猢狲子 husunzi

Inspired by Obama's visit to China, starting here (not sure if this is open to the public).

More bad news. Actually I'm not sure how different this is than before. On a separate note, leave it to FT to characterize Shenzhen as "one of China's most progressive cities"...  And leave it to FT - that champion of free speech - to post a big disclaimer "Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009... Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web." Well the report's here.

Response to a Chinese friend, who said she recently met an American who came, after several years of NGO work in China, to the profound and original conclusion that "China will never democratize."

I wouldn't waste my time with people who say things like that. You should ask him what he means by "democratize." Since he's an American, almost certainly he means to adopt the US model of representative political democracy. Then you should ask him, what's so great about that model? Many Americans I know are discontent with that model. And the US government has a long, dark history of using that model as an excuse to invade other countries, such as Iraq, and set up puppet governments
more useful for American political and economic interests.

If you say this to many Americans they will think you're brainwashed
by the Communist Party and that you're defending the Chinese system,
but it's possible to be critical of both Chinese and American systems
at the same time - and even to see them both as two different forms of
the same global capitalist system.

At the same time, such First World "democrats" try to monopolize the
word "democracy" by implying there is only one kind of democracy -
their kind. You know that in Chinese, 民主 can mean different things.
For example it can refer to someone's way of dealing with divergent
opinions when working together with a group, as in "她处事的方法很民主" (or
不民主). That kind of democracy may be more important than the formal
democracy of political representatives - who in reality always form
part of an elite class and mainly represent the interests of the
elite, not of ordinary, working-class people.

Most anarchists and (real) communists reject such formal,
representative democracy in favor of "direct democracy." Direct
democracy not only means making decisions directly and democratically
(instead of through representatives) - usually trying to come to a
consensus that will satisfy almost everyone involved, instead of
the majority imposing its will on the minority. It also means
exercising direct control over all aspects of our lives. Neither of
these conditions are met by the model of representative political
democracy advocated by people who say things like "China will never
democratize."

In an earlier message she had quoted the American democrat as saying that the fundamental problem of rural China is "poverty," and she wondered about the role that NGOs could play in alleviating poverty, to which I replied:

I'm not sure if the fundamental problem in rural China is poverty. I
think the fundamental problem today is the capitalist system. Basically,
people are poor because the state prevents them from taking things
from rich people. At the same time, the state helps rich people and
their companies to take land from poor people, to pollute their land,
and to make them work for low wages to help the companies profit.
There's more to it than that, but that's the basic problem, as I see
it. The overwhelming majority of NGOs don't aim to deal with this
basic problem, that's why I don't have much hope in them, or in
activism.

I feel like I could set up a whole consulting service for this purpose, but (1) for all the things I know _not_ to do, I'm not sure about which methods will actually work in some situations, and (2) few people would recognize the need to ask for advice until it's too late.

I could write for ages about all kinds of mistakes I've made in trying to come to China, get and extend permission to live here, work here, study here, and do research here. Once I posted a detailed account of a friend being multiply screwed over by a college where I was teaching - again it's not clear what lessons could be gained from that, except not to work for that particular college, but since I've heard many Chinese colleges are like that, maybe I should just advise people not to work for any Chinese college.

Here I'll just focus on my experience trying to do research in China, and the practical lessons I can offer from that. In this case, all the blame can't be laid at the doorstep of China, Chinese culture, the CCP, or even the state or capitalism in general (although I could probably make a pretty strong case that it's mostly due to capitalism and the state, if I wanted to go that route). I'll focus on giving advice I really wish I had at various steps in the process of making this attempt, mentioning my experiences as illustrations.

Getting a Grant

I'm tempted to advise against applying for research grants altogether - if I took all the time and money I spend writing and mailing grant applications, going through the complicated procedures of actually getting the money (which I still haven't gotten yet, after over a year of work on this), paying completely unecessary and ridiculously high prices for academic affiliation in China, and waiting around without "gainful employment" (which at least some grants require - and if you get the timing wrong, you could end up stuck deeply in debt and getting kicked out of China), I probably could have made at least as much money just by working, then quit my job and done whatever research I wanted on my own schedule, as I saw fit.

