Dance to the Revolution

A  joke is spreading on the Chinese Internet sphere in the form of a fake obituary, titled “Bin Laden: Old Friend of the Chinese People“, in some versions, “of the American People.”

It imitates the pretentious tone often seen in official Chinese obituaries of foreign leaders, starting with: “Comrades, we are gathered here today, solemnly and ceremoniously, to mourn, deeply and bitterly, the great soldier of terrorism…”

Of course, the Chinese leaders never acknowledged that Bin Laden has any kind of friendship with China. And the Chinese people have some mixed reactions to Bin Laden’s death – there are rejoicing as well as concerns. See a rundown here.

The joke reflects a sense among the Chinese netizens that they’ve been misrepresented by their government. And the way they express their discontent is through sarcasm. The Chinese officials have used the term “an old friend of the Chinese people” to call many foreign leaders despite what the Chinese people actually think. The list of over 600 “old friends” includes people like Edgar Snow, Henry Kissinger, Jacques Chirac and Antonio Samaranch, whom the Chinese people ( the ones who know who these people are) generally have a favorable impression about, but it also includes Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe, Pervez Musharraf, to whom most Chinese would  respond: “WTF? When were we ever friends?”

As a result of the proliferated use of the term “old friend of the Chinese people” and the number of dictators on this list, Chinese netizens cannot be entirely sure whether someone was once termed an “old friend” or not. (real test of friendship here!) A good example is that recently, a number of Chinese press have refuted the wide spread “misunderstanding” that the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is also one of the “old friends.”

So what do all the “old friends” jokes tell us?

First and foremost, people are frustrated that not only their freedom of speech is strictly circumscribed in China, but also their voice has been hijacked by the authorities for political expediency.

Second,  Chinese officials have, historically, misused the term many times on foreign leaders proven to be not worthy of any friendship at all. The ideological struggle between socialism and capitalism was a thing of the past that the new leaders have difficulty in sweeping under the rug completely.

Third, in pointing out that the dictators (some of whom the Chinese officials have endorsed at one point) ended in failure, netizens who circulate these jokes feel a sense of defiance. Because they are evidence that dictators who treat their own people with an iron fist and leaders who rule with fear and intimidation will ultimately be toppled and condemned – a hint to the current Chinese authorities.

So this is the origin of the joke – probably not a good joke, but it’s meant to be sarcastic. Not every day do Chinese get a chance to make jokes at the expense of a fallen villain.

刚刚完成论文的最后一稿，回首这两年为了论文忙碌的日子，总结了5条我写论文的法则。大家有什么经验，欢迎补充。

1. 首先完成任何相关的程序性行政审批

如果你们学校有什么 Board 或者 Committee 管你论文的某一方面，先把这个搞定。我已经在 Use of Human Subjects Committee 上栽了两次跟头了，也有朋友因为这个审批不通过，不得不大规模改动研究项目。

2. 论文文件夹分类整理

根据个人需要，就我这个研究，我先在总文件夹下建立了：资料，数据，采访，附录，写作中 5个文件夹。

其中我认为最重要的是资料按关键词组再建分文件夹。大家做文献分析都有经验，就是有大概 10 个左右相关的关键词，有些互相还很接近。在网上的资料库一搜，每组关键词都有个几十篇相关论文。我用过 Papers 但是还是觉得不方便。只要自己把保存的时候多一步，把文章名保存为文件名，其实这样分文件夹的方法也很清楚，而且可以少开一个软件。更重要的是，如果你像我一样在多台电脑上工作，那么我还不知道怎样把一个电脑上的 Papers 数据库在多台电脑上同步。但是用传统的文件夹分类，就很容易同步。

