China's top leadership group is revealed at the end of the 17th Party Congress

Publish Post

October 24, 2007

Monday, October 22 was one of those major events in Chinese Communist history. It marked the conclusion of the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress when China's top leaders for the next 5 years were chosen. Above is a picture of the leaders lined up on the stage at the Great Hall of the People, the building to the west of Tiananmen Square. The head honcho is Hu Jintao (5th from the left) who holds the most important positions: General Secretary of the Party, Chairman of the Party Military Commission, and President.

Below Hu is a group of 8 other guys who make up the Political Bureau (or Politburo) Standing Committee. These are the most powerful policymakers in the country with the final say on major policies. They include Wu Bangguo the head of the National People's Congress (4th from the right), Premier Wen Jiabao (4th from left), Jia Qinglin (3rd from the right) the head of the People's Consultative Congress, Xi Jinping (2nd from right) the head of the Party Secretariat and the vice-president, and Li Keqiang (2nd from left) the executive vice-premier.

The last two are the most interesting because they are slated to be the top two leaders five years from now. Xi is slated to succeed Hu as the top leader in 5 years, while Li Keqiang will replace Wen as premier, although none of this is written in stone.

What would be equivalent of the Politburo Standing Committee in the U.S.? Something like having President Bush, VP Cheney, Speaker of the House Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, as well as the future prez (Hilary Clinton?) and vp (Barack Obama?) together in one body. And they would all be from the same political party.

This Party Congress was pretty tame as party congresses go. There were few surprises and most political observers got the final lineup right before it was announced on Monday. This suggests that there was little backroom infighting and no major power struggles in deciding who the top leaders would be. It was a smooth, predictable affair, something the Hu and the Party wanted the year before the 2008 Olympics.

The Foreign Legation Quarter in Beijing: a virtual tour

September 17, 2007

One of the more interesting walks through Beijing is the former Foreign Legation Quarter which lies to the east of Tiananmen Square. The Legation quarter was the area where the Western powers and Japan had their embassies during the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th. Manchus, Mongolians and Koreans also resided in this area. It stands as a vivid reminder of foreign occupation and the site of one of China's most humiliating episodes: the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers belonged to a religious society that called themselves the "Righteous and Harmonious Fists" (Yi He Quan) who believed they could use a combination of martial arts and animistic magic to fight and expel foreigners from China. The Boxers slaughtered Christian missionaries and Christian Chinese converts throughout north China, and their attacks reached a climax in Beijing in the spring of 1900 with attacks on missionaries and Chinese Christians in and around the city. By June, foreigners and Chinese Christians took refuge from these attacks in the Foreign Legation Quarter where they held out for 55 days waiting for help. When the Qing imperial court refused to suppress the rebellion, the foreign powers responded by calling in an allied expeditionary force known as the "Eight Nation Alliance" (baguo lianjun). The alliance started in the port city of Tianjin and made their way into Beijing by August 14 where they broke the seige of the Legation Quarters and occupied Beijing. In the following year, the Qing imperial court signed the humiliating "Boxer Protocol" where they promised, among other things, to pay a staggering indemnity to the foreign powers that is estimated to be about 333 million U.S. dollars.

We start our walk here at Zhengyang ("facing sun") Gate, which was damaged during the Boxer Rebellion. This gate forms the southern entrance to Tiananmen Square, and is the largest of the 9 gates that were part of the inner city walls that were taken down in the 1950s. Take the subway to the Qianmen stop and when you get out, you'll be outside this gate. Walk through the gate into the square, and you'll see Mao's mausoleum in front of you. Turn around and this is the view you should see.


To your left (looking east), you should see this building which is on the western border of the Legation quarter. To get there, take the underground tunnel that leads to the other side of the street.










When you get to the other side of the street, enter into the alley way that leads past this building. This alley is Dong jiao min xiang and is the southern border of the Legation quarter. Continue walking east along this alleyway. To your right, as you walk past this building (which houses the Management Committee of the Tiananmen District government), you'll pass the area that was the U.S. legation. You won't be able to see much because of the walls.








Update: In September of 2008, I brought another group of students to tour this area and we found that the former U.S. legation area had been turned into a posh, upscale restaurant complex that includes a French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese restaurant. I guess you could say it's a form of culinary colonialism!

Below left is a picture of the flyer for the complex, called Legation Ltd. (According to one source, the Americans had a baseball field built on the grounds of this complex.) On the right is a picture of the former U.S. embassy building which now houses the French restaurant.























One thing you'll notice when you walk through this neighborhood (if you can read Chinese) is that it is home to many government and public security (the name of China's police) offices. Many of these buildings are off limits and you'll see guards standing at the gates to ward off any curiousity seekers.


Further up the street you'll find this building to your right. It's used to be the National City Bank of New York, and is now the Beijing City Police Museum. Across the street, you'll see an imposing modern structure which is the Supreme People's Court. It used to be the site of the former Soviet legation. If you go to the entrance of the alleyway just to the west of the Supreme People's Court, you'll see etched on one of the walls "USSR Embassy Compound Lane".



Further up Dong jiao min xiang, you'll come to an intersection. This building will be on the northeast corner. It is the former Yokohama Specie Bank, one of several banks in the Legation quarter, and now home to a Chinese company.









Turn left at this intersection up Zhengyi Road, and on your right, you'll come to this gate which marks the entrance to the former Japanese legation. As the black and white plaque on the gate states, this compound is now home to the Beijing city government. The last emperor Pu Yi apparently holed up here when he was forced out of the Forbidden City in 1924. A little further up, on your left, you'll see the gates to the former British legation.






