“Reflections on China’s May Fourth Movement: an American Perspective”
By Matt Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor
一个美国视角下的中国“五四”精神——2020年5月4日弗吉尼亚大学米勒中心的评论草稿
(In Mandarin Chinese) Good morning everyone. I’m Matt Pottinger, the Deputy National Security Advisor, speaking to you from the White House. I bring warm greetings from the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
We gather today online, from a thousand different places, because a pandemic still prohibits us from meeting in person. But through the marvel of the Internet, we have managed to come together as an even bigger group than if there had been no public health emergency. In ways big and small, we are all tapping our ingenuity as Americans, as Chinese, as human beings, to overcome hardship and preserve our communities.
“Big” examples of human ingenuity include harnessing biotechnology and data analytics to develop therapies and vaccines. “Small” examples of ingenuity include family members figuring out how to give each other haircuts when barbershops are closed. My wife, who is speaking on a panel later today, is a highly trained virologist. She is new to her role as the family barber, as you might have guessed by looking at my hair.
This is the second time I’ve had the privilege of addressing an audience at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Nearly a decade ago I was invited to speak about what I’d learned from service in the Marine Corps and about the relationship between our military and the civilians it defends. Since that day, I’ve never forgotten the warmth and wisdom of the Miller Center’s director, Governor Jerry Baliles, who passed away last October after a life of public service to the Commonwealth of Virginia and to our nation. We give thanks for people like Jerry.
Today, I’ve been invited by Professors Harry Harding and Shirley Lin to share some thoughts about U.S.-China relations. When Professor Lin told me this event would land precisely on the 101st anniversary of the start of China’s historic May Fourth Movement, I knew I had a potent topic for discussing the China of then and now.
On May the fourth, 1919, following the end of World War I, thousands of university students from across Beijing converged on Tiananmen Square to protest China’s unfair treatment at the Paris Peace Conference. Western nations chose to appease Imperial Japan by granting it control of Chinese territory that Germany had previously occupied, including the Shandong Peninsula.
The Chinese students who marched to Tiananmen that day shouted “give us back Shandong!” and “don’t sign the Versailles Treaty!” Police forced the students to disperse. But, as frequently happens when governments close down avenues for peaceful expression, some protesters resorted to violence. In a principled move that acknowledged popular anger, China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles later that year.
China would regain control of Shandong three years later with the help of the United States, which brokered an agreement at the Washington Naval Conference in 1922. But the movement ignited by those students exactly 101 years ago was about much more than nationalist outrage at “unequal treaties.” The movement galvanized a long-running struggle for the soul of modern China. As John Pomfret wrote in his fine history of U.S.-China relations, the May Fourth Movement aimed for “a wholesale transformation of Chinese politics, society, and culture.” “Mr. Science” and “Mr. Democracy” were the mottos of this movement to transport China into modernity. Some called the movement the “Chinese Enlightenment.” Vera Schwarcz wrote an insightful book by that title. In fact, there’s a lot of good scholarship on this subject. At least two eminent historians of modern China are participating in this event today—Oxford's Rana Mitter and the University of Virginia’s John Israel. I refer you to the experts to explore the history and meaning of the May Fourth Movement.
But I would like to spend a few minutes highlighting a few Chinese heroes that I believe embody the May Fourth spirit, then and now.
Hu Shih is naturally identified as one of the most influential leaders of the May Fourth era. He was already an influential thinker on modernizing China. Hu Shih’s family was from Anhui province. Like Lu Xun and many other leading writers of their generation, Hu Shih traveled overseas to study. After switching his focus at Cornell from agriculture to philosophy, Hu Shih studied at Columbia University under the American educator John Dewey.
Hu Shih would contribute one of the greatest gifts imaginable to the Chinese people: The gift of language. Up until then, China’s written language was “classical,” featuring a grammar and vocabulary largely unchanged for centuries. As many who have studied it can attest, classical Chinese feels about as close to spoken Chinese as Latin does to modern Italian. The inaccessibility of the written language presented a gulf between rulers and the ruled—and that was the point. The written word—literacy itself—was the domain primarily of a small ruling elite and of intellectuals, many of whom aspired to serve as officials. Literacy simply wasn’t for “the masses.”
