Bo Xilai and China's Maoist Party

Bo Xilai, the current Chongqing Municipality Party Secretary, is the son of Bo Yibo, a veteran member of the Chinese Communist Party who was denounced in the Cultural Revolution, emerging again after Deng Xiaoping's rise to supreme leadership.

Bo Xilai has recently taken a hard stand against corruption and gangsterism in Chongqing. He has also promoted a "red culture", singing Cultural Revolution era songs and sending text messages to millions of Chongqing citizens quoting his favourite quotations from Chairman Mao (left).

He also had a three hour meeting recently with the leaders of last year's Chongqing taxi strike.

You can read some of the English commentary on this phenomenon here:

http://www.boxun.us/news/publish/chinanews/Bo_Xilai_s_Anti-Mob_Campaign_in_Chongqing_Challenges_Hu_s_Rule_by_Empty_Rhetoric.shtml

and here:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/a-second-chapter-for-red-utopia-20091016-h157.html

To add to this intriguing insight into Mao's legacy and how the current leadership - including Bo Xilai himself - respond, I have translated this piece from an original Chinese post on the Cultural Revolution Research website .

I can't verify the accuracy of its reports, and I am open to criticism for the hurried translation and any mistakes I've made with it, but you'll get the gist. It refers to the formation of a Chinese Communist Party (Maoist) and the crackdown on it by its supposed mentor, Bo Xilai.

From a distance it's hard to make any real judgement, and the Chinese internet is full of hoaxes, but I offer it for what it is worth, and if more comes to hand I'll have a go at translating that too.
.....................
The Chinese Communist Party (Maoist) on the Declaration on the October 15 Counter-revolutionary Incident in Chongqing


Leftists establish Mao Zedong Communist Party

They support the appointment of Bo Xilai as General Secretary

Recently, Bo Xilai, secretary of the Chongqing Municipality, has presided over a vigorous campaign to combat black societies (triads), attracting great attention everywhere, but also stirring up a complex power struggle within the Communist Party. The ultra-left Maoists have been waiting to go into action, wanting to push Bo into the leadership for the overthrow of the existing system and the restoration of a Maoist line, but they have met with failure.

A princeling of the Communist Party and filled with wild ambition, Chongqing Municipality Party Secretary Bo Xilai has used "promoting red culture" and "hitting the black" to create his own image and attack his political opponents whilst drumming up support for his own career and has recently won loud acclaim from the Maoists who look upon him as "Mao Zedong reborn" and having maintained a "liberated zone" in Chongqing whilst in the remainder of the country there has been a "complete restoration of capitalism". On the occasion of Mao’s birthday in December of last year, the Maoists issued a "Notice to the People of the Whole Nation" announcing that they had already established a "Chinese Maoist Communist Party" and that its members had unanimously elected Bo Xilai general secretary.

After the October 1st National Day, dozens of Maoist Party members throughout the nation considered the situation to be excellent and new Maoists found hope in the leadership. They gathered at the Chongqing "liberated zone", but contrary to their expectations, their Maoist Party general secretary unexpectedly ordered the Chongqing Public Security Bureau to arrest them, and until now only a few have been released and repatriated to their places of origin.

Bo Xilai initiated the "red culture movement" in Chongqing: singing red songs, sending SMS’s of Mao’s Little Red Book, encouraging the reading of red literature from the Mao era, and studying Mao era models such as Jiao Yulu (left) and Wang Jingxi(below, left, meeting Maozedong and Zhou Enlai).


For the past two months he has conducted a vigorous and high-profile fight against Chongqing’s triads and uncovered the protective umbrella placed over the triads by the head of the Chongqing Justice Department Wen Qiang, again drawing the attention of the whole nation.