3. 备份，每次另存为新文件

A. 从前面的同步开始说。我是使用 Dropbox 自动同步我整个论文文件夹。这样方便在多台电脑上工作。

B. 把 Word, Excel 或者其他相关的软件改成每分钟自动保存

C. 每次写作完，可能是一天半天或者几个小时，选择另存为，保存文档，或者你的数据库成一个新的文件，文件名以日期时间结尾。这样有需要的时候，比如你突然发现你做的一个巨大改动可能不恰当，你随时可以翻看几天前保存下来的东西

4. 想法比什么都重要

对着空白的电脑屏幕，想着要写人生中也许最重要的一篇文章，而且要写个几万字是一件很恐怖的事情。我一开始看了电脑屏幕几天都没能写一行字。后来才意识到一开始写得很烂也无所谓，不要纠结于字句，应该把整体的想法用最简单语言写下来，这个时候唯一的目标是看的人能理解我的想法。不要扯高深。尤其是大学研究生以上的论文，研究的对象往往是连导师们都不是很熟悉的，所以心里要想：第一稿的目标是让导师们理解我在研究什么（包括有什么突破和意义），我的立场和观点是什么，凭什么/为什么，仅此而已。

5. 引用文献(包括页码)整理清楚

我第一稿交上去才发现我几百个注释和引用居然从第二页开始顺序就错了－－我差点没吐血。我至今还没有发现完美的整理注释和引用的软件，所以我觉得还是得用传统的手工做。新建一个文档，把所有的引用文献全部放上去（这个时候可以用软件）然后具体什么地方插引用，引的是哪几个文献的哪几页，还是手工做比较放心一点。我发现有些软件它出错了一个地方，整个都会 update 导致我全文件的引用全部重新做过。实在是很头痛的一件事情。

嗯。就这样。如果大家谁有好的方法，请分享一下。祝所有奋斗在论文路上的人好运！

首先，非常感谢推友们填写我前段时间发出的“中国推特圈问卷”，下面我将简单地介绍一下调查结果。

!!! 还没有填写问卷的朋友，希望您能够帮忙，抽出几分钟时间，填写这个问卷，再看下面的结果!!!!!

因为这样您可以比较客观, 不受影响地对比您的答案和之前问答这个问卷的716位朋友。

也因为我建立的几个 model , 尚需要更多的问卷答案去进行测试，所以您的回答将对我的研究起很大的帮助作用。谢谢您的支持！

—— 再次强调，如果您没有填写问卷的朋友，请线写这个问卷（约花1-3分钟），再看结果. 谢谢了！！！—————-

－－－－－－－特别注意：如果您是接受国家薪水的网络评论员、管理员（俗称五毛），我真心请求您看在我是很认真，熬了很多夜想对于绝大多数自愿使用推特的中国人做研究的份上，不要填写上面这个问卷。我请求您接受一个匿名采访。采访申请单在这里。谢谢您高抬贵手！－－－－－－－－－－

以下结果来自前699份答卷.

男女比例：

年龄分布：

教育程度：

地理位置分布：

主要行业分布： 除了这些以外，还有自由职业，教师，NGO，法律，设计，广告，公务员，等等多种行业。

工资水平：

使用推特之久:

每天使用推特的时间长短:

中国国内微博产品的使用:

其他网络工具的使用:

在各种公民组织的活动:

以下是我的模型的 Regression result. 由于是初步的 regression 结果，还需要大量的数据去试验我的模型， 所以希望大家能够帮忙继续填写问卷， 用于测验！谢谢！

在我的模型正式出来之后，我将详细解释我的研究结果。再次衷心感谢大家热情的帮忙！

Never before have we confronted the environmental and energy challenges with such urgency, and never before has U.S.-China cooperation on clean energy in both public and private sector been more crucial. This is the reason why Harvard, MIT and our friends on the West Coast serendipitously decided to hold a conference on this issue on the same date: Harvard’s China Energy & Environment Conference and Berkeley-Stanford Cleantech Conference.

Register now for China Energy & Environment Conference, or come to Harvard’s Northwest Science Building on April 9th and register on site!

For China Energy & Environment Conference, we will have the wonderful Susan Tierney, Managing Principal of Analysis Group, as our keynote speaker. Among her impressive list of experiences and credentials, she is a former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, chairperson of the board of the Energy Foundation and a co-chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy. In Massachusetts, Sue is previously Secretary of Environmental Affairs, Chair of the Board of the Massachusetts Water Resources Agency, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, and executive director of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Council. She also serves on the China Sustainable Energy Program’s Policy Advisory Council, which, for the past decade, has been supporting China’s policy efforts to increase energy efficiency and promoting the use of renewable energy sources. As a Director for the conference, I can’t think of a better person to address our audience on U.S. – China nexus in renewable energy and we are really lucky to have Sue coming.