Hu Shih believed otherwise. In his view, written Chinese—in form and content—should reflect the voices of living Chinese people rather than the documents of dead officials. “Speak in the language of the time in which you live,” he admonished readers. He believed in making literacy commonplace. He played a key role promoting a written language rooted in the vernacular, or baihua—literally “plain speech.” Hu Shih’s promotion of baihua is an idea so obvious in hindsight that it is easy to miss how revolutionary it was at the time. It was also highly controversial.
Gu Hongmin, a Confucian gentleman and Western literature professor at Peking University, ridiculed widespread literacy for China and what it implied. In August 1919 he wrote: “Just fancy what the result would be if ninety percent of [China’s] four hundred million people were to become literate. Imagine only what a fine state of things we would have if here in Peking the coolies, mafoos [stable boys], chauffeurs, barbers, shop boys, hawkers, hunters, loafers, vagabonds, [etc.] all became literate and wanted to take part in politics as well as the University students.”
Such elitist chauvinism was—and some would argue still remains—a headwind impeding the democratic ideals espoused by the May Fourth Movement. Hu Shih, wielding the language he had helped bring to life, skillfully dismantled arguments against broadening the social contract. “The only way to have democracy is to have democracy,” Hu Shih argued. “Government is an art, and as such it needs practice.” Hu Shih didn’t have time elitism.
Still, May Fourth leaders were constantly sapped of energy by accusations, sometimes leveled by government officials or their proxies among the literati, that the movement was slavishly pro-Western, insufficiently Chinese, or even unpatriotic.
The life and contributions of P.C. Chang make a mockery of the notion that the May Fourth ideals weren’t “Chinese” enough. Like his friend Hu Shih, Chang had studied in the United States on a scholarship. Attracted to the theater, he was the first to adapt the Chinese story of Mulan for the stage. He brought Western plays to Nankai University, which his brother helped found. And he organized a tour of the United States by the Peking Opera star Mei Lanfang, adapting the music and dance to Western tastes. In China’s philosophy of moral cultivation and rigorous education, Chang saw advantages that could be combined with ideas from the West to form something new.
This culminated in Chang’s crowning achievement: His decisive contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was the document drafted after World War II by an international panel chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Chang, who was by then a veteran diplomat representing the China, was a member of the panel. The declaration’s aim was to prevent despotism and war by morally obligating governments to respect fundamental rights. The rights enshrined in the 1948 declaration include life, liberty, and security; the right not to be held in slavery or subjected to torture; the right to freedom of religion; and the right to freedom of thought.
Marrying Western belief in the primacy of the individual with Chinese concern for the greater good” Chang helped craft a document that would be relevant to all nations, John Pomfret wrote. A declaration on human rights was not simply about the rights of the individual, in Chang’s view. It was also about the individual’s obligations to society.
Chang’s biographer, Hans Ingvar Roth of Stockholm University, highlighted the weight of Chang’s contributions to the Declaration: “Chang stands out as the key figure for all of the attributes now considered significant for this document: its universality, its religious neutrality, and its focus on the fundamental needs and the dignity of individual human beings.”
A few short years after the Declaration was adopted by the United Nations, Chang resigned his post as a Chinese diplomat, having grown dismayed by the lack of democracy in China. In diagnosing the problem, it is easy to imagine P.C. Chang prescribing a closer reading not of ancient Greek philosophy, but of traditional Chinese ideals about virtuous leadership. The cliché that Chinese people can’t be trusted with democracy was, as both P.C. Chang and Hu Shih knew, the most unpatriotic idea of all. Taiwan today is a living repudiation of that threadbare mistruth.
So who embodies the May Fourth spirit in China today? To my mind, the heirs of May Fourth are civic-minded citizens who commit small acts of bravery. And sometimes big acts of bravery. Dr. Li Wenliang was such a person. Dr. Li wasn’t a demagogue in search of a new ideology that might save China. He was an ophthalmologist and a young father who committed a small act of bravery and then a big act of bravery. His small act of bravery, in late December, was to pass along a warning via WeChat to his former medical school classmates that patients afflicted by a dangerous new virus were turning up in Wuhan hospitals. He urged his friends to protect their families.
When his warning circulated more widely than he intended, Dr. Li was upset and anxious—and with good reason. Supervisors at his hospital quickly admonished him for leaking word of the coronavirus cases. Dr. Li was then interrogated by the police, made to sign a “confession,” and threatened with prosecution if he spoke out again. Anyone tempted to believe this was just a case of overzealous local police, take note: China’s central government aired a news story about Dr. Li’s “rumor-mongering.”
