On Sunday, accompanied by several friends, I watched the end of the Brighton Marathon.  We stood, just before the 42km (roughly 26 mile) marker, cheering on runners who have put in months of hard training to get to that highly emotional stage of the race. At this stage of a marathon, a mixture of haunted souls and ecstatic faces pass by, as the physical demands of running 26 miles begin to be dwarfed by the realization that the satisfaction of completion is imminent. Some of the runners we went to support achieved qualifying times for the Boston Marathon in 2014. Running Boston represents a peak achievement for many marathon runners.  To enter, you need to record a qualifying time in a recognised race.  For instance, for a man under the age of 35, it is necessary to run a sub 3:05 marathon.  For a 59-year-old man, a 3:55 marathon is needed.  Given the average time for running a marathon is around four and a half hours, just getting to Boston is quite an achievement.

Yesterday evening, I went for my usual Monday night run, in preparation for the London Marathon next weekend.  On getting home, we were hit by the unfolding news from Massachusetts.  Oddly, perhaps, like many Brits and Australians who have seen the film, my mind went to ‘Four Lions’.  The plot of the movie reaches its crescendo when four British ‘home-grown’ terrorists attempt to blow themselves up, in full fancy dress, at the London Marathon.  Unfortunately, unlike their shambolic movie counterparts, the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings successfully detonated two (of four) portable devices, close to the finish line of the race.  The televisual impact of the explosions was dramatic.  Cameras usually focused on capturing the moment that runners cross the line swung round to zoom in on the smoke, debris and human carnage that the bombs created.  A row of national flags, previously limp on a calm spring day, billowed in the force of the blast.

The images, both still and moving, that rapidly filled airwaves and social media sites, were difficult to stomach.  The current death toll stands at three, with the number of injured estimated at over one hundred.  The nature of the injuries is particularly horrific, with numerous “traumatic amputations”, as supporters standing near the site of detonation have all too frequently had their legs blown off.  Professor Marie Breen-Smyth, Academic Director of the Centre for International Intervention at the University of Surrey, has previously worked on recording and highlighting the cases of people ‘damaged’ by terrorism in Northern Ireland.  We would do well to heed some of the lessons of her research, and not exclude the injured from the statistics and stories of such events.  The number of people who have had limbs ripped from bodies is already in double figures.

Alongside images, Sky News noted that “everyone was consuming media as fast as possible” in order to attempt to make sense of what was taking place and being witnessed.  The flow of information was chaotic, confused and, at times, contradictory.  It was also, very often, just plain wrong: factually incorrect and ethically troubling.  The New York Post quickly ran stories of inflated death tolls and reports of “Saudi” suspects.  It did not take long for “Saudi” and “Muslims” to trend on Twitter, despite the absurdity and implications of speculative linkages, in lieu of any corroborating evidence.  News channels struggled to place a frame over the events, resorting to endless and dizzying repetition of looped footage.  As with other events such as this, the acts slowly became their image, with the need for understanding deferred in favour of the picture of what was taking place, which seemed to ‘speak for itself’.

CNN, amongst others, broke from the pack early to declare that an editorial decision had been made and the events would now be designated ‘terrorist’.  Such a label comes with considerable political implications; it helps to make certain policy responses possible, rendering others off limits, or simply inappropriate.  The decision was in contrast to Obama’s more ‘measured language’.  The President of the United States appeared to go out of his way to avoid using inflationary language, or that of his predecessor, George W. Bush.  Whereas Bush promised to “bring to justice”, Obama’s final words promised to hold perpetrators “accountable”.*  This more British and Blairite term pushes policy towards a criminal and legislative response, rather than the implications of an emergency-premised, state of exception.

The tension between ‘policing as normal’ and a ‘terrorism inquiry’ was evident in the Boston Police Department’s official declaration that this was a criminal and potential terrorist investigation.  That such a dichotomy exists is troubling.  As I have argued previously, counter-terrorism would be more efficient if terrorism was not exceptionalised.  Policing and legislative frameworks are usually robust enough to deal with political violence, such as terrorism, in the same way as other forms of violence.  And by using existing channels, the potential for eroded civil liberties and inflated terrorist agendas is diminished.  Emergencies and crises lead to impaired legislation and weaker decision-making.  This is why political leaders must not say “Al Qaeda or whatever, but we don’t know that yet”, as one just has, until such information is confirmed, moving it beyond hearsay and conjecture.  While a criminal investigation may move swiftly, political responses must be slow, thoughtful and careful, if indeed a ‘response’ is even necessary.

