mix of superior genetic make-up, education, a more nurturing environment. The women who are being targeted in this leftover women media campaign are precisely the women who are considered to be of highest quality. So I argue that this campaign is in part an effort to get these highest-quality sort of speak women to marry and have a child for the good of the nation.

EL: In your book, you talk about the leftover women and then you tie that concept to the current property market. You argue basically that because of the fear of being leftover, the women end up losing the opportunity to gain from one of the largest accumulations of wealth in Chinese history which is basically the current urban real estate market. Can you explain that tie a little clearer?

LHF: First of all, there are a lot of complicated dynamics that go into home buying in China. So marriage is inextricably connected to home buying in contemporary China. Along with very intense marriage pressure there is also intense pressure to buy a home. The norm is that the man is supposed to be the official homeowner and there’s a lot of propaganda, real estate developer advertisement and online matchmaking advertisements all perpetuating the notion that a man must own a home in order to attract a bride. And they also spread the notion that Chinese women will refuse to marry a man unless he owns a home.

So one of the consequences of this is that Chinese parents tend to only buy homes for their sons and not for their

Home buying in China

daughters. Women are shut out of property accumulation first of all because their parents tend not to support them in anyway. These homes are too expensive for young people to buy on their own. If your parents are not helping you then you’re really stuck. So the women that I’ve interviewed who are in their 20s and have a boyfriend and they’re thinking about marriage, they often will take their life savings and transfer it to the boyfriend to finance the purchase of a home which is then only registered in the man’s name. These women who are extremely educated and very, very intelligent and sophisticated and they actually want economic independence and they say that they actually want to own their own home.   But then I ask them, well then why when you are buying this marital home, why aren’t you putting your name on the deed?

A lot of them say that it’s simply because they are at the age where they’re considered leftover. Which can start as early as even before 25 years old. Some women can already start feeling that way. So they’re very anxious to get married. They’re own parents are pressuring them to get married. They’re certainly coming under a lot of pressure from the media. They’re coming under pressure from their teachers, the educational system, and their own doctors who tell women in their 20s that they really need to have a child in their so-called best child rearing years which is before the age of 30. Even doctors tell them that if they wait until past 30 to have a child, there child will have a birth defect.

So there is intense pressure on these women to marry because they genuinely believe that time will run out for them. These women, when it comes down to it, are very often unwilling to walk away from an unequal arrangement even if they really want that. And in most cases they do want equality. But the pressures against them are just so intense.

Getting Married in China – bliss until you realized you are not on the deed!

EL: I guess in reading your book, that was the hardest part for me to understand, that you have these very well-educated women. Most the of the women you interview are at least college educated if not PhDs. Very urban and sophisticated. They seem like this modern woman. It just seems so hard to comprehend that you have so many so willing to give up their equal economic rights in a relationship because of this concept. Is it just this media campaign – I guess if you can talk more about how strong this media campaign is. Or is it also something with the education system itself, that women aren’t questioning this propaganda. I just think if you were in a Western country, there would be more questioning of it.

LHF: Well it’s certainly not just [media]. I talk about the leftover women campaign. But when it comes to home buying, that’s simply one factor that’s shutting women out of property ownership. The fact that homes are so expensive is a huge factor as well. If homes were not so expensive then these women would be able to save up enough money on their own. Most of the women I interviewed wanted their own homes. So if they were able to afford it on their own, they would buy their own homes.

So part of it is China’s privatization in housing and the subsequent real estate boom has created these tremendous
new pressures on everybody in Chinese society: on the parents, on men and women. Even if the woman actually transfers her life savings over to the man to finance this loan [to buy the house], usually the man’s family ends up putting in more money than she does simply because the man’s parents have been saving all their lives. So then it may come down to the fact that the man’s family says: “well we put in more money therefore you have no right to put your name on the deed.” It may be the man’s parents who are really fighting with her and maybe her boyfriend would support adding her name to the deed. But it’s a very complicated transaction involving extended families pitted against each other.

But because of this fear that women over a certain age in their mid to late 20s are not going to be able to find a husband, it often winds up being that the parents of the daughter may actually help her finance the purchase the home but they don’t want the daughter to insist on adding her name because they’re afraid that her boyfriend or fiancé will walk out on her.