But if for some reason you feel compelled to get a grant (because it looks good on your CV or whatever), make sure that you do not quit your job until you actually get the cash in your hand. Otherwise you're likely to end up like me, waiting around for five months with no income, not allowed to do research (because of IRB human subjects permission), having to take out loans to pay for ridiculously expensive and completely unnecessary fees for academic affiliation, screwing up personal relationships, career plans, and so on. Don't believe a word people say about when you'll actually get your grant or human subjects permission.

IRB Human Subjects Applications

Don't forget to submit your human subject application to your university's IRB as early as possible. I completely forgot about it - and of course no one reminded me - until about June (after having been informed that I was eligible for a grant and - as they requested - quitting my job in May), and then the office was closed for the summer and didn't get processed until September, at which time I found out that the scanned copy of my signature wouldn't work: they needed an "original inked signature." I suspect these university IRBs are the only remaining bureaucratic apparati in the world that maintain such a ridiculous requirement. Of course my signature had to be on the same page with the signatures of my advisor and my department head, both of whom were in different countries. So we arranged for one of them to mail the form to me, let me sign it and mail it to the third, who would mail it back to the IRB. But after about a month, I never received the sheet, so I signed a third copy and mailed it in October. My IRB still hasn't received it, and that's all we're waiting on at this point. I'm contemplating whether to mail a fourth copy, but I'd have to take out another loan to do that (of course if it's lost in the mail again, I'll either have to take out another loan in any case or drop out of grad school and take up another job. Don't get me wrong: of course I've been working odd jobs here and there. But now I've also got to pay back the loan I took out to pay about 4,000 US dollars for academic affiliation in China, visas, and residence permits - all technically unnecessary.

Academic Affiliation

China does not have a research visa or any national, official permit for doing research in China. Many officials (including university officials) regarding it as illegal for foreigners to do any kind of social research in China - it doesn't matter if the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences writes a letter for you. On the other hand, you can generally conduct as much research as you want on any subject that isn't highly sensitive (I don't think it's necessary for me to explain what those are) without any kind of permit, as long as your establish personal relations with the authorities in the place where you're doing the research. It doesn't matter what kind of visa you're on or who your official "work unit" is.

However, if you're applying for a foreign research grant, such as Fulbright-Hays, you're required to have an official academic sponsor, and that means paying between 3,000 and 4,000 US dollars in "tuition" at one of the few Chinese universities familiar with this procedure (and it's basically guesswork and trial-and-error to figure out which ones can do that), and establishing a relationship with a professor at that university who can serve as your official supervisor for the purpose of that affiliation. I'm told that Fulbright (different from Fulbright-Hays) can actually set that affiliation up for you. But Fulbright-Hays - and probably many other grants - can neither do that nor offer any advice. So again, the easiest way to deal with this would be to not apply for grants in the first place. But if you do, contact me or anyone else with experience in this (my dissertation committee - two of whom have done research in China many times - were not able to offer any useful advice until after I had wasted many months and thousands of dollars on dead ends) to find out exactly which univerities are capable of providing such affiliation, and the exact procedure for doing so. At several universities I know of, that involves applying to enroll as a gaoji jinxiusheng (advanced research student). It's important you get the procedure right the first time, otherwise the "foreign affairs office" of the university will get suspicious of your intentions and you have no chance of ever working anything out with them (this happened in my experience at two universities, and this pattern has been confirmed by someone at the Fulbright office in Beijing and a couple other students trying to get affiliation in China). Of course no one at that office will explain any of this to you, so you really need to know exactly what to do before you approach them.

Conclusion

OK, that's probably enough for now. My main points are (1) if you want to do research in China, it's probably better to not apply for a research grant, get the cheapest visa available (ask among expats in the city you want to go to and you should be able to find no-strings-attached one-year "work" (Z) or "business" (F) visas for 4,000 yuan or so), and do whatever research you want at your own pace and on your own savings (and you can easily find part-time jobs on those visas, not allowed by grants); (2) if you must apply for a grant, make sure you keep your job until you get the cash in your hand, apply for IRB human subjects permission as soon as possible, and ask me or other experienced people about which Chinese universities can provide academic affiliation and exactly how to go about getting that. Don't be like me and waste five months waiting around without a job, taking out loans to pay of these unnecessary expenses, and damaging your personal relationships, just because you wasted several months trying to get academic affiliation in the wrong way with the wrong universities, didn't think about applying for human subjects permission until the office was closed for the summer, and tried to apply with a scanned signature instead of an "original inked signature." Doing research in China could be much simpler than it ended up being for me and several other students I've talked to.