Several tropes familiar to the ‘War on Terror’ did emerge in the event’s aftermath.  Unity and bipartisanship were foremost in Obama’s words.  Heroism, too, featured in early reports, both online and on television.  Images of volunteers and police running towards the explosions were accompanied by sketchy stories about participants crossing the finish line and continuing to run to places where they offered to donate blood.  For me, and for other runners I’ve heard from, a small glimpse of humanity that we noted was the tendency for runners to cross the finish line, shaken and scared, but still of sufficiently sound mind to stop their watches.

To wrap up these very preliminary thoughts, I will close with two things.  First, while events in Boston are abhorrent – and I condemn them as strongly as such condemnation is possible – they are not exceptional, either in their nature or level of violence.  What is unusual about these events is that they took place in the United States, and that their ‘choreographing’ has helped to maximise their televisual impact.  A wave of bombings, also on Monday, killed 27 people.  They were Iraqi.  And in Afghanistan, on Monday night, 30 people were killed and 90 wounded at a wedding, following an “errant” US airstrike.  Such statistics reaffirm the importance of vigilance against all forms of political violence, whether labeled terrorism or counter-terrorism.

Second, my vantage point for the Boston Marathon bombings was one of a British runner.  A small tile on my office wall reads: “Keep calm and go for a run”.  That is exactly what Brits will do this weekend, at the Virgin London Marathon 2013.  “Carry on” has been a prominent British response to the events in Massachusetts.  And that is not a bad start.  So while Boston’s 26^th mile was dedicated, tragically, to the victims of the Newtown shootings, many running the London Marathon on Sunday will do so with Boston in mind.

Dr Jack Holland

Lecturer in International Relations

Twitter: @drjackholland

Website: drjackholland.com

* As Andrew Neal and others have pointed out, Obama does talk of “justice” earlier in his short address.

I have deliberately resisted adding images or links to the above.

For those so inclined, I blogged yesterday on teaching gender and security.  It’s an important topic that shouldn’t get lost in the post-Boston maelstrom.

And, for those driving home at this sort of time, I’m due to speak on a few local BBC radio stations between 4pm and 6pm this afternoon.  I’ll share details on Twitter when I get them.  Update – I’m on BBC 5 Live at 12:05pm.

In Week 7, before the Easter break, I was due to teach on the topic of gender in my Level 5 Security Studies module. I was extremely reluctant to perform the same lecture format as usual for this particular topic and so spent a few hours putting together some contemporary sources (Twitter feeds, newspaper reports, video clips) to stimulate debate.

I chose to begin the session by drawing attention to the popular ‘Everyday Sexism’ Twitter feed, which has thousands of followers and hundreds of contributors.  The point of highlighting this source was to reinforce the political nature of everyday life and the pervasiveness of unequal, gender-premised power relations in society.  As I scrolled down the feed, however, one particular tweet stood out.  It contained a photograph of a meme that had been featuring on Facebook walls over recent weeks.  A headshot of a smug looking man was accompanied by the following text: “Go ahead, tell the police. They can’t un-rape you”.  The response from the class was, on the whole, one of laughter.

It’s at times like these that lecturers have to think on their feet to avoid reinforcing the very socio-political inequalities to which they seek to draw attention.  It’s what is sometimes called a ‘teaching’ or ‘teachable’ moment.  Why was it, I asked, that it was OK to laugh at a ‘rape joke’?  Was there a broader ‘rape culture’ in the United Kingdom?  And what, if any, are the connections between finding humour in the topic and actual sexual crimes?

In 2011 research on so-called “lads’ mags” made national headlines.  It was revealed that, for the vast majority of people, the language used in such publications is indistinguishable from that of convicted sex offenders.  Ordinary Britons were unable to tell if comments selected (and troubling) quotations were part and parcel of the routine depiction of women in FHM, Nuts and Zoo, or the words of a rapist.  It was only once they knew the source of the quote that their feelings of association with and support for such language altered accordingly.

While the link is more akin to ‘conditions of possibility’ than ‘causation’, there exists a clear relationship between a culture in which violence towards women is normalized and actual sexual crimes.  Perhaps nowhere was this point better made than in the news story which had broken the day before the class.  In Steubenville, Ohio, two teenage boys had been convicted of rape.  The details of their crime are horrific enough on their own to speak to the importance of understanding the relationship of gender and security.  However, two other features of the story were particularly troubling, due to their widespread implications and indications.