These two things caused Bo Xilai to leap into becoming the "spiritual leader" of the Maoists. On Maoist websites there was such nauseating praise as "national hero", "people’s politician", "the people’s beloved Party Secretary Bo", "long-tested communist fighter", and even shouts of "Long live Party Secretary Bo!"
There is a poem, "Bo Xilai, your mother the motherland and the people call you back to Beijing" saying that Chongqing under Bo’s government is the "Yan’an of the 21st century" and "China’s new Holy Land of the revolutionary spirit", and that "Bo Xilai not only belongs to Chongqing, he belongs to all China and should return to Beijing", the meaning of all of which is that Bo Xilai should aspire to Zhongnanhai and become the supreme leader of the Communist Party.

Formally established in January of this year, the entire Chinese Maoist Party supported Bo Xilai as general secretary.

After it was established, the Maoist Party not only posted the "Notice to the People of the Whole Nation" and the "Constitution of the Chinese Maoist Communist Party", but also distributed them as leaflets in Shanghai and other big cities. This "Notice to the People of the Whole Nation" refers to the three decades of China’s reform and opening to the West as thirty years of capitalist restoration, saying the "Chinese nation has already arrived at its most critical hour", and called for the overthrow of the current revisionist clique (the Chinese Communist regime), saying "It is right to rebel!", "Down with the bureaucrat-comprador traitors! Down with the running dogs at the top!" and calling out "Pursue them and wipe them out!" and wanting them to be "strangled in the cradle"....

Owing to the review of troops on October 1 this year, there was the phenomenon of the resurrection of Mao Zedong with, for example, the singing of "The East is Red" and the raising of Mao Zedong Thought for a short time etc, and moreover, with the launching of the red culture movement by Bo Xilai, the Maoists were very excited, and reached the stage at which they could come out into the open, racing off to the new revolutionary Holy Land of Chongqing to convene a congress for October 1 2010.

According to the news, more than 30 Maoists arrived in Chongqing to hold a meeting for exchanging experiences and to prepare for the October 1 congress. Although the Chinese Communist Party had already held its 17th Congress, the Maoists would only recognise the 9th and 10th Congresses held during the Cultural Revolution and believed that after the 10th Congress the Party had already become revisionist, and would not contradict this recognition (the first meeting to exchange experiences was in another revolutionary holy place, Xibaipo).

The host for this revolutionary exchange meeting was a Maoist organisation called "The Chongqing Mao Zedong Thought Study Society". They held memorial meetings for Mao’s birth and death and carried out commemorative activities for Mao on Qingming Festival.

Taking part in the preparations for the October 1 Congress was a very arrogant Professor Ma from Nanjing University who once enjoyed running the Mao Zedong Thought study class of the rural model village of Nanjie esteemed by the Maoists, and who had already run it for four terms, because he had energetically developed the organisation was finally expelled by the Nanjie Village head.

When the Maoist Party members were all gathered in the liberated area of Chongqing discussing matters of great importance, their beloved Party General Secretary Bo was feeling overwhelmingly ill at ease. On October 15, the Chongqing Public Security Bureau set out and arrested more than 30 of them, and the person in charge of the Chongqing Mao Zedong Thought Study Society, Xu Jiansheng, had his house searched that afternoon by the PSB who took several items including CDs from his computer. At the time, Xu Jiansheng was not at home, but he was grabbed the next day.

The latest news is that some of the youngsters from outside Chongqing who were arrested have been released, but Xu Jiansheng and another backbone member of the Chongqing Mao Zedong Thought Study Society, Wei Long, have been officially detained and charged by the authorities with "manufacturing terror and poisoning people’s minds".

As this matter goes online, the Maoists have had a big shock, accusing Bo Xilai of pretending to love what he really fears, and of being a two-faced person. It has also been revealed that Mao Zedong’s grandson Mao Xinyu has also condemned Bo Xilai. There were also some who spoke in defence of Bo Xilai, saying that he had been made to act against his conscience. And some insightful people said that to have Bo Xilai singing red songs was good and hitting the triads was also good, but no matter whether he’s acting under a red sign or a black sign, both are for the sake of fishing for even greater power.


(Above, some of the 166 Mazeratis, Bentleys and Mercedes seized under Bo Xilai's crackdown on triads in Chongqing).