In addition, we will have Secretary Steven Chu addressing us through a video-feed from Stanford and have a Q & A session with our audience. The title of his talk would be “Sputnik 2.0? The Pursuit of Green Jobs in China and the U.S.”. As United States Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu is charged with helping implement President Obama’s ambitious agenda to invest in clean energy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, address the global climate crisis, and create millions of new jobs.  Dr. Chu is a distinguished scientist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997). He has devoted his recent scientific career to the search for new solutions to our energy challenges and stopping global climate change – a mission he continues with even greater urgency as Secretary of Energy.

We are going to have six panels, five in English and one in Chinese. They are:

Rural Environmental Issues: Coping with Rapid Development

This panel will address issues in environmental systems management in China’s rural areas, drawing connections between public health and the urgent need to begin cleaning and protecting rural environments.

Moderator

• Charles Chester, Lecturer in Environmental Studies, Brandeis and Tufts University

Panelists

• Diane Gold, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard University
• Saleem H. Ali, Director of the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security, The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont
• Rachel Stern, Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University
• Ma Haibing, China Program Manager, WorldWatch Institute

The Future of Transportation: Motor Vehicles

This panel will address current transportation policies in China and the opportunities and challenges facing the private sector as it seeks to deploy clean vehicles in the domestic market.

Moderator

• Henry Lee, Senior Lecturer at Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Panelists

• Feng An, President and Executive Director, Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (ICET)
• Hongyan He Oliver, Former Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School
• Pricilla M. Lu, Chairwoman, Zap Jonway Electric Vehicle

Shifting from Coal: The Future of Renewable Electricity

This panel will address the efficacy of the Chinese government’s subsidies and incentives for clean technology, focusing on renewable electricity.

Moderator

• Joel Eisen, Professor of Law, University of Richmond

Panelists

• David Mohler, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Duke Energy
• David Lam, Managing Partner, WI Harper
• Mitchell Dong, Serial Entrepreneur and CEO, Mohave Sun Power
• Chris Dann, Managing Partner of Energy Practice, Booz & Compan

在国内的时候，就知道这句：我不同意你的观点，但我誓死捍卫你说话的权利。掷地有声的一句话，在中国却很难有直观的认识；而在哈佛却是几乎每天都可以体验到：

今天 Einat Wilf 代表以色列工党来哈佛肯尼迪政府学院做讲话，内容是以色列的政党布局，当然不可避免地最主要都在讲巴以冲突问题。

讲话开始大概才五分钟，讲到以色列建造的墙很有效地保护了墙内的犹太人，一个西装革履的学生站了起来，大声说：“这是自我防卫吗？我刚从巴勒斯坦回来，看到了他们的人民生活在什么样的困境里。。。”一边说一边从包里拿出一面巴勒斯坦国旗。这时教室里有两个人鼓掌。

今天的组织人是 Nick Burns 大使，他对这个学生说：“我们这里要遵守文明的对话，你有任何意见都可以在之后的自由交流阶段提出，请不要打断Wilf 博士的讲话。” 那个学生问：“那我可以拉着这个国旗吗？” 大使说：“可以。但是请你不要打扰其他人听讲话。”

Wilf 也不是第一次遇到这种情况，不紧不慢，不动声色地又讲了下去。讲到以色列政客都支持与巴勒斯坦分离建国的时候，那个学生又插话说：“这是种族隔离政策”。Nick Burns大使严辞批评说：“我们在这里举办这样的讲座是给每个人文明地沟通的场地，现在她在讲话，你就要尊重她的发言。如果你再出言打断，我们只能请你出去了。” 这个学生道歉。主讲人又继续讲下去。

过了一会儿，学校的警察闻风进来，要把这个学生带走。这个学生还没有开口抗议，Burns大使上前制止了这个警察，对他说：“我们这里在进行思想对话与意见交流，他已经答应了不打扰别人，所以他有权利在这里拉着他的旗帜。”

