Video: Li Tieqiao’s Magic Mouthpiece

As promised here is a video clip of experimental saxophonist Li Tieqiao (李铁桥) from his show with Xiao He (小河) at D-22 this week. Here, he plays the mouthpiece without the horn. Later, he played the horn without the mouthpiece, apparently creating sound trumpet-style directly into the neck.

A Textbook Demonstration … In Japan

Japan’s history problem (歴史問題, rekishi mondai) is well-known in Asia, and it’s a common topic of discussion in Japanese political journals. Many are familiar with international criticism of Japan’s reckoning with its 20th century aggression, and the repeated approval by the Education Ministry of textbooks that underplay or gloss over the Nanjing Massacre and other incidents has been a cause for diplomatic and public protests in China since the 1980s.

Most recently, in April 2005, Beijing saw what media* reported to be the largest protest the city had seen since 1989. Anti-Japan demonstrations in 2005 began with an online petition against Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), but a quieter campaign was in the works calling for a boycott of Japanese businesses that they said supported a nationalist group in Japan known as the Committee to Make New History Textbooks (新しい歴史教科書を作る会, atarashii rekishi kyoukasho wo tsukuru kai)—Tsukurukai for short.

Then, a new edition of Tsukurukai‘s textbook was approved by the Education Ministry. This coincided with an shift in the rhetoric of both the Chinese government and demonstrators in Beijing and elsewhere. The highest estimates of how many attended the largest Beijing protest were around 20,000.

But, the Japanese textbook protest does not oppose denials of Japanese atrocities outside of Japan…

This week in Japan’s distant island prefecture of Okinawa, 110,000 people reportedly turned out to protest the removal of language from seven history textbooks. The passage in question has to do with whether a mass suicide by Okinawans occurred with “military coercion.” (Coercion is a key term these days in Japanese historical politics. Abe Shinzo tried to get himself out of trouble over his “comfort women” statements by squabbling over the definition of “coercion.”)

I have not studied the Okinawa incident in question, nor have I watched closely the politics behind this dispute, so I can’t speak to the facts. But here are some other places to look:

• Ampontan has explored it at some length and his post includes background on the battle over the specific passages and language.
• Shisaku has a comment (with photo) and links to a Canadian Press story…
• … which reports that this is the largest protest on Okinawa since the United States returned it to Japan in 1972. The runner up? “In 1995, 85,000 people took part in a rally following the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl there by three American servicemen, according to [Kyodo News].”

The size of demonstrations isn’t usually of great interest to me, but it certainly is useful to remember that Japanese textbooks don’t just rile Chinese and Koreans.

* This was mentioned in various places. Here’s one. Jiangtao Shi and Jane Cai, “Japanese Warned to Avoid Campuses; Embassy Urges Its Citizens to Stay Away after Call on Students to Protest in Beijing Today,” South China Morning Post, April 9, 2005.

Welcome to Transpacifica

[NOTE TO FRIENDS: Please update your blogrolls]

As of today, Transpacific Triangle is now Transpacifica (transpacifica.net). The old address and all links will continue to work, but visitors are redirected to the new site. Here’s some of what you can expect from this site in its new incarnation:

• After a year focusing on China–Japan–U.S. relations, this site will include a wider variety of content. I’m still interested in this important trilateral relationship, and it will still consume much of my attention, but I have come to be interested in other transpacific issues. One is the role of Latin America. Over the last year I have followed the ASEAN and APEC fora, as well as the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear activities, but this new “transpacific” emphasis will allow me to follow these issues within the site’s declared scope.
• One of the most important changes around here is that I now live in an Asian capital instead of the U.S. capital. Living in Beijing means my life is much more China-oriented than before, and this site is no different. International issues are still the core of this project, but I have decided to include posts about Beijing and China here instead of starting another blog for the purpose.
• Things you will see more of:
  • The Environment: For anyone living on Earth, this is one of the biggest questions of the day. For someone living in Beijing, every day is a reminder of the urgent need for change. I will be following Chinese and international efforts to address environmental issues with greater energy from now on.
  • The Arts: One of the most powerful modes of international communication, especially among young people, is the flow of cultural creations. Washington, D.C., is no center for innovative art (though not devoid of it completely). Beijing, on the other hand, has a growing art and music scene where international reactions to the work are nearly as interesting as the work itself. And, of course, it’s no chore for me to spend time learning about art and music.
  • Profiles of Excellent Resources: From very good blogs to useful databases to remarkable books, I plan to spend more time introducing resources for scholars, journalists, and other interested readers. If all goes as planned, one day I will have a body of resource profiles that will itself be a useful resource.
• Things you will see less of:
  • Daily News Links: I am stopping the practice of adding many articles every day to del.icio.us and posting them on this site. This worked well when I spent every day at a desk and could add them as I took breaks from work, but in this lifestyle it feels like a chore. My data shows that most readers weren’t all that interested in these entries anyway. Instead I will occasionally publish link posts with especially interesting links.
  • Insider Washington Talk: Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, I also left behind its think-tank events, its local scholar-gossip, and the tremendous resource of my former workplace. I still have friends and read, but my first-hand work is now in Beijing.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the new site. Comments are welcomed via e-mail at g7 atmark gwbstr period com.