(Above, 20 millian yuan, wrapped in waterproof oilskins and retrieved from a pool where it had been hidden by former Chongqing Justice Department Director Wen Qiang, a corrupt element exposed by Bo Xilai's crackdown).

Solidarity with the workers of the processing plant „Yanovskaya” in the city Krasny Luch/Ukraine

On September 30 a request was issued for messages of support for the workers of a processing factory in the Ukraine. The message reads:

The request for solidarity to the workers of the processing plant „Yanovskaya” in the city Krasny Luch/Ukraine

From July 2nd to July 18th the workers of the private processing plant „Yanovskaya» in the city Krasny Luch (Lugansk region, Ukraine) were on strike for their demand to pay out the wage debts for some past months as well as for 2008. The workers, in their majority women, founded a strike committee and an independent trade union and under their leadership even blocked the railway leading to the plant. The result of this strike and the blockade was pay out of their wages for March and partly April 2009. And all participants in the strike who were dismissed before by the management were employed again on their former workplaces.

However, after that the local authorities together with the plant management started to take revenge on the strikers by taking up the chase again. The proprietors decided to get rid of the organizers of the protest with any random means and to stop any attempt of a workers’ struggle for their rights in the future. They instituted legal proceedings against the organizers of the strike, demanded to recognize the struggle of the workers as “illegal” and to punish them.

The trial against the activists was launched on 28 July and will be renewed on October, 9. With criminal means the leaders of the strike committee and the union leadership of the plant Anatoli Moskaljov and Anna Antroptschenko are prosecuted.

We emphatically protest against this repression and demand to stop any legal and criminal prosecution of the workers’ activists of the enriching plant „Yanovskaya“!

We ask to send letters of protest to the following addresses:

1) High Court of the Ukraineul. P. Orlika 4Kiev, Ukraine, 01024;e-mail: supcourt@scourt.gov.ua

2. Chief Public Prosecutor of the Ukraineul. Riynitskaza 13/15Kiev, Ukraine, 01001

3. State Regional Administration of the District LuganskPl. Geroev VOV 3Lugansk, Ukraine, 91016;e-mail: gubernator@loga.gov.ua

Solidarity messages send, please, to the address: rabochkom@ua.fm

Yours faithfully,Coordination Council of workers` movement of Ukraine (KSRD)Edition of the newspaper « Worker`s Action»http://proletar.org.ua

I sent a message to the High Court and the State Regional Administration of the District Lugansk, and also forwarded a short message directly to the Coordination Council of the Workers’ Movement of Ukraine at rabochkom@ua.fm

That message reads:

I have sent the following message to the Ukranian authorities as per your request:

I emphatically protest against the repression of the workers’ activists of the enriching plant „Yanovskaya“ and demand that the Ukrainian authorities stop any legal and criminal prosecution against them!

Workers of all countries, unite!

(name)
Australia

Greetings to the Yanovskaya workers: dare to struggle, dare to win!

................................
A couple of days ago, I received a message in reply:

Dear comrade Michael!

Many thanks for your solidarity!

We have already given your letter and his translation to active workers of processing plant "Yanovskaya" in the city Krasny Luch. Your help has caused the hottest words of gratitude.

We inform you details on session of court taken place October, 9. The judge did not expect, that their comrades from abroad begin to support active workers of "Yanovskaya". The judge has not risked to sentence, and has decided to tighten cause again. The judge has declared carry of judicial hearing for October, 30.

We with you still have time for carrying out of the even greater and strong campaign of solidarity! Let's connect to it new comrades and we shall finally achieve a stop any legal and criminal prosecution of organizers of strike on plant „Yanovskaya“!

Long live solidarity!

Yours faithfully, Coordination Council of workers` movement of Ukraine (KSRD)Edition of the newspaper « Worker`s Action»http://proletar.org.ua

What a great democratic weapon the internet is, allowing workers around the world to support each other so quickly!

Holloway ambiguous, Marathon unhappy

As this website has predicted, SA Resources Minister Holloway has avoided pulling the plug on Marathon Resources, and has instead offered a 12-month exploration license for the company at Arkaroola.

