Natan,
Yes, the crackdown has added to this kind of problem. But, it depends on the technique you employ to do research. My own experience was different. I think it also has to do with who you cooperate with, their understanding of the state of the working class in China. I would say that if your friend spent time in a city like Shenyang or other northeastern cities ,where the heart of state owned industry is located, it is not that difficult to find sources for interviews and the like. I mean, hell, if Business Week and LA Times can do it, then why can't researchers who supposedly have a much more sophisticated understanding of China?
I would not disagree that the recent crackdown and the bombing of China's Belgrade embassy makes such efforts more complicated. But, then again, BW, NYT, LAT,...keep on publishing reports that indicate that they could do it...So, possibly your friend's research methodology is the problem (note the word "possibly", implying also "possibly not").
Steve
On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> I am not sure why you think it is so easy to get info on labor conditions.
> In Shanghai and South China near Hong Kong is is relatively easy to get some
> info, but in the interior it is very hard to get any access whatsoever.
>
> A friend just spent a chunk of the summer in interior areas trying to get
> any information about local factories and the conditions inside. He speaks
> good Chinese, has studied the country for years, but couldn't get any one to
> give him the time of day after spending a month-and-a-half there. The
> crackdown on the Buddhist movement has just added to the regular paranoia
> and everyone is apparently treating talking to foreigners like contracting
> the Plague.
>
> --Nathan newman
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> > [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Stephen E Philion
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 1:15 PM
> > To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu; lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> > Subject: Chinese Labor Activist Jailed for 10 yrs.
> >
> >
> > this is really wierd. American professors go to China and pay professors
> > to hire people to do all kinds of research all the time on labor related
> > issues, including interviews with workers about worker related protests.
> > Further, info on these issues is easily accessible from interviews with
> > taxi drivers, workers on the street, at factories, hanging out outside
> > factories...So, these charges are really quite odd, I doubt much in the
> > way of any 'intelligence' was revealed to the American professors that
> > they couldn't have gotten from the Workers' Daily...especially given the
> > pathetically low price of $US 300 that was paid. Foreign intelligence
> > agencies don't use piddly sums like $300 to buy off informants, they spend
> > 10s or hundreds of thousands of dollars on officials or intellectuals and
> > get them to collect the information they want.
> > The case of a University of Hawaii professor-spook who had hundreds of
> > thusands in money from the CIA to do very sensitive research on the
> > prospects of ethnic conflict in Xinxiang and dissolution of China...tells
> > us as much. Afterwards, the prof had a conflict with the CIA over the
> > findings. The CIA was hoping he would produce findings that would
> > demonstrate that China was going to fall apart from within as a result of
> > ethnic conflicts in Xinjiang. He found otherwise and reported that in his
> > findings. A while thereafter, in a 'leftist' Maoist publication in China,
> > I found an article on this episode, but nothing in the way of a
> > note or comment on how a CIA funded prof could so *easily* get officials
> > and intellectuals to do such sensitive and intense intelligence gathering
> > for them.
> > In my research in China I occasionally ran into suspicion that I was
> > part of some foreign organization...I was not unsympathetic with Chinese
> > concerns with intelligence organizations' penetration of China, but I
> > would still tell people that the state of research in China today is one
> > that is far more beneficial to imperialists organizations with massive
> > budgets to buy off officials and intellectuals than for poor grad students
> > like myself who are independent Marxists just trying to get a dissertation
> > done.
> > That is to say, reform in China has ultimately made China much easier for
> > real foreign intelligence operations to spend millions to gather real
> > intelligence. And arresting a railway worker and putting him in jail for
> > 10 years for taking 300 dollars from an American professor...when praytell
> > will economists at Peking University's EconomiC Research Center be cracked
> > down on for collusion with the Ford Foundation and the spread of
> > neo-liberal ideology, collection of information for IMF, World Bank...and
> > of course massive bribes, I mean donations...
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> > South China Morning Post - China
> > August 25, 1999
> >
> > Labour activist jailed for 10 years
> >
> > ASSOCIATED PRESS
> > _________________________________________________________________
> >
> > Updated at 2.44pm:
> > A court in central China has jailed a labour activist to 10 years for
> > allegedly informing people overseas about workers' protests, a human
> > rights group said on Wednesday.
> >
> > He Chaohui, a 38-year-old railway worker, was convicted on Tuesday of
> > ''illegally providing intelligence to foreign organisations'' by the
> > Intermediate People's Court in Hunan province's Chenzhou city, the
> > Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic
> > Movement in China.
> >
> > He had earlier served a two years for having organised workers'
> > protests and strikes in Chenzhou.
> >
> > Authorities detained He last October after finding a check for US$300
> > to him from an American university professor, the group said. The
> > check confirmed their suspicions that He provided overseas groups with
> > information about workers' movements in Hunan, it said.
> >
> > The severe sentence is typical of those meted out to dissidents and
> > labour activists as China tightens controls ahead of the 50th
> > anniversary celebrations of October 1.
> >
> > Last December, another dissident, Zhang Shanguang, was sentenced to 10
> > years after he gave an interview to US government-funded Radio Free
> > Asia about farmers' protests and rural taxes.
> >
> > |
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