讲座又进行了一会儿，一个打扮得有点邋遢的人晃悠了进来，他的帽子上满是写有支持巴勒斯坦口号的勋章，还围着一个典型的巴勒斯坦围巾。他走到举着巴勒斯坦国旗的同学旁边（两个人都在阶梯教室的最后面），非常低声地打了个招呼。然后就这么站着。不久，又来了两个警察，也没有把这两个人带走，而是静静地站在后面。

讲座又过了一个多小时才结束。提问环节有很多人举手要发言，大使一一点名。有多个人提出了很尖锐地问题，主要围绕以色列侵犯巴勒斯坦的人权。那两个抗议者没有被点到名，却也没有发出一句话，只是在后面一个拉着国旗，一个带着帽子和围巾。结束的时候，本以为他们会大声抗议，或者演讲，企图与人辩论；但没有，他们只是很平静地说：请到某某网站来了解关于巴以冲突更多的内容。

这件事情在哈佛几乎天天都在上演，我们经常邀请一些很有争议却也很有影响力的人来讲话。这种 civil dialogue “文明的对话” 每天都是我们生活和学习的一部分。以前读着伏尔泰的话，虽然也觉得心潮澎湃，却没有太多切身的体验。而现在我却是真真正正地体会到：只有当所有人表达意见的权利都平等，不管是穿西装，还是拖着拖鞋，不管是政党的领袖，还是普通学生，甚至无业游民，都能够在一个 civil space “文明的空间” 表达自己的立场的时候，人的尊严，思想和自由的尊严才体现出来。

Environmental tax is not a niche idea – China has been contemplating an environmental tax regime for some years now, see previous coverage: 2007, 2008, 2009. And after our “grizzled” China-watcher has waited for an entire year, Beijing announced its plan to reform the taxation system, of which the introduction of an environmental tax could be an important component.

To shed light on the possible new tax regime, People’s Daily interviewed Su Ming, associate director of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science of the Chinese Ministry of Finance, and you can read the English translation by my friend Graham Webster here.

In China’s existing taxation system of 19 items, five major ones are environmentally related: resource tax, consumer tax, motor vehicle tax, value-added tax and corporate income tax. A comprehensive environmental tax regime could include the “greening” of the existing taxes, and the creation of a separate environmental tax.

Take the consumer tax for instance. Established in 1994, it now has 14 items, 8 of which are related to environment, and they are: fireworks, motorcycles, cars, cigarettes and alcohol, wood-made disposable chopsticks, refined oil products, and hardwood flooring. Note that the taxation on disposable chopsticks and hardwood flooring are added in 2006, signaling a progress in China’s environmental-consciousness in taxation.

Similarly, the other existing taxes could be adjusted for the benefit of environmental protection. The current environmental tax under discussion would primarily be a new separate tax including carbon tax, and hopefully, tax on sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and industrial water pollutants – four biggest environmental enemies in China today. The next step could be solid waste, garbage tax, noise tax, etc.

However the tax is defined at last, we should pay particularly attention to two things:

1. Measurement of the pollutants or environmental impact, which would be the basis for the tax, requires not only competent agents of action, be it local environmental bureau or other agencies, but also strong and vibrant citizen participation. As seen from the utilization of the current Environmental Impact Assessment Law, local environmental bureaus are extremely weak (as opposed to the local enterprises), with the exception of Beijing Environmental Bureau, and so far voluntary citizen groups have been the primary agents in provoking this law to protect their living environment. To make the environmental tax system work, China has to give environmental NGOs and private citizens more space to act as a check on the industries.

2. Revenue-neutral. In the interview Graham translated, Su Peng said the taxation would receive support among local governments because of their revenue increase. Yet it is crucial that the taxation does not increase the already immense inequality. We can all name a dozen reasons why a proposed environmental tax would affect the poor much more than the rich. But in China, because of the type of jobs those heavy industries or coal fire plants offer, it is very likely that those factories and power plants would just shift the extra tax burden onto their uneducated, short-contracted (many even without a contract) workers. So this calls for more rigorous enforcement of Labor Law and Labor Contract Law in addition to a social welfare net to ensure that the cost does not shift to the poor. Many proposals of balancing the environmental tax revenue suggest using the revenue in environmental restoration or reallocating neighborhoods around the heavy-industry factories. Either way, this should be of main concern to the policy makers.