However, there are restrictions on where and how and with whose approval any exploration is to occur.

These restrictions mark a partial but important victory in the campaign to protect Arkaroola from mining in general, and from Marathon’s proposed uranium mine in particular.

However, they do not yet go far enough. Before adding further comment, here is the statement released last Tuesday, 6 October 2009 by Paul Holloway, Minister for Mineral Resources development in the SA Government:

Stricter conditions for Marathon exploration
News Release
www.ministers.sa.gov.au
Hon Paul Holloway
Minister for Mineral Resources DevelopmentMinister for Urban Development and PlanningMinister for Small Business

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Minister for Mineral Resources Development Paul Holloway said today Marathon Resources remains suspended from major exploration activity on its northern Flinders Ranges tenement despite being offered a subsequent exploration licence that includes tough new conditions.

Mr Holloway says the subsequent licence has been offered to Bonanza Gold, a subsidiary company of Marathon Resources, for an initial term of one year with additional licence conditions.

“These conditions include the requirement for both the Director of Mines and Chief Executive of the Department of Environment and Heritage to jointly approve all (emphasis in original - servethepeople) exploration activities,” he says.

“Early consultation with Arkaroola Management has also been formalised in the new conditions.

“Marathon will need to agree to these new stringent conditions if it wishes to accept the licence extension.”

The Northern Flinders Ranges area has long been identified as having high prospectivity for copper, gold, uranium and other metals. The area is also now recognised for having high prospectivity for the development of geothermal energy. But it is also recognised as an area of unique scenic beauty.

Mr Holloway says a balance has to be struck between the need to preserve environmentally sensitive areas and unique landscapes, including those with high tourist values, with the desire to fully explore the State’s resources potential.

“A comprehensive Environmental Management Framework for the Northern Flinders Ranges is now being developed to achieve this strict oversight of exploration and potential resource development,” Mr Holloway says.

“The framework will guide allowable mineral and energy exploration activities in this environmentally and culturally iconic part of South Australia.”

Mr Holloway says this collaborative project being finalised by the Department for Environment and Heritage and Primary Industries and Resources S.A. identifies sensitive areas that should be excluded from any future exploration and mining.

“There are some parts of the Arkaroola area that should never be open to mining,” he says.

“And there are other parts where mining activity should be heavily restricted to ensure environmental features are not disturbed.”

Mr Holloway says it is essential South Australia has a secure, stable and consistent legislative framework to attract high-risk mining investment to this State.

“Attracting this sort of investment is all the more critical in the current world financial environment,” he says.
Mr Holloway says Marathon’s activities in 2007 involving unauthorised disposal of waste also brought to light some deficiencies in compliance and enforcement provisions of the Mining Act.

Despite the breaches identified in 2007, Bonanza Gold and Marathon remain in compliance with the Mining Act 1971 and conditions of their licence, and are entitled to apply for a subsequent licence.

“A number of changes to the legislation being drafted will strengthen the compliance and enforcement provisions of the Mining Act and the ability of PIRSA to better regulate activities on mineral tenements, including exploration licences,” he says.

“The subsequent licence will only be granted for an initial one year term and all ground disturbing exploration activity on the tenement, which includes Arkaroola, will remain suspended at least until proposed amendments to the Mining Act come into force.

“I am confident that the additional stringent licence conditions, a strengthened regulatory framework and the development of the Environmental Management Framework for the Northern Flinders Ranges will ensure this iconic and mineral-rich region is sensitively managed.”


………………

The positives in this statement are that Marathon “remains suspended from major exploration activity” and that a new license is only offered on conditions that “all exploration activities” be jointly approved by two government departments, giving the Department of Environment and Heritage a say for the first time.

“Early consultation” with the Spriggs as managers of the Sanctuary is also a condition, although experience of “consultations” is that they are generally only a procedural formality provided for window-dressing purposes.

Even so, Marathon’s management cannot be said to have reacted with glee to the announcement. A sour grapes statement from the company indicated only that it would “assess’ the license proposal and respond to the Government within 21 days (see http://www.marathonresources.com.au/pdf/091012_Offer_for_extension_of_Licence.pdf ).

