Amid the usual frenetic pulsing throngs of passing subway patrons, Beijing denizens and tourists rushing from the sliding doors of subway cars to be the first ones up the escalator to make their connections or meetings, I examined my reflection in a glass partition waiting for the train to pass. After the train rushed away, … More Toothless Tigers in the Subway: An Animal Rights Campaign in China
China and the United States met on 30 and 31 July in the capital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, affectionately known as the city of eternal Spring, to hold the 18th US – China Human Rights Dialogue. The US press statement noted, ‘The Human Rights Dialogue provides an important opportunity to elaborate on our concerns about … More The US and China on International Human Rights Instruments
Under House arrest since April 2013, outspoken human rights defender and citizen lawyer Xu Zhiyong was formally detained on 16 July 2013 and arrested on 22 August 2013 under charges of ‘gathering crowds to disrupt public order,’ a patently spurious charge for someone under house arrest. These charges are merely another set in the on-going … More New Citizen’s Movement
Originally posted on Patrick Chovanec:
A surprising number of people in China have been writing and talking about “revolution”. First came word, in November, that China’s new leaders have been advising their colleagues to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic book on the French Revolution, L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution (The Old Regime and the Revolution),…
This is the third entry in a series on semiotic analysis, Uyghurs, and public space in China. For earlier entries please see, Deconstructing ‘Minzu’, and Museumized Signification, China and Representational Violence. Or visit my index at the top of the page for all previous articles dealing with Symbolic Power, the politics of representation, China, Xinjiang, Uyghurs, and … More Perusing Walls in China: Posters and Symbolic Power
This is the second post in a brief series on symbolic power and minority representation in China. Although the ethnic group under specific discussion is the Uyghurs, the deconstruction of representations and symbolic power is apropos of other subaltern groups. The previous post dealt with briefly just with the notion of controlling the taxonomy of … More Museumized Signification, China and Representational Violence
In a number of posts to follow I will identify three places where symbolic power operates, that is, how the Chinese State has exerted its monopoly of symbolic power to instill a signification of Uyghurs as an undeveloped singing, dancing subaltern subject. Indeed, this colonialist objectification: the predominant representation of Uyghurs, and other minzu (ethnic … More Deconstructing ‘Minzu’
Following the three year anniversary of the Urumqi protests and the recent supposed Hotan plane hijacking attempt, which the Uyghur Human Rights Project warns should be viewed with extreme caution, it seems pertinent to introduce a little of the visuals behind China’s rhetoric of ethnic harmony. It is the same rhetoric of ethnic harmony, also … More Visualizing an Imagined Community
It is a temperate afternoon in Beijing and the dust levels in the air are low, as the sands that blow in from the Gobi in subtle obfuscating layers of golden hue during the Springtime have yet to make their more forceful migration. Calm throngs of pedestrians meander past the 17th century Yonghegong, 雍和宮, The … More Qingming Jie (清明节): On Death and Brightness
((Disclaimer: After I first wrote this article and posted on the evening of March 7 there were several developments. The Revised Text for the New Criminal Procedure Law was made public. At 10:31am on March 8, 2012 Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch Tweeted: Breaking News: “Disappearance clause” stricken out of revisions to the Criminal … More Ai Weiwei’s Wife Reflects on the Criminal Procedure Law (Redux)
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