Paul Hastings has a nice summary on the environmental aspect of China’s revised Tort Law – a review of the four major articles pertaining to environmental-related liabilities and their implications for foreign investors and corporations. Download the PDF.

Along the same note, review of the draft of Law on Water and Soil Conservation has just began. The brand new chapter on “planning” is China’s first attempt in putting it down in formal law how to square the conflict between its urban development and the conservation of its natural resources (formal law as opposed to “order”, “regulation” and other forms of it, for a reliable explanation of the hierarchy of legal norms in China, see Perry Keller, “Sources of Order in Chinese Law,” American Journal of Comparative Law (1994).)

While we are at it, be sure to check out Alex Wang‘s great paper on this subject: “The Role of Law in Environmental Protection in China: Recent Developments“, 8 Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 195-224 (2006-2007).

If you only read one article today, I hope you’d read Mayer Brown report on China’s renewable energy policy, which offers both the grand picture and the details of developments in China’s energy law and regulations. Before this, we’ve seen news of China’s plan to use market measures - levy carbon tax and raise petroleum price – to mitigate consumption of traditional-energy. And in March, China has already surpassed U.S. as the world’s largest investor in renewable energy.

Yet these changes seem to be not early enough – just a couple of days ago, news broke out that China has overtaken U.S. as the world’s largest energy consumer, in total, not per capita.

See the data below: (i LOVE charts!)

Total Energy Consumption – U.S. and China (Million tons of oil equivalents),

2009 number is estimation

Total Energy Consumption Per Capita – U.S. and China (Million tons of oil equivalent)

China’s renewable energy investment/policy is definitely the most important news to watch. For a detailed report of global green energy investment, check out this.

If you only read one law-related document today, I hope it’s this one. I assure you it’s the most entertaining Q & A you would ever read when Rep. senators are involved.

View here: Kagan’s responses to senators’ written questions

Just to give you a sense of it, below are some of her responses to questions pertaining to death penalty:

7) Do you have any personal objections to the death penalty?

Response:

No.

You have described Justice Marshall as your “hero” and his “vision of the Court and the Constitution” (“to safeguard the interests of people who had no other champion”) as “a thing of glory.” Justice Marshall, along with Justice Brennan, believed that the death penalty was unconstitutional under any circumstances. In their concurrence in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), they wrote that they would have held that any use of the death penalty is per se a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
a. Do you agree that the death penalty is per se unconstitutional?

Response:

The Supreme Court has long held that the death penalty is not per se unconstitutional. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). Gregg is a precedent of the Court entitled to full stare decisis effect.

b. If not, do you agree that it is settled law that the death penalty is constitutional?

Response:

Yes.


d. Where applicable, does the plain text of the Constitution control questions of application of the Bill of Rights?

Response:

Yes.

China released it’s White Paper on the Internet yesterday (Beijing June 9, 2011), full text in English here, in Chinese here, a brief English news report by China Daily here.

Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the Internet. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China confers on Chinese citizens the right to free speech. With their right to freedom of speech on the Internet protected by the law, they can voice their opinions in various ways on the Internet.

Vigorous online ideas exchange is a major characteristic of China’s Internet development, and the huge quantity of BBS posts and blog articles is far beyond that of any other country. China’s websites attach great importance to providing netizens with opinion expression services, with over 80% of them providing electronic bulletin service. In China, there are over a million BBSs and some 220 million bloggers. According to a sample survey, each day people post over three million messages via BBS, news commentary sites, blogs, etc., and over 66% of Chinese netizens frequently place postings to discuss various topics, and to fully express their opinions and represent their interests.

Do you see the contradictory? Maybe not at first sight, but as many Chinese netizens have pointed out, according to these official statistics, these channels of “vigorous-idea-exchange”- BBSs, carry less than an average 3 posts per day each – if all 3 million messages come from BBS and a little come from news commentary sites, blogs, microblogs, or anything else.