Of particular note in Holloway’s press release is the observation that “some parts of Arkaroola should never be open to mining”.

Our belief is that if this applies to any part of Arkaroola, it must certainly apply to the Mt Gee site, but that, in any case, the integrity of the Sanctuary can only be protected by declaring the whole area off-limits to mining.

It would be perfidious in the extreme if, prohibiting Mt Gee from being the site for a mine, the Government, having bought time until after the next State election in March, and having lulled people into a false sense of security, was to subsequently allow mining in areas less visible to tourists. Marathon has already indicated that it believes that there are such areas.
Their data shows the "hot areas" and has plenty off them out of sight (other side of the hill) of the famous Ridge Top Tour, including the backside of Mt Painter, an area with enormous heritage value of gemstone quality mineralogy.

Marathon’s sour grapes are our sweet nectar, but there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip….

Derivatives - what would Chairman Mao have Thought?

The global capitalist crisis is still being played out. Even if there is some movement towards a recovery, it is a movement characterised by twists and turns, a recovery in which speculative and parasitic finance capital is more or less successfully resisting the social democrats who believe that future prosperity rests on regulation of the sector.

Here in Australia we have sheltered from the storm under the protective umbrella of Chinese resource purchases…actual purchases of the ores themselves, and more recently, some fairly aggressive purchasing of resource sector private companies.

However, the umbrella is not without its own holes.

Having “opened to the outside world” for three decades, (a cute phrase that lets the US off the hook for the cordon sanitaire and blockades that it maintained against China through the fifties and sixties), China has lost some of its financial sovereignty and is only just realising its vulnerability as part of the imperialist world economy.

This is particularly so in respect of derivatives, those arrangements through which companies try to take advantage of fluctuations in commodity prices or, at the least, protect themselves if the fluctuations head consistently south.

The derivatives industry is huge. The Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements recently estimated that the value of global derivatives contracts was 1.14 quadrillion dollars. Can’t visualise that? Look at this post of mine for some idea of what it means.

So how does the derivatives industry relate to China?

Keen to participate in the global economy, some of the biggest state-owned enterprises (SOEs) seem to have forgotten their socialist origins and their responsibilities to the Chinese people.

They have embraced the get-rich-is-glorious-regardless-of-how-you-do-it ideology of those “pragmatists” who set the pace for much of what happens in China and have entered into the shady world of derivatives perhaps not fully understanding the pitfalls underlying speculative capital transactions.

Mushtaq Kapasi was a derivatives dealer employed by Western banks to get into the pants of Chinese companies. He confessed that “Many Chinese firms had little experience with complicated financial products such as derivatives before they bought billions of dollars worth of these investment products” (Confessions of Chinese Derivatives Deals Pt. 1).

He cites the example of China Eastern Airlines.

“Quite sensibly,” he writes, “the airline bought derivatives that would pay if oil became more expensive. But to make the hedge cheaper in the short term, China Eastern agreed that if oil prices dropped past a certain point, then it would have to pay double what the bank would have to pay if the price of oil went up. After the oil bubble burst last year, the company admitted these derivatives cost them 6.2 billion yuan – and obliterated their profits for 2008.”

In the end Kapasi pulled out of the derivatives game in China having observed too many international banks conning Chinese firms, state-owned and otherwise, with what he called “tricky products”.

The scale of losses suffered by Chinese firms has shaken officialdom.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) concedes that 28 SOEs have taken out derivatives contracts and that most have suffered losses to such beneficial institutions as Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Group, J.P. Morgan Chase and Co, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.

As Lenin said in a somewhat different context, What is to be done?

SASAC has authorised the SOEs to begin withholding payments to the banks; indeed six SOEs are believed to have begun legal proceedings to break their contracts.

One school of thought holds that this is a bad move that will tarnish China’s business reputation; another holds that the banks know that they took advantage of Chinese inexperience with derivatives and will accept the loss of the contracts in return for continued involvement with other lucrative projects in China.