So even the parents of the daughter are urging her to stop being so assertive and not fight with the boyfriend and to

What’s wrong with being single? These ladies look like they are having fun!

just give in. In fact a lot of these young women again argue a lot; they can get into very heated arguments with their fiancés over the issue of putting their name on the property deed. So it is not as though they just blindly go into it and willingly give away all of their money and don’t think about it. Although that said there are some women who do that.

But it’s just a multi-layered form of discrimination against women. It also has to do with state regulations on the purchasing of property. For example, one woman I interviewed who was a PhD candidate, extremely educated, she desperately wanted her name on the property deed but her boyfriend and her own parents were telling her that it’s not worth putting her name on the deed because then if they want to buy a second home, then they would have to pay a much higher down payment. So that was the reason she gave for leaving her name off the deed. But she felt very bad about that. Then when I asked her well can you afford to buy a second home, are you going to buy one, she said no we can’t afford to buy it. So there are just many layers of obstacles for these women.

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Part 2 of this two-part series will be posted tomorrow. 

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, January 9, 2015

General Tso is only one of the many fascinating characters that appear in this charming documentary that seeks to uncover the origins of one of America’s favorite dishes: General Tso’s Chicken. But The Search for General Tso is more than just a story of a dish central to America, it also recounts the history and struggle of those who make the dish.

General Tso starts simply enough, asking how did Chinese food become so popular in America and who was this General Tso. It’s that question – and uncovering how the dish came into being – that takes the movie across America, to China and eventually landing in Taiwan. But through that journey, the director – Ian Cheney – deftly interweaves the story of the Chinese in America. Unlike General Tso’s Chicken, that story is not always tasty.

Cheney interviews various historians and academics who explain how a people that represent a little less than 2% of the U.S. population have restaurants in almost every city, town, and village in America. Unfortunately, the explanation is often tied with our prejudice. By the late 1800s, with anti-Chinese laws and bias in California, Chinese

General Tso’s Chicken

could not find work and were driven into the laundry and restaurant businesses. Many left California in the hopes that other parts of the United States would be less prejudiced. But as the story of David Leong demonstrates, that was often a misplaced hope. A World War II veteran, Leong moved to Springfield, Missouri to open a Chinese restaurant. In 1963, his new restaurant was bombed days before it was set to open. Leong would eventually find acceptance and popularity after inventing Springfield Cashew Chicken, but his story recounts the prejudice and violence that many Chinese-Americans faced.

But the movie leaves you with hope. The characters are poignantly portrayed -from the collector of Chinese menus (one from 1916!), to the man who travels the United States in an attempt to eat at every Chinese restaurant, to Cecilia and Philip Chang (of P.F. Chang fame), and finally to the chef who invented the dish. And each demonstrates that the love of this dish transcends race and that maybe, just maybe, has brought us all a little closer.

Rating:

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The Search for General Tso will be showing in select theaters throughout the United States this weekend. A complete listing can be found on the movie’s website: http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/

The movie can also be easily downloaded through iTunes or Amazon Instant Video.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, October 26, 2014

Movie Poster for Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters

The China Institute‘s Cultural Revolution film series kicked off with a bang the other week with a rarely-viewed Xie Jin (pronounced Sye Gin) film, Two Stage Sisters (舞台姐妹).  All of the films being shown  makes this little series a gem.  But it is the series’ fortuitous timing – with President Xi Jinping’s (pronounced See Gin-ping) recent speech on the arts – that makes it a must see for anyone trying to understand the possible direction China’s arts may take in the future.

Two Stage Sisters, filmed in 1964 during a more open time before the onset of the Cultural Revolution, breaks down any notion that  propaganda films from this time period could not also be art.  The film follows the lives of two Shaoxing opera actresses – Yuehong and Chunhua – as they travel through a turbulent time in China’s history.  The film opens in 1935’s rural China.  Chunhua, who has run away from her in-laws who had plans to sell her, finds herself hiding in the store room of a local opera troupe.  The troupe – run by Yuehong’s father – adopts her and discovering that she has a natural talent for Shaoxing opera, makes her the star of the show along with Yuehong.  Showing the abusive practices of pre-revolution China, after the father dies, the two stage sisters are sold to a Shanghai opera troupe to pay off their father’s debts.

