Frankfurt book fair

A $15 million propaganda campaign flushed down the fuckin' toilet! I LOVE IT! The world sees through your suits and smiles. It is not the image that projects reality but reality that rudely imposes on your image. The Tiannamen massacre writers and the Dalai Lama books and the Falun Gong stuff IS Chinese culture, the poetry of death and suffering painted with the blood that the Beijing clique have spilled over six decades! The scarred, torture victims is YOUR Guernica, Emperor Hu!

If the Chinese want to be culturally equal to the West here are some steps:

1. Admit our history of Mao's gross mismanagement that have lead to famine and tyranny. American academics across the political spectrum have long come to terms with Indian massacres and removals with bookshelves upon bookshelves of unrestricted research. Until the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution is deconstructed by "revisionist" Chinese academics without fear of intimidation or censorship, China will NEVER be seen as open-minded. Are you nationalists so insecure about modern China that you don't think our countrymen can't handle a little introspection?

2. Accept that socialist management theory has failed to develop original thinkers and inventors. You can buy the IBM building, the IBM labs, the IBM machines but a workforce of suck-ups and risk-averse conformists will always be inferior to the American-educated tinkerer and entrepreneur who will not hesitate to plunge into the unknown. Why is it that American born Chinese who work in China often get the fuck out because they can't stand the fear and regimentation? Why is it that Chinese who get educated in America return to China not to work in government agencies but open their own businesses?

3. Hands off the Internet cafes. Let the rebels rebel. Let the media fly as high or as low as it wants: Expose corruption, expose government officials, dueling editorials, reader's letters, sex columns, movie reviews, book reviews, music reviews from around the world.

And this official complains that the world is biased against China? Those who deny its people free expression deserve neither fairness nor an open microphone. You are not fair to your people, so I will not be fair to you. You have no expectation of being treated equally. The crimes of your state precede you with a deficit of credibility and goodwill. Go back to the occupied Middle Kingdom and report to your superior that you, your ministry and your nation have failed.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KJ27Ad02.html

China's culture offensive hits a wall
By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING - This year's Frankfurt Book Fair may have been more of an embarrassment than prestige for its guest of honor - China - but the country's cultural mandarins still believe that the future of cultural ideas belongs to the Middle Kingdom and that the global financial crisis will play a role in helping them achieve that. Wu Wei - the woman behind Beijing's "going global" project for Chinese literature - told the Southern Weekend, a popular newspaper, last week that the economic downturn has focused global attention on China in just about every aspect. "

In the West in particular, it has made many people talk about China's model and what will happen when China 'rules the world'," she said. "But the West knows little about China's culture and ideas and ignorance breeds fear. It is the source of all kinds of 'threat' and 'collapse' theories. But this interest is also a chance for us to propagate our ideas." Beijing has exploited international attention to the full, raising its global profile in politics and economic affairs and even attempting to export its economic model. Leaving a mark in the world of cultural ideas, though, has presented a tougher challenge. For several years now, Beijing has battled to reverse its "cultural deficit", where it imports 10 times more books than it exports.

Now one of the world's largest economies and trading powers, China has spearheaded a cultural counteroffensive in a belief that cultural industry is the next step in its transformation from global upstart to superstar. As part of this attempt to raise the country's cultural profile abroad Beijing has invested in hundreds of Confucian institutes that are teaching Mandarin around the world and launching new foreign-language media outlets.

In publishing, Wu, as a senior official at the Information Department of the State Council, has led a team of experts tasked with selecting the most appealing titles to be translated and marketed around the world. They spent nearly five years and invested US$15 million preparing for China's debut at the Frankfurt Book Fair - referred to here as the "Olympics of the publishing world" - which was held on October 14-18. The country was featured as the guest of honor - a choice that pleased Beijing in a year marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the communist republic. But to the cultural officials' dismay, the event was marred with controversy and spats over human rights and press freedoms.

Two conflicting images of China squabbled for limelight at the fair - one, of the state-sponsored written word, put forward by Beijing, and the other of China on the fringe, presented by dissidents living abroad and fighting for their voices to be heard. Xi Jinping, Chinese vice president and seen by some people as a likely heir to party chief Hu Jintao, led the official delegation of 50 state-endorsed writers and 600 artists. They presented some 100 translated books - the first fruits of Beijing's "going out" project for Chinese literature.

These included two volumes by former party chief Jiang Zemin - one on China's foray into the information technology industry and another on the country's energy policies. Fiction titles included best-selling works such as Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem and Yu Hua's Brothers. Beijing, however, was clearly uncomfortable with allowing anyone outside of the state umbrella to speak for China. Despite an invitation extended by the fair organizers, Beijing banned author Liao Yiwu from attending the event. After serving a four-year prison sentence for writing poetry about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, Liao has remained under surveillance by police, who refused to lift his travel ban.

Liao's book on China's underprivileged, The Corpse Walker, as well as his essays about the survivors and victims of last year's earthquake in Sichuan, have reportedly rankled censors at home. Still, there was a lot the official Chinese delegation could not control. Author-in-exile Bei Ling and writer Dai Qing, whose books about the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement and the Three Gorges Dam - the world's largest dam, which has generated much controversy at home and abroad - are banned on the mainland, represented dissident China.

Envoys of Tibetan exiled leader the Dalai Lama and Uyghur pro-independence advocate Rebiya Kadeer, condemned by Beijing as a terrorist, were also present. Beijing could not prevent the foreign media from zooming in on its intolerance of free speech and criticizing the communist party. When German magazine Der Spiegel ran a feature on the fair, headlined "China, the Unwelcome Guest", Chinese delegates protested that European media and political circles were biased. China's clout, though, was felt behind the scenes.

Bei Ling and Dai Qing were barred from making speeches at the closing ceremony. An outcry from the public and the media forced the fair organizers to fire the project manager for striking off the names of the dissident writers from the list of speakers at the last moment. Beijing put a positive spin on the outcome of the fair, despite the embarrassment caused by the tug-of-war between the official Chinese delegation and the dissident lobby. The country's sprawling pavilion at Frankfurt - featuring scrolls with different styles of calligraphy and an engraved "ink pool" - was described by the media here as the "place to be".

"This is an achievement of immense pride for us," Li Pengyi, a delegation member and vice president of the China Publishing Group, told reporters at the end of the fair. "One can say we are going home with two bumper harvests - one for the Chinese culture in general and one for China's copyright trade.” To continue raising the country's cultural profile abroad even in the middle of the current economic downturn, Chinese officials have decided to offer free books to about 100 libraries around the world, according to Wu Wei.

At a book fair at Ditan Park in Beijing, some of the crowd have heard about Beijing's reception in Frankfurt. "Foreigners always seek to embarrass China," said student Zhang Ziying. "With so much prejudice, how can they like any of our books?" But Lin Xuecong, who introduced himself only as a "book lover", says there is little worthy that is being written in China these days. "It is not about who are the authors of these books. It is about whether they can touch your heart and mind."