Netizens have called this “blatant lying”, but then again, we are reminded that BBS posts as well as blog posts, comments, etc are heavily censored and monitored in China, and at the same time, there is an army of “fifty-cents party” allegedly paid by the government to make posts that swing towards the official line, which would mean, if any person would trust this “White Paper”, that messages from real netizens were even less than the 3 million, not that so little is posted, but so many many many more is censored. The same post that pointed out this contradiction says this would mean 98% of the original posts are censored and never saw the light of the day.

I’m inclined to think that the White Paper drafters simply made these numbers up than to believe that censorship is so rampant as to make these numbers real. But this is not my concern, I’m interested in what this White Paper tells us about China’s legal environment for the Internet.

One thing that struck me about this White Paper is the sheer number of laws, regulations, decisions, rules it mentioned, in order to, as we could safely assume, to draw legitimacy of the claims: a whole 18 of them, not including another six or seven conventions related to Internet management. Here is the thing: the more is not the better. The only “law” is Electronic Signatures Law (though there are other “laws” that contain articles related to the Internet, e.g. Article 285 and 286 of the Criminal Code pertain to computer hacking), the other regulations are issued by State Council, the Information and Technology Ministry, etc – and the execution and supervision of those regulations/decisions are carried out by the relevant ministries, security department, Administration for Industry and Commerce, Administration of Press and Publication, etc.

Here is the question: how do you expect an administrative body to write its own “law”, AND to execute it, to monitor and supervise it?

Peking University Professor Hu Yong, who specialized in media and communications, has similar question and calls for more “constitutional thinking” in managing the Internet. He took the Green Dam disaster as an example of administrative agencies, in this case, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, went outside of the legal frame and issued an order that doesn’t seem to come out of much deliberation of consequences, would adversely affect the lives of millions.

We should note that this unsystematic legal situation is not unique to laws regarding the Internet, but the whole body of what we call “Chinese law” is actually consisted of many many many individual statutes, decisions, orders, and of administrative regulations and rules made under different ad hoc policy orientations. The messiness increases because according to Administrative Litigation Law of China, the courts are not empowered to interpret a set of regulations or declare them unconstitutional or as exceeding their delegated authority – the most that the courts can do is determine that a specific application of a regulation (or law) to a specific individual (or a legal person) is unlawful and hence, should not be applicable in that instance or should be compensated for.

Although administrative regulations, district rules, etc, under Article 89 of the Law on Legislation should be reported to relevant higher authority: measures promulgated by the State Council, its Ministries and Commissions, and sub-national People’s Congresses are to be reported to the NPC Standing Committee and that those of People’s Governments are to be reported to higher levels of People’s Government through to the State Council and under the Constitution, the NPC Standing Committee can annul any State Council action and the NPC as a whole can do the same re any Standing Committee action (meaning that everything is potentially reviewable by the NPC).

In theory, these mechanisms are going to ensure that the measures are consistent with the Constitution and relevant laws (Note: China does not yet have a full constitutional review system). The challenges are: 1. According to Article 82 of the Law on Legislation, departmental rules and provincial level local regulations have comparable authority, thus there is the possibility of overlapping but not always consistent legal enactments. 2. Sub-national level agencies report both to the national ministry to which they belong, and their level of government.

So if I may make a suggestion here to the Chinese government here: censor the Internet all you want (netizens will only get better in getting around the GFW); make excuse for it; make up statistics if you like (and not be afraid of being caught lying); but please, review these rules, root out unconstitutional, illegal or inconsistent regulations, and have a real Internet law.

To digress a little, another point made pertinent in the White Paper is China’s report on its “success” in bringing government online, claiming that it has built more than 45,000 government portal websites and that more than 80% of governments above county level have their own e-govern website. My friend Graham Webster wrote a brilliant A.M. thesis on this very subject, and finds that due to the lack of a centralized guideline/model for these websites, the city e-government websites are very diversified and lack of a common infrastructure; and if we were to see these websites as channels of citizen participation then the data these e-governments would get at their back end is very fragmented. (If you want to read his thesis, which I found very interesting, ask him for it:)