Go back down to Dong jiao min xiang and continue east. On your left, over these walls, is the site of the former French legation. Go further up and you'll see the gate which is flanked by two stone lions. The buildings in the legation were destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and the lions are all that remains. Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia holed up here in 1970 and again in 1979 when Cambodia was attacked by the U.S. and Vietnam.







Past the French legation, you'll come to an intersection. On the northeast corner rise the spires of St. Michael's Catholic Church. Across the street from the church are the grounds of the former Belgian legation.

Turn left up Taijichang Street and go to the third alleyway on your right. On your left, you'll see the headquarters of the Beijing city Party Committee, the real seat of power in Beijing politics.


On the third alleyway on the right, called Taijichang Toutiao, look for this brick with the words "Rue Hart". This street was named after Sir Robert Hart who was the Inspector General of the Chinese customs service from 1863-1907. Hart had a residence across the street in what is now the Overseas Friendship Association headquarters. Further down Rue Hart, one can find the former Danish legation on the right, and the former Austro-Hungarian legation.



Go back to Taijichang Street and continue north until you get to the next big intersection. Here you see the start of Wangfujing, Beijing's main shopping drag, and a great place just to walk (no cars are allowed for several blocks) and window shop. On the northwest corner is the Beijing Hotel, and a few blocks up on your left, you'll find the Foreign Languages Bookstore, a nice place to browse for English-language books on China and other subjects. Enjoy!



For more pictures of the Foreign Legation quarter, go to my Flickr website at www.flickr.com/photos/theshiehs and go to the collection entitled Beijing, and you'll see a set entitled Foreign Legation Quarter.

Welcome to the Marist in China blog

August 14, 2007

Ni hao (Chinese for hello)! This is Shawn Shieh, blogging from Beijing. I’m a professor of political science who has been teaching for the last 12 years at Marist. I thought I might spend the rest of my life in Poughkeepsie until my wife joined the foreign commercial service and was posted to Bejing last year. My family moved out here in December and I joined them this May. We plan to be here for at least 3 years. My wife works at the U.S. embassy and my two children, ages 11 and 15, attend the International School of Beijing which is a modern, state-of-the-art school located in the suburbs. We live in the city proper, on the eastern side between the third and fourth ring roads (there are 6 concentric ring roads in Beijing with the Forbidden City as the epicenter). We love where we live which is in a quiet complex with its own little park, an outdoor pool and tennis courts. But the best thing about our home is that it is in the middle of a vibrant, international neighborhood with great restaurants and nightlife all around us. We have what we feel is the best of both worlds.

While I’m here, I will be teaching some online classes for Marist and doing some blogging and podcasting about China that will be used for specific courses. This year, I’m working to tie my blogs and podcasts to courses taught by Kristin Bayer, a professor in the history department who teaches Chinese and Asian history. I plan to do some blogging and podcasting for her Women in Asia class this fall, and her Modern China class next spring. I also plan to use the blogs and podcasts for my Marist in China class that I will be teaching in May. For that class, I will be leading a group of Marist students to various locations in China and teaching them about this country’s rich past, and its vibrant and promising present.

We are no strangers to China. My wife and I have been working, traveling and doing research on China since 1984 and we have seen some tremendous changes. When we first came here, very few foreigners were interested in China. But that has all changed. China seems to be the place to be in the early 21^st century. You can sense the excitement generated by China’s rapid emergence on the world stage most intensely here in Beijing which will be host to the 2008 Olympics. I hope my blogs and podcasts will give you some sense of what is going on here, and more importantly, provide you with a better understanding of this important country and its people. Who knows? Maybe it will even get you to take a Chinese language or history class, or even take a trip to China.

If you have any questions about China, feel free to send me an email at shawn.shieh@marist.edu and I'll try to respond as quickly as I can.

Xmas in Beijing

IMG_1719
Originally uploaded by shawnshieh

Christmas in Beijing, December 27, 2006

Is the world becoming more interconnected as a result of globalization? Well, yes and no. There is more blending of cultures as a result of globalization, but sometimes that blending triggers a reaction that calls for preserving the national culture from outside influences. A perfect example of this tension between nationalism and transnationalism is happening here in Beijing. I’m amazed at the extent to which the Chinese have embraced Xmas. Everywhere we go, there are Xmas decorations and brightly lit signs saying Merry Christma, Xmas trees and decorations for sale, and salespeople and servers in restaurants decked out in Santa suits and Santa hats. It’s like Whoville gone crazy. This is a perfect example of transnationalism, and like many transnational trends, it’s driven by global capitalism, the almighty dollar (or yuan if you’re in China). I’ve asked a number of taxi drivers in Beijing if they know what Xmas is about. They all have the same response: no. They’ve never heard about the Xmas story, about Christ, about the religious significance of Xmas. They just know Xmas is good for business.

Some Chinese have taken offense at what they see is a blind embrace of Xmas. In a recent Washington Post article, some Ph.D. students from some of China’s most famous universities wrote an open letter calling on Chinese to stop blindly embracing things Western like Xmas, and to start celebrating their own holidays and religions like Buddhism and Taoism. They are afraid that the worship of Xmas will weaken Chinese appreciation for their own traditions. This is an example of cultural nationalism, pride in their national traditions and customs.

The open letter triggered a vigorous debate among netizens in the large Chinese online community. Some Chinese responded to the open letter by saying that the Ph.d. students are taking the Xmas threat too seriously, and even criticized them for trying to restrict their lifestyles. To many Chinese, Xmas is just another fun event and another reason to celebrate and take the family out. They see the mixing of cultures as a good thing. They point out that they aren’t embracing the religious aspect of Xmas, just the commercial aspect, so it’s not like they’re surrendering their souls, just their pocketbooks.