In early 1940s Shanghai, Yuehong and Chunhua become stars.  But slowly, as China begins to change, so does the relationship between the two women.  Chunhua remains the virtuous peasant.  Even when a wealthy patron wants to adopt her as her daughter, Chunhua, ever pure to the art, rejects the patron’s advances.  Yuehong questions Chunhua’s decision and is slowly seduced by the opera troupe’s manager as well as the Guomingdang, bourgeois lifestyle that he offers.  While Chunhua, inspired by Lu Xun’s work, begins to write revolutionary operas, Yuehong retires and fills her life with pearls, furs and diamonds.

Two Stage Sisters is marked by amazingly intense melodrama with the growing tension between the two sisters and the impending revolution

Chunhua (left) and Yuehong begin to lead different lives

building in every scene.  It is in that melodrama that director Xie Jin excels and makes this film into a masterpiece.   The drama crescendos in an artfully shot courtroom scene that demonstrates that if history did not get in the way, Xie Jin could have been China’s Kurosawa.

But like most things in China, history and politics did get in the way, essentially putting Xie Jin’s career on hold for the next twenty years.  Two Stage Sisters, filmed with the approval of Xia Yan (pronounced Syia Yen), China’s Vice Minister of Culture, was produced at time when Mao Zedong’s power was at its lowest due to the tragic debacle of the Great Leap Forward.  But that period would not last and it is the Cultural Revolution itself that becomes Mao’s plan to regain complete power.

With the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Xie’s film was condemned precisely because it had not been hard enough on Yuehong, the sister that succumbs to materialism.  Xie Jin’s art of portraying even the “villain” in a nuanced and sympathetic manner did not fly during the Cultural Revolution.  For the Red Guards who would begin to rule society for the next few years, Chunhua’s forgiveness of Yuehong came too easy.  For them, Yuehong – an enemy of the socialist state – should have been punished more for her capitalist ways.

Director Xie Jin at work.

Additionally, produced with the assistance of Xia Yan, a vocal critic of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and a target of Mao’s wife and former actress Jiang Qing, Two Stage Sisters’ condemnation was inevitable.  Soon after the start of the Cultural Revolution, Xia was purged and jailed for the eight years.  Xie Jin would spend much of the Cultural Revolution and what should have been the prime of his career in a labor camp.

Two Stage Sisters, and the history that surrounds it, shows that art in the People’s Republic of China, while ostensibly required to “serve the people” in fact serves the political whims of its leaders.  Given this history, Xi Jinping’s recent October 15, 2014 meeting with China’s artists might be a bellwether for his attempts to tie art not just more to the Chinese Communist Party but more to his rule.  The Cultural Revolution found its origin in Mao’s 1943 speech at the Yenan Talks on Literature and Art.  For Mao, the revolution had two fronts – the arts and the military; there was no such thing as art for art’s sake.  Art and literature were essential for a successful revolution and the Yenan Talks made clear that art and literature needed to extol the masses and propel them forward for greater revolution.  At a point though, Mao noted that with the masses’ rising cultural levels, art standards would have to rise as well.  But the art would still need to serve the people.

Xi’s October 15 speech, while not as obvious, has aspects that are eerily similar to Mao’s 1943 Talks.  According to Xinhua News agency, which summarized Xi’s remarks rather than print them, Xi called on artists and authors to be one with the people and to use their art to promote the Party: “Literature and art must reflect well the people’s wishes; it must persist in the fundamental orientation of serving the people and serving Socialism” (translation courtesy of Rogier Creemers).  Xi also digressed on the need to produce quality works for the masses’ increased cultural awareness.

Will Xi try to dominate the arts the way Mao did during the Cultural Revolution?  Or was this just a roundabout way to state the obvious: even

Xi Jinping speaking on arts in literature in today’s China

Chinese people don’t really want to watch Chinese movies and there is a genuine need to improve quality?  Or is it something else?  For sure we won’t be seeing a Cultural Revolution anytime soon.  But if I was an artist, author or director in China right now, with a speech that makes reference to “a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend (百花齐放、百家争鸣的方针),” I would certainly sit this round of art-making out.  That unfortunately means the arts in China – at least those sanctioned by the state – will continue to stay at its current level.

Two Stage Sisters
Director: Xie Jin
1964
Rating:

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The China Institute’s Cultural Revolution Film Series runs now through November 19, 2014 with a movie shown every Wednesday night.  Tickets are $15 and each movie is followed by a Q&A session with either the director or someone expert in the movie.  The China Institute is located at 125 E 65th Street in New York City.