At least the SOEs have the Chinese government to support them. As Kapasi noted, however, “Most small investors are not as lucky…Many are linked to markets that could go haywire at any time. Chinese derivative holders would then face enormous costs that many can’t afford.”

Meanwhile, I read in a recent Women of China magazine the case of a teacher in Yunnan Province who has paid the tuition fees of her poverty-stricken students so that they can keep attending school.

I guess that's the difference between serving the people and serving big capital….

Port Augusta: corporate protectors versus climate protesters

(Map, above, shows Port Augusta at the top of the gulf, and both Leigh Creek and Copley sandwiched between Lakes Torrens and Frome)

A small contingent of protesters calling for the closure of the polluting coal-fired Port Augusta power station last weekend were easily outnumbered by the corporate world’s protectors, the state police.

About 50 supporters of the Climate Camp Organising Collective took the 3-hour road trip from Adelaide to Port Augusta. They held a community forum on Friday night and marched on the power station the following morning.

In a farcical display of state overkill, more than 150 police were deployed, including mounted police and the dog squad.

The corporate protectors stopped the climate protesters after they had marched some 2 kilometres to the power station. At this point protesters in t-shirts and thongs (footwear variety) deposited 350 red bottlebrush flowers on the road, symbolising the 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon that climate scientists say is the upper limit to maintain a safe climate.

Several Climate Camp representatives were then escorted by weapons-toting police to the front gate of the power station, where they hoped to present the company with a Community Decommission Order requiring the immediate closure of the plant. However, no company personnel were prepared to accept the Order.


The action occurred as part of a four day climate camp where a range of workshops were held to discuss the science and politics of climate change, including the need for an immediate switch to renewable energy. Participants emphasized the need for a just transition for workers in the region and that more jobs could be created in renewable energy than are currently provided by the power stations.

Climate Camp activists were careful not to demonise workers at either the power station or the Leigh Creek coalfields. CFMEU (Mining Division) national secretary Tony Maher had cautioned activists about this at a day-long Climate Change conference organsied by SA Unions and attended by over 100 union delegates on the Thursday before the weekend protest.

However, the power stations themselves (Northern and Playford B) certainly deserve community anger as they are among the most polluting and inefficient in Australia.


Originally owned and operated by the state government through the Electricty Trust of South Australia, they were leased to private enterprise as Flinders Power in 2000 by the then state Liberal government. In June 2006, multinational investor Babcock and Brown (20% is owned by German bank Bayerische Hypo und Vereinsbank ) acquired Flinders Power and continues to operate it and the Leigh Creek coal mine through a wholly-owned subsidiary, Babcock and Brown Power despite the parent company declaring bankruptcy last March.

An interesting aside to the power plant protest was the deliberate lie put out to the media and to Climate Camp organisers that Flinders Power would agree not to run the Leigh Creek coal train for the duration of the climate camp at Port Augusta. The coal train is up to 3 kilometres long and is said to be the longest in the world.

According to ABC News on Friday, “Flinders Power says it has cancelled coal train deliveries due this weekend because the train runs at night and the driver may not see any protesters if they walked onto the rail tracks.”

This was also conveyed in a special bulletin authorised by Police Assistant Commissioner Graeme Barton which said “As a result of Operation Climate Camp SA 2009 emissions protest at Port Augusta, Flinders Power agreed that the longest coal train in the world would not run on Saturday or Sunday”.

Yet Flinders Power did start the train rolling towards Port Augusta on Sunday morning. It didn’t arrive because one of the engines was derailed at about 10am outside Copley, not far from Leigh Creek.

The deceit of trying to run the train behind a screen of lies, and the truth of its derailment, was revealed by an astute and enterprising 14-year old Victorian school girl on holidays in the Flinders Ranges in this piece for the Coober Pedy Regional Times: http://cooberpedyregionaltimes.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/derailment-of-leigh-creek-coal-train-enroute-to-port-augusta-power-station/

The revelation led Climate Camp activists to state that “Future South Australian Climate Change Camps are less likely to undergo negotiations with police due to the deliberate abuse of our trust.”