Then Dr. Li did a big brave thing. He went public with his experience of being silenced by the police. The whole world paid close attention. By this time, Dr. Li had contracted the disease he’d warned about. His death on February 7 felt like the loss of a relative for people around the world. Dr. Li’s comment to a reporter from his deathbed still rings in our ears: “I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don't approve of using public power for excessive interference.” Dr. Li was using Hu Shih-style “plain speech” to make a practical point.
It takes courage to speak to a reporter—or to work as one—in today’s China. Even finding an investigative reporter in China, foreign or local, is getting hard. Citizen journalists who tried to shed light on the outbreak in Wuhan went missing, including Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua. More foreign reporters were expelled in recent months than the Soviet Union expelled over decades. Dr. Ai Fen, a colleague of Dr. Li Wenliang who also raised the alarm about the outbreak in Wuhan, reportedly can no longer appear in public after she spoke to a reporter.
When small acts of bravery are stamped out by governments, big acts of bravery follow.
We have seen big acts of moral and physical courage recently by people pursuing the ideals that Hu Shih and P.C. Chang championed a century ago. Some are political insiders; some have devoted their lives to God. Others follow the long tradition of scholars serving as China’s conscience. Many are regular citizens. Xu Zhangrun, Ren Zhiqiang, Xu Zhiyong, Ilham Tohti, Fang Fang, 20 Catholic priests who have refused to subordinate God to the Communist Party, and the millions of Hong Kong citizens who peacefully demonstrated for the rule of law last year. The list goes on.
As the May Fourth Movement today marks the inaugural year of its second century, what will its ultimate legacy be? It is a question only the Chinese people themselves can answer. The May Fourth Movement belongs to them. Will the movement’s democratic aspirations remain unfulfilled for another century? Will its core ideas be deleted or distorted through official censorship and disinformation? Will its champions be slandered as “unpatriotic,” “pro-American,” “subversive”? We know the Communist Party will do its best to make it so. After all, Mao Zedong had limited tolerance even for Lu Xun, China’s most celebrated modern writer and one of the minority of May Fourth heroes whose writing wasn’t heavily censored by the Party. In 1957, an official named Luo Jinan asked Chairman Mao: “What if Lu Xun were alive today?” Mao’s reply about the national hero surprised many in the audience: “He could either sit in jail and continue to write or he could remain silent.”
Those with the fortitude to seek and speak the truth in China today may take comfort, however, in something Lu Xun wrote: “Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood.”
One final thought from a U.S. perspective: Hu Shih famously preferred solving concrete problems to wallowing in abstract political theory. But let me break his rule against discussing “isms” to ask whether China today would benefit from a little less nationalism and a little more populism. Democratic populism is less about left versus right than top versus bottom. It’s about reminding a few that they need the consent of many to govern. When a privileged few grow too remote and self-interested, populism is what pulls them back or pitches them overboard. It has a kinetic energy. It fueled the Brexit vote of 2015 and President Trump’s election in 2016. It moved the founder of your university to pen a declaration of independence in 1776. It is an admonition to the powerful of this country to remember who they’re supposed to work for: America first!
Wasn't a similar idea beating in the heart of the May Fourth Movement, too? Weren’t Hu Shih's language reforms a declaration of war against aristocratic pretension? Weren’t they a broadside against the Confucian power structure that enforced conformity over free thought? Wasn’t the goal to achieve citizen-centric government in China, and not replace one regime-centric model with another one? The world will wait for the Chinese people—the people—to furnish the answers.
Thank you.
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Israel isolates coronavirus antibody in 'significant breakthrough' - minister
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has isolated a key coronavirus antibody at its main biological research laboratory, the Israeli defence minister said on Monday, calling the step a "significant breakthrough" toward a possible treatment for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The "monoclonal neutralising antibody" developed at the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) "can neutralise it (the disease-causing coronavirus) inside carriers' bodies," Defence Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.
The statement added that Bennett visited the IIBR on Monday where he was briefed "on a significant breakthrough in finding an antidote for the coronavirus".
It quoted IIBR Director Shmuel Shapira as saying that the antibody formula was being patented, after which an international manufacturer would be sought to mass-produce it.