–Graham

The Fancy Footwork of Xiao He (20 Seconds)

Xiao He (小河) is a prominent experimental and folk musician here in Beijing. He’s been part of several groups variously described as bands, troupes, etc. Last night, I saw him live for the first time at D-22 in a show with a saxophonist named Li Tieqiao (李铁桥), who made sounds with his horn very few have ever heard before. I’ll post a video of Li later, but for now, enjoy Xiao He’s animated foot.

Making This Blog China-Proof: Feedburner Edition

Readers who follow the developments of China’s internet censorship efforts may have heard that the Google-owned syndication service Feedburner has been added to the list of sites usually blocked for users in China. There’s some dispute as to whether it’s nationwide or confined to one large ISP, but one way or another, it’s been blocked for me. This entry summarizes a problem and the solution I have implemented. Warning: This is a relatively technical post, but it’s nothing too complicated I think.

Background: Users in China can reach this site directly. They can also subscribe to my Feedburner-powered RSS feed via Google Reader, which is not blocked. Some other RSS aggregators have been reported to be blocked, but a classic aggregator, Bloglines, still seems to be accessible at the moment.

Source of the Problem: Feedburner has a useful feature for publishers. It can be set to track how many people click on specific links from inside a RSS reader. The result is that publishers who get most of their readership from RSS subscribers get the same type of feedback that’s available when people visit the site directly.

The way this works is that Feedburner creates a relay page for each link, and users stop momentarily on Feedburner’s very fast servers before being directed to the linked page. In my experience outside of China, the user does not even notice this process. The publisher then knows that the link has been clicked, and can plan future content with a better understanding of the audience.

The problem for Chinese users is that that momentary stopover at Feedburner happens on a blocked address, so following any link from a tracking-enabled feed results in a “reset connection” or “timeout” that really amounts to a virtual brick wall—popularly known as the “Great Firewall of China.”

Partial Solution: After an exchange last night with Feedburner’s Rick Klau on their very well-run support forum, we determined that the best I can do right now is to simply disable this extra level of tracking. Now, links in my syndicated posts go directly to their target. This means the system is seamless for users in China, but I learn nothing about what links are getting clicks. For me, that’s an acceptable sacrifice since I write from and about China.

Another issue we discussed was Feedburner’s “FeedFlare” feature, which adds links for “E-mail this article” and “Add to del.icio.us” and such to each post. Currently, they do not appear for users in China because they are constructed as dynamically-created images to reflect comment counts and other data. I proposed that the image code include the standard “alt” parameter to accommodate users in China (and visually-impaired users, on whose behalf the W3C suggests that we always include descriptive information about what’s in an image).

Thanks to Feedburner for giving this problem quick attention, and I hope we make progress. I have some ideas about how I might get this tracking information back, but I’ll leave that for another day, if it works.

[UPDATE 9/28/07: Danwei proposes another solution, which is to provide a feed through Feedsky, a similar service, for China-based users. I'm hesitant to split up the subscriber base, and I do look forward to the day Feedburner stats are integrated with Google Analytics. But I may consider this in the future.]

Back to Blogging: Some Things I’ve Missed

After almost two months in China (Friday makes it official), I’ve settled in to a rhythm of life in Beijing and I think it’s time to revive this site. I’ve missed a lot of news, which is OK with me. In the future, this blog will be less news-oriented (though as a journalist I can’t imagine I’ll leave it all behind). I’m also still working on a new format and identity for the site which I think will fit my interests. But for now, let’s just review some of the things I’ve missed in the last two months.

In no particular order:

• As we all know by now, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is finished. I’ve found Observing Japan to be the best source for detailed news on the selection of Fukuda Yasuo as the next prime minister. Most recently, the tireless blogger-scholar behind OJ gives us analysis of how Fukuda has made some peace in the party by appointing faction-heads to the cabinets.
• Very little has been said about China in the U.S. presidential contest over the last few months, but …
• Sen. Hillary Clinton‘s trouble with a fugitive donor changed triggered some conservative criticism of her and her husband’s connections to Chinese (really, Chinese-American) money. See here for a representative example. I wrote about Clinton’s most prominent statement on China so far in this election cycle back in March.
• A recent violent roundup of black drug dealers and many other innocent black people in Beijing brought disquiet in the expat community. Though I was in the area the same night, I left too early to see it first hand. A first report came from Jen Brea, and a later, more detailed one from Chris O’Brien. A Newsweek blog has another first-hand account from an expat who was forced to delete photos of the event.
• A correspondent in Kyushu e-mailed with some interesting survey results (via Japan Probe and Jun Okumura, another great blogger on recent political developments).
  • In a survey of Chinese, 78 percent saw Japan as a threat, followed closely by 75 percent perceived a U.S. threat.
  • Forty-six percent of both South Koreans and Japanese saw China as a threat, and more than 70 percent of both of those populations saw North Korea as a threat.
• W. David Marx and friends launched Néojaponisme, an online journal that will eventually supplant Marxy’s Néomarxisme “post-blog.” I highly recommend the first week-long series, a detailed and interesting interview with Patricia Steinhoff, a sociologist and professor at University of Hawaii who has studied student radicalism in Japan with some of the best sourcing around. Start reading here. And I’m not just plugging this because you’ll see my work on the site in the future as a contributor from Beijing.

That’s all for now.