Book Review: "The Ancient Ship" by Zhang Wei

Zhang Wei’s The Ancient Ship was written in 1987 and only recently translated into English. It was published by Harper Collins last year.

Set in the fictional Shandong town of Wali, the novel explores the enduring culture and psychology of the Chinese people.

The plot is non-linear and events move into and out of and around certain events in the first forty years of the People’s Republic of China. Although these events, as a background to the ancient patterns of the struggle for survival in Wali are almost inconsequential, they also have profound repercussions.

Although the reader might identify the struggle for land reform, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Sino-Vietnamese war and the “reform and opening up”, these milestones in the history of contemporary China are unmarked, their anonymity serving to deny, for the author, that linear time has any meaning or relevance for the ebb and flow of Chinese life.

Liberation in 1949 and the period of the Five Year Plans are referred to in passing as “By then an earthshaking change had occurred in our land, characterized mainly by pervasive turmoil. The people were confident that it would take only a few years to overtake England and catch up to America” (p. 9).

The masking of such familiar milestones and the moving backwards and forwards between them simultaneously upsets the Western mind’s reliance on a linear time structure and brings to the fore a concentration on what the author sees as innate Chinese characteristics that are as much a part of the Chinese mind as ancient walls and ancient ships are part of its landscape.

The dominating motif of the novel is an imposing and ancient glass noodle factory. Its presence is felt in the same way as the distillery in Red Sorghum and the silk dyeing plant in Ju Dou. In so far as Wali might be a microcosm for all of China, the factory can be taken to symbolise China’s industrial infrastructure: the struggle for control of the factory between the Sui and Zhao clans mirrors the struggle for control of the means of production unleashed by Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms.

Although his family has lost its control of the factory to the Zhaos, Sui Baopu sits at his machine each day, ignoring events in the village and refusing younger brother Sui Jiansu’s earnest calls for rising up against the Zhao’s and reclaiming the factory. Baopu represents a compliant working class, still in the grip of the Communist Manifesto, but unable or unwilling to follow its call to action.

Their uncle, the seafaring Sui Buzhao further blurs the reality of time, suffering delusions about being in the company of, and having conversations with, the Ming Admiral Zheng He whose navigating manual fulfils his spiritual needs just as the Manifesto does for Baopu.

Surrounded by corruption, a lone Party street committee secretary rails against the abuse of power by higher ups and always pays for his tickets to the movies. This quality, together with Buzhao’s unexpected act of selfless heroism at the novel’s end, is the key to the town’s survival and growth and is the human equivalent of the underground waters that promise to rejuvenate the town’s dying river.

It is impossible not to be fascinated by the detail of work in the noodle factory and the minutiae of life in the town. This novel was a best-seller in China and rightfully so.

Radioactive dust storm...coming your way!

“What do we do when this dust is radioactive?”

Two days ago, residents of the mid-north of South Australia reported that it was raining mud.

They were referring to the fact that a massive dust storm had been whipped up in advance of a rain front that had overtaken it and rained down through it.

That dust storm moved east, plunging Broken Hill into blackness, as captured on this home movie on Youtube:

It then hit Brisbane and then Sydney as these amazing photos by ninemsn photographer Shaun Davies show.

People living in the path of this massive dust storm have got to start asking their friends, their workmates, families and politicians the question in boldface above, namely, “What do we do when this dust is radioactive?”

That’s because BHP-Billton is going to turn its underground mine at Roxby Downs, Olympic Dam, into the world’s largest open cut uranium mine. I won’t take up space here detailing the implications of this. You can go to these links to two earlier posts on the topic of dust storms and radioactivity:

http://mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com/2008/12/advertiser-image-of-dust-storm-last.html

http://mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com/2008/12/olympic-dam-dust-and-radiation.html

And check out film-maker David Bradbury's views on the Coober Pedy Regional Times website:

http://cooberpedyregionaltimes.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/filmmaker-david-bradbury-red-dust-dump-originating-at-woomera-is-grave-concern-for-public-health/