First, as news broke of the story and its background, it became apparent that members of the community had attempted to protect the two boys in order to ensure their promising football careers were not damaged.  The victim was targeted in an attempt to silence her.  Second, media coverage of the trial and its outcome was overwhelmingly focused on the plight of the boys and the sad loss of their freedom, which had resulted from an apparent ‘error of judgment’.  Photographs, punditry and reporting all contributed to the construction of a narrative from which the victim and the crimes she had suffered were absent or downplayed.

As we discussed the story, students began to understand the reasons for my surprise and alarm at their laughter.  While I certainly wouldn’t argue that gender relations must be exempt from comedy, we would hope that humour has a critical edge that serves to challenge dominant and dangerous power relations (even through irony), rather than contribute to them.  At least some of the students in my Security Studies module share that hope.  Two of our doctoral researchers – Sam Cooke and Katharine Wright – certainly do.  They joined me in the lecture in order to help encourage students to think critically about gender and security.

In the School of Politics we are extremely lucky to have an emerging cluster of experts on gender and security amongst our doctoral researchers.  Several of them are organizing what promises to be an interesting and important conference on the topic, to be hosted at Surrey on 11^th September 2013.  For further details, visit the conference website: genderandsecurity.wordpress.com.  And to submit an abstract, email: Annie Waqar by 21^st June 2013.

With the death of Boris Berezovsky over the weekend, old rumours and speculation were in abundance in the British media. It is being widely suggested that he may have taken his own life, a not unlikely scenario considering the huge personal and financial losses he had suffered in recent times. On the other hand, many who knew him are reported as saying this would be very much out of character. For those who knew him only from media coverage, it is indeed difficult to believe that this über-confident man would have allowed himself to be brought to such depths of despair; whatever one thought about Berezovsky, I don’t think anyone doubted but that he was a survivor. The second possibility is that the causes were natural and to date this also has not been ruled out. Either of these two possibilities will mean that this is ultimately a private tragedy and that commentary can move to discussion of who Berezovsky was and what he stood for, in the way that obit columns ordinarily go about their business.  The third possibility, that the Russian state might somehow be involved, will make this very much a matter of public interest.

No matter what the final determination, his death brings another tricky moment in the UK’s relations with Russia. The nature of the death of Alexander Litvinenko is evidently on the minds of all those involved in investigating Berezovsky’s death, with reports that those on the scene first were trained in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) emergencies. The implications of having CBRN officers on hand will not be lost on the Kremlin, underlining as they do the fact that when it comes to Russia, UK officials are extremely cautious and very distrustful.

However, in Russia itself, you don’t have to dig too deep to find analysis that argues Berezovsky’s death marks the end of an era. For many Russians, Berezovsky symbolised all the failures of the turn to democracy, a maths professor turned oligarch who made, and retained for himself, a huge personal fortune while the vast majority of Russia’s population struggled to put food on their tables. Few ordinary Russians felt sympathy when the political tide turned against Berezovsky.

The same sense of an end to unfortunate times will not apply to UK-Russia relations though. It is true that the person of Berezovsky is not unimportant in respect of understanding this bilateral relationship. After he fell out with Putin and fled to London, the Russian authorities made repeated requests for his extradition to no avail. This, as well as the habit for a while of the British media to wheel Berezovsky out to deliver the dissident’s perspective, meant that he had a directly negative impact on inter-state relations. With his death, a point of contention is lost. But that is all. The inquest into Litvinenko’s death will continue, Russia and the UK will continue to be divided on Syria and on the question of intervention generally. The UK will continue to take Russia to task over its human rights record and many business people will continue to see Russia as a high-risk investment opportunity. In short, Berezovsky or no, the era of poor UK-Russia relations shows little sign of coming to an end.

It is with mixed feelings that we should have read the news that Michalis Sarris, the Cypriot Finance Minister, left Moscow without an answer to Cyprus’s economic ills. Whatever the responsibility of economic and political elites in Cyprus, it is once again ordinary people who will most feel the consequences of poor management of finances. In this context, the possibility that Russia would come to the aid of Cyprus was a welcome one.