The IIBR has been leading Israeli efforts to develop a treatment and vaccine for the coronavirus, including the testing of blood from those who recovered from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus.
Antibodies in such samples - immune-system proteins that are residues of successfully overcoming the coronavirus - are widely seen as a key to developing a possible cure.
The antibody reported as having been isolated at the IIBR is monoclonal, meaning it was derived from a single recovered cell and is thus potentially of more potent value in yielding a treatment.
Elsewhere, there have been coronavirus treatments developed from antibodies that are polyclonal, or derived from two or more cells of different ancestry, the magazine Science Direct reported in its May issue.
Israel was one of the first countries to close its borders and impose increasingly stringent restrictions on movement to hamper the domestic Coronavirus outbreak. It has reported 16,246 cases and 235 deaths from the illness.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ China steals from us what we have invented, they do not allow American companies, operating in China, to repatriate profits, they own large segments of our food and health care chain supply, they have been making huge loans to underdeveloped nations to improve these nation's internal infrastructure while using only Chinese labor and charging enormous interest rates which these nations ultimately cannot repay. China then takes over strategic properties like port facilities etc. as payment. They have also been buying up the world's rare raw materials. They also spy on us through their technology which we purchase and that is just the beginning list of how we are allowing ourselves to be duped .
We are at war with China because they are constantly engaged in cyber attacks against our industrial and government entities and now they have attacked us by withholding information regarding a virus pandemic which has crippled our economy .
When will America awaken and respond?
(I have not verified the article I am posting below.)
FOOD FROM CHINA
FOOD FROM CHINA… Smithfield Farms, the largest pork producing farm in the USA, was sold in September to China with the unanimous support of its stockholders! The hogs will still be raised here, but slaughtered and packaged for sale there before being sent back here. This includes labels of: Morrell, Eckric, Kraku, CUDAHAY, Premium Hams , Cook's and Gwaltney
Chickens
The same applies to many chickens. They can now be shipped there, but when they come back all that needs to be labeled is that they ‘WERE RAISED IN THE USA’. Not that they were processed in China!!!
Our great FDA at work again. The chickens will be all processed and most sold to fast food restaurants for sandwiches, along with schools and supermarkets. The China slaughter and processing are not nearly equal to the requirements here for cleanliness.
*BAD FOOD*
We recently learned that Star-Kist Tuna is now owned by Korea, and is in big conflict with the U.S. concerning quality, safety, and records, which Korea refuses to produce. Read several articles on Google about this, and even one that was defending the eating of tilapia said to avoid the fish that came from China.
Also, I had just returned home from buying Albertson's 4-day special of 4 bags of frozen tilapia for the price of one. Sure enough, on the top of the bags, it read "farm raised", and on the bottom in small print it said, "China."
In general, farm raised fish should not be eaten because of the high concentration of antibiotics they are fed to prevent diseases due to being tightly confined with other fish.
Buy wild caught fish from North America, Hawaii or New Zealand .
Recently a Food Inspector on TV said he had lived overseas and he had seen the filthy conditions their foods are raised and processed in. It is enough to make you throw up. Many of their fish on Fish Farms are fed raw sewage daily. He said he has seen so much filth throughout their food growing and processing that he would "never" eat any of it. They raise this filth, put some food coloring and some flavorings on it, then they ship it to the USA & Canada for YOU to consume and feed to YOUR families. They have no Food & Safety Inspectors. They ship it to you to buy and poison your families and friends.
Imported food we eat and the junk we buy:
Green Giant frozen vegetables are from China and so are most of Europe's Best.
ARCTIC Gardens are OK, so is Birdseye.
Never buy the grocery store garlic unless it is clearly marked from USA or Canada , the other stuff is grown in people poop (even worse than chicken poop). China is the largest producer of garlic in the world; U.S. is next.
Buy only local honey, much honey is shipped in huge containers from China and re-packed here.
Cold-FX is grown and packed in China and is full of fecal bacteria. Doesn't work anyway, big scam.
If the country of origin is not clearly marked, beware!
If produce, ask an employee.
Watch out for packages which state "prepared for", "packed by" or "imported by" We don't understand the lack of mandatory labeling, especially on the produce.
The country of origin should be clearly shown on the item in the store.
Go to the local farmers' markets in season and keep a wary eye open the rest of the year.
How is it possible to ship food from China cheaper than having it produced in the U.S. or Canada?
FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA '. - SO, for a FEW MORE CENTS, BUY THE *LIBERTY* BRAND.
GOLD BRAND or DOLE is from CALIFORNIA.
Beware, Costco sells canned peaches and pears in a plastic jar that come from China.
ALL "HIGH LINER" AND MOST OTHER FROZEN FISH PRODUCTS COME FROM CHINA OR INDONESIA. THE PACKAGE MAY SAY "PACIFIC SALMON" ON THE FRONT, BUT LOOK FOR THE SMALL PRINT. MOST OF THESE PRODUCTS COME FROM FISH FARMS IN THE ORIENT WHERE THERE ARE NO REGULATIONS ON WHAT IS FED TO THESE FISH.
Recently The Montreal Gazette had an article by the Canadian Government on how Chinese feed the fish: They suspend chicken wire crates over the fish ponds, and the fish feed on chicken poop. If you search the internet about what the Chinese feed their fish, you'll be alarmed e.g.: growth hormones, expired antibiotic from humans?
Never buy any type of fish or shellfish that comes from these countries: Vietnam, China , Philippines
Steinfeld's Pickles are made in India - just as bad!
Another example is in canned mushrooms.
No-Name brand came from Indonesia.
Also check those little fruit cups. They used to be made in Canada in the Niagara region until about 2 years ago. They are now packaged in China. Most sold in Aldi stores.
While the Chinese export inferior and even toxic products, dangerous toys, and goods to be sold in North American markets, the media wrings its hands! Yet, at least 70% of North Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended. Well, duh! Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? SIMPLY DO IT YOURSELF, CANADA and the UNITED STATES.
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
THINK ABOUT THIS:
If 200 million North Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor... fast! The downside? Some Canadian/American businesses will feel a temporary pinch from having foreign stockpiles of inventory.
Just one month of trading losses will hit the Chinese for 8% of their North American exports. Then they will at least have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness are worth it.
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Israel keeps pounding Syria. Syrian Observatory: 15 Iranians Killed in Israeli Attack Monday Night
Israel Pounds Syria in 6th Strike in 2 Weeks, Iranian Fighters Eliminated
The strike took out 14 people, including Iranian and Iraqi nationals, during operations targeting a military base near Aleppo, according to a Syrian monitor group.
By Aryeh Savir
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that the army’s air defenses “confronted a missile aggression” on Al-Sfira in the Aleppo area in the north of the country.
The attack targeted “military depots,” SANA reported.
The report did not specify the number of casualties or damage caused by the strike but stated that “verification is underway to evaluate the losses left by the aggression,” an admission that the attack was successful.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Syria (SOHR) quoted its activists in the country who reported on a strike targeting branch 247 “defense factories” in Al-Sfira. The strikes resulted in the destruction of ammunition depots.
According to SOHR, 14 people, including Iranian and Iraqi nationals, were killed in the strikes.
The activities further reported on “three loud explosions” that were heard in the Al-Mayadeen desert in rural Deir ez-Zor, targeting positions of Iranian-led militia.
“No details have emerged yet on the casualties or extent of material damage,” the SOHR added.
Arabic media reported a large fire with a large number of casualties in the Israeli attack south of Aleppo.
A scientific research facility was probably destroyed. The center is used for the development and production of weapons, including long-range missiles, and has been bombed by Israel in the past.
Sixth Strike in Two Weeks
Israel has significantly stepped up its attacks against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria in recent weeks. Monday night’s attack is the sixth attack in Syria in a two-week period, all against Iranian or Hezbollah targets related to the Iranian missile project in Syria.
While Israel has refrained from publicly commenting on the reports, Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett stated during an interview last Tuesday that the IDF was determined to drive the Iranians out of Syria.
“We have moved from blocking Iran’s entrenchment in Syria to forcing it out of there, and we will not stop. We will not allow more strategic threats to grow just across our borders without taking action,” he stated. “We will continue to take the fight to the enemy’s territory.”
Iran seeks to establish bases, with Syrian’s blessing, along Israel’s northern borders. Israel has long maintained that it will not allow Iran to establish a new threat on its borders.
Israel is also trying to prevent Iran from providing Hezbollah with advanced weaponry, specifically precision-guided missiles.
In general, Iran’s military build-up in Syria remains a red line for Israel. The IAF has carried out thousands of attacks to thwart Iranian entrenchment in the war-torn country.
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