Cypriot-Russian relations to date have been good and operate on a range of levels: economic, political and cultural. Within the EU context, Cyprus has been a positive supporter of Russia; some have even argued that Cyprus acts as a Trojan horse for Russian interests in the EU. Given these good relations, the extensive Russian investment in Cyprus (and vice versa), and the stark fact that Russians have a lot to lose if Cypriot banks collapse or if the 9.9% levy were to be imposed, it was not surprising that the Finance Ministers of these states should meet to discuss the possibilities. What was more surprising were the reports in Cypriot English language newspapers that Russian flags were being waved by demonstrators and that rumours were rife – and given substance by their repetition by Cypriot news outlets – that Russia would definitely come to Cyprus’s aid. Common sense should have dictated otherwise and Russia has now starkly reminded the Cypriot people that there are other priorities beyond being neighbourly and that help comes with a price tag now or must be rewarded by dividends in the future.

Many EU politicians must surely feel a measure of relief that the Russians will not now be able to sell themselves as the saviour of Cyprus and the Euro. For in this sense Russia’s aid would have come at a terrible political price for the EU.

The EU may now be safe from comparisons relating to what it would not do for Cyprus that the Russians would, but the immediate situation remains and, as with Greece before it, Cyprus’s economic woes continue to expose rifts and open up new divisions in the relations between members of the EU. Current media analysis is focused primarily on whether the Cypriot financial sector can be saved. Most analyses are clear on one point at least: if its financial sector does collapse, Cyprus will have to leave the Eurozone.  Few, however, are talking yet about the effect this will have on longer-term political relations within the EU. They are very likely to be dire.

This was always the problem with vaunting the economic benefits of membership as the primary rationale for joining the EU. Economic interdependence was supposed to be the means through which political intertwining could be achieved, it was not supposed to be an end in itself. For too long, the EU’s component parts have lost sight of this. The big worry now is whether they can ever again be brought to a place where political integration is seen as the right and proper objective to pursue.

As the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Western ideas looked set to dominate global politics for some time to come. Quickly, however, the West began to shrink and to become synonymous with the USA as Europe became increasingly preoccupied with the enlargement as well as deepening of the integrationist project. One interesting but not so paradoxical effect, has been that Europe has become, if not isolationist, at least inward-looking, seemingly unable to lift its head and see the view beyond its own (admittedly large) back garden. Look at any of the literature on the state of global politics and economics today and Europe is relegated more and more to the end parts of the text, sometimes even featuring as little more than a footnote. Research and discourse on the rising powers is in increasing abundance and the USA is not the only country pivoting to Asia. The Catholic Church has just elected a Latin American to its highest office to lead its people through a time of enormous challenge and threat. Meanwhile, Europe is mired in economic crisis and acutely aware of  that, even while somnambulism presides in respect of its political crisis as extremism deepens its hold over so many Europeans.

Before ever we get to what is to be done, we have to ask, what is needed. Three things are needed: leadership, debate, a properly critical public. Each is currently in very short supply.

The crowds in St Peter’s Square this week were testament not just to the endurance of religious belief but also to the need that people have for leadership: a leadership which speaks to deeper human needs, for an identity that is rooted in a values and belief system. Discourse on identity is always as much about what we are not as much as it is about what we are but in the European context the balance increasingly seems to lie with what we are not with little regard for what that says about who we really are: scared, ignorant, intolerant, bigoted, racist. Not all of us are all or even any of these things but it does not help if we fail to recognise that some, even many, people are. The ignorance and arrogance of some of our political and economic classes is often breath-taking, as is clear not only from media reporting but from direct conversation with them. It is now all too easy to understand the rise of Nazism and Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. Of course our economic health is vital but it is not the be all and end all and what we should have learned from history is the need to speak to values in society and to strengthen and reinforce our values system in times of crisis. But that takes strong leadership and courage, qualities that have been sorely lacking on the European continent for years, even decades, now.

What we also need is open debate. One of the great benefits of David Cameron’s decision to hold an eventual referendum on UK membership of the EU has been that new voices have been heard, a refreshing change from the usual sneering tones of the British press and other media. If only we could debate openly even more pressing issues that are not just about where our economic interests lie but which relate to who we are and what we want to be. I’m thinking about equality, race, immigration. You don’t have to be a supporter of Nick Clegg to agree with his comment that equality should always be a priority of any government.  Europe is sleepwalking into another crisis and with all the focus on finding solutions to the economic problems, we are ignoring the fact that our previous years of prosperity saw only a thin veneer of value-commitments put in place. The solution for bigotry, nationalism and extremism does not lie with economists, it lies with the politicians, the philosophers and the historians – and in free and open debate.

And that brings me to the final component: education. I can’t think of a better place to begin than with the ideas and admonitions of John Stuart Mill. In response, governments across the continent will point us to the fact that we are better educated than we have ever been. That is quantitatively but not qualitatively true. Mill was right in his focus on what education needed to be about if people were to emerge as critical, courageous thinkers, capable of taking on their political leaders. As education becomes ever more commodified and instrumentalised, as league tables and” bums on seats” become our measures of success, the biggest casualty is critical thought. And without appropriately critical thought we cannot produce good leaders, we cannot see the flaws in the thinking of our political elites and we cannot debate vital issues properly.

We knew all this a very long time ago. I’m no expert on why previous great civilisations have come and gone but I do know that in respect of our own we can begin with our failure to learn and to remember the lessons of history.

I have had conversations with a few FHEQ level 5 students this week about the POL 2031 Foreign Policy Analysis module – and the conversations are familiar from all the years of teaching on a variety of modules. It’s worth, therefore, thinking and working through what is being said.

The common theme seems to be that there is a bit of struggle to understand the material and how the parts fit together. The clue, of course, is in the name: this module is all about how to analyse foreign policy. As such it plays to all the problems that students traditionally experience: understanding theory, understanding how theory relates to practice; understanding how to apply theory to practice; understanding how to build an analytical framework. But beyond that, those conversations have revealed something else, the pressure students feel to understand everything  immediately. This is one of the things I dislike about semester rather than year-long modules. 11 weeks in the classroom sends out the message that it’s possible to develop a deep understanding of a particular area of study in just that period of time. It’s vital, therefore, to remind students of the fact that they undertake a programme, not a module, of study and that they have learned much elsewhere that relates to another module as well.

Beyond that, students have to be reassured that it’s normal to feel like full understanding is somewhere just out of reach; that’s often part of the learning process. A certain amount therefore has to be taken on trust for a little while. The biggest challenge is to remain motivated enough to continue reading and thinking. I still remember my time as a UG and spending most of the year in which I first learned about the EU and feeling as if I was in a fog. I could see the individual parts but not the whole and didn’t really feel as if I knew what we were working towards. Then, as so often happens  in learning, I had my eureka moment when it all clicked, although admittedly, I had the luxury of a year to work through this.

Luckily for POL2031 students, you don’t have to wait too long for something to happen out there in the world that serves as a good learning tool. One such moment was the announcement on Wednesday of William Hague that the UK would do more to intervene in Syria. Students have a foreign policy briefing to write – no easy task, I acknowledge – and Hague’s announcement is a good case. An easy way in is a series of questions that begins with: how can we understand and account for this decision? What were the motivations? What are the objectives? Whose interests are being defended? What values underpin the decision? How will this be implemented (look at the details)? How consistent is this decision with previous UK FP decisions? What alternatives were (are likely to have) been considered? Why this decision now? There are many more but you can begin with those. And in asking so many questions, you start yourself on the road of answering them because you now know what you’re looking for in terms of evidence.

For briefing purposes, all of this is vital. Students have to ‘imagine’ themselves into a place where they were one of those briefing Hague on the need (or not) to intervene more in Syria and the likely consequences of any action (or inaction). Summary is important and one of the things students often struggle with. Media reports can be useful here – for content and insight into how to tell a story concisely, though stylistically they are not necessarily the thing to emulate. Looking at the newspapers on Thursday morning though, most of them began with the tale to date and painted a picture of rising and increasingly unacceptable casualties.  This tells us something about part of the context in which the decision was made and in which it will be implemented. It also establishes significance, something POL2031 students will also have to do.

None of this is unconnected to what we have looked at in more abstract terms. All of the questions above relate to what we have been talking about in the 5 weeks of classes to date. Let’s take one of the more difficult aspects: consistency with previous decisions. This question reflects issues of identity, of change or continuity and links to the other questions about interests and values. It also relates to questions of context – if Hague’s decision is inconsistent, for instance, you need to account for that. How? Begin with context: has something changed in either the internal or external context (or both) that can explain that? I’ll give a clue, it’s an unsurprising decision and there is a good deal of consistency with past decisions and actions.

Finally, students have to remember that while they are being asked to apply theoretical ideas to a real life situation, they are doing so from a learning point of view – future inter-state relations do not rest on the recommendations of their briefing! This is the true luxury of higher education: an opportunity to ‘play’ with ideas, to engage intellectually without the pressures that real-life practitioners face.  And in an educational context, how you get there is far more important than where you get. I am looking forward to seeing what our students come up with in their briefing.

In recent months, Welsh actor Damian Lewis has shot to prominence on both sides of the Atlantic for his role in the proclaimed new TV drama, Homeland. This success has led Lewis to appear on British and American chat shows, and has even landed him with an invitation to dine with President Obama. Homeland, it transpires, is the president’s favourite TV programme. He has confessed to going into the Oval Office, on a Sunday afternoon, and pretending to work, only to watch the show’s latest episode.

Homeland’s central plot pivots around the main character, Sergeant Nicholas Brody, played by Lewis. Having spent 8 years captive in Iraq, the central question the show asks is whether or not Brody has been ‘turned’, away from his beloved America, to instead support the cause of terrorism.

Ably supported by an excellent cast and, in particular, a series of outstanding performances from Claire Danes, Lewis convincingly portrays the tensions of a man wrestling with conflicting identities and allegiances.

Homeland breaks down the familiar identity markers of Good Americans and Evil terrorists, as we are repeatedly left to contemplate Brody’s aims and motivations.

By continually prompting the viewer to ask the question, ‘whose side is Brody on?’, Homeland is able to highlight some of the problems with being able to ask that question in the first place.

Homeland then is part critique and part reinforcement of the logic of the War on Terror. The show’s appeal lies in its ability to confuse and conflate the two sides of the conflict, but ultimately reinforces the idea that, as George W. Bush said back in 2001, “you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists”.

Dr Malte Kaeding

After the media was dominated for a perceived eternity by the US elections campaign or the endless Eurozone Crisis, in mid-November attention briefly went a bit further east where the Chinese Communist party (CCP) has completed its once-a-decade leadership transition, revealing the 25 members of the Politburo and the seven members of its Standing Committee.
In March 2013 Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang will formally take over power from Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, Xi as CCP General Secretary and President and Li as Premier. The media has tried hard to provide us with some information about who the new leaders are and a lot of scholars and pundits have analysed the possible impact of the leadership change on the rest of the world.
It is likely that China will become a more assertive regional power as its current belligerent maritime behaviour vis-à-vis Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines already suggests. On the wider international arena there is already its tough stance in the Libyan and Syrian crisis. It will not get any easier dealing with a ‘peacefully rising’ China. More state-owned enterprises and state investment funds going on spending sprees in Europe, including the political consequences, are also to be expected. Hence, will China rule the Western world, similar to fears of a Japanese overtake in late 1980s (just watch Blade Runner)? Maybe these fears are too extreme (yet), but it is crucial to stay alert, especially also in academia.
There has been a lot of speculation about political ‘reform’ in China. The argument is that the CCP has to react and that the people become more demanding – especially when the country faces problems such as growing inequality, slowing growth, ineffective allocation of resources, rampant corruption and a destroyed environment, to name just some of them.
To put it directly, it’s not going to happen! Observers have rightly highlighted the absence of anyone who could be remotely considered a ‘reformer’ in the new Standing Committee. Also we have to remember who and how one gets into the top leadership. Xi and Li and the other members of the new Standing Committee are chosen because they somehow represent the carefully balanced interests of various rivalling party factions and cliques. Moreover the outgoing leadership will not want to install anyone who might hurt their legacy. In such system not those with the greatest charisma or best ideas succeed, but those who could not endanger anyone and who are best connected. This is not the wise and benevolent leadership as some naïve Western observers believe; it is the result of a system which breeds conformity and mediocrity.
We shall also not forget that there has been absolutely no progress on the political front over the past decade. Indeed the situation is worse than under Jiang Zemin and this despite the great hopes that were connected with Premier Wen Jiabao ten years ago. He was the aide of disgraced Premier Zhao Ziyang and joined him when Zhao spoke to the demonstrators on the Tiananmen Square in 1989. Days later Zhao was ousted and tanks moved into the square. Wen talked a lot about democracy, preferably to the foreign press, but no actions followed. No wonder he is referred to as ‘the best actor’ among some Chinese. If even the allegedly most liberal politician of his generation did nothing for political reform, what is there to expect from the generation of ‘princelings’ – children of famous party leaders who led a privileged life and were groomed to become the ruling elite?
It is very difficult to envision that political reform is on the agenda and indeed it might never be. Yet, we shall not forget that it is the CCP ruling, a mafia-like regime that, like any communist party, will do everything to stay in power and if this means pretending to embrace some form of democracy it might even do this. However one look at Hong Kong and you will see what this version of ‘democracy’ means…
Dr Keading has studied and taught in the Greater China region for six years and is member of the Hong Kong Transition Project, the EU-China Network and an Associate Fellow with the European Center of Contemporary Taiwan Studies. You can’t follow him on Twitter…