MCLC: Yu Hua on power

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Yu Hua on power
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (5/8/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/opinion/yu-in-china-power-is-arrogant.htm
l

OP-ED GUEST COLUMNIST
In China, Power Is Arrogant
By YU HUA

In late 2010, Chinese customs officials imposed an import tax of 1,000
yuan (about $150 then) on every iPad brought into the country. Ignoring
the fact that iPads differ in features and prices, officials set a single
tariff: 20 percent of the tablet’s listed 5,000-yuan value. People who
paid 3,000 yuan for an iPad in Hong Kong — where smartphones and other
electronics are much cheaper than on the mainland — were charged the same
tariff. Even Chinese tourists returning home with their own iPads, bought
in China, were taxed!

This levy, imposed without prior warning, provoked a torrent of criticism.
Even the Commerce Ministry registered disapproval, fearing that the levy
would violate China’s commitments as a member of the World Trade
Organization, which it joined in 2001.

As I set off for an overseas trip in January 2011, I asked the staff at
the Beijing airport how to report that I would be leaving the country with
an iPad, so as to avoid being taxed when I returned.

The first four people I asked said they didn’t know; the fifth told me the
levy had been revoked. (In fact, the tax was cut in half
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-01/28/content_11932469.htm>,
but not rescinded entirely.)

“Why hasn’t this change been publicized?” I asked.

“Why should it be?” he retorted. “When first implemented, it wasn’t
publicized, either.”

If the central government’s decrees are opaque, local authorities’ can be
downright ridiculous. In 2001, hospital officials in the southern city of
Shenzhen specified that nurses should show precisely eight teeth when
smiling. In 2003, Hunan Province, in central China, stipulated that the
breasts of female candidates for civil-service positions should be
symmetrical. The next year, public safety officials in the northern city
of Harbin ruled that policemen whose waistlines exceeded 36 inches had to
go. In 2006, transportation officials in Zhejiang Province, just south of
Shanghai, banned employees from sporting facial hair. The following year,
in an effort to reduce the school-dropout rate, Pinghe County in Fujian
Province, on the southeast coast, decreed that a junior high school
diploma was required to marry.

Several of these rules have since been revoked, but their wacky and
arbitrary nature demonstrates the arrogance of power in China. One can
imagine all too easily their creators — sitting in comfortable armchairs,
drinking high-grade tea and smoking fine cigarettes — discussing the
issues at hand as if they were purely intellectual abstractions, never
considering how ordinary people might react. That people will be unhappy
is no cause for concern because, for so long, the power of the state has
trampled on individual rights. Only when rules are so onerous that they
stir actual protest do higher-ups take notice: “You guys are just making a
mess of things,” they’ll tell their bureaucrat underlings. “This is not
good for social stability.” The rules are then quietly rescinded —
sometimes.

Often, regulations are even inconsistent with national laws. Take, for
example, revised driving regulations that went into effect on Jan. 1. To
reduce the accident rate on Chinese highways, the Public Security Ministry
came out with what have been called particularly harsh rules. The
imposition of a six-point penalty for running a yellow light produced
howls of protest. (In China, a 12-point penalty leads to revocation of a
license.)

To many, the yellow-light rule seemed certain to cause an increase in
rear-end collisions. Even the official media raised questions. “According
to Clause 26 of China’s traffic safety law, signals consist of red, green
and yellow lights,” the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency patiently
explained. “The red light prohibits passage, the green light allows it,
while the yellow light signifies warning. Each signal has a separate
function, and now to nullify the distinction between yellow light and red
light is not only unfeasible but also in conflict with current law.” The
ministry backed down and downgraded the penalty to a warning.

During all the kerfuffle, a joke began to circulate:

A man fails to return home one wintry night. When he shows up the next
morning, his wife demands an explanation.
“The traffic light at the corner kept blinking yellow,” he says, “and it
didn’t go back to operating normally until just now. I would have been
docked six points if I’d run the yellow light — or nine if I’d tried to
make a U-turn at an intersection.”

“Why didn’t you at least call me?”

“You get docked three points if you use a phone while driving.”

The man is shivering uncontrollably. His wife asks: “How did you get this
cold, just sitting in the car?”
“It was snowing so hard I had to keep clearing off the license plate —
you’re docked a full 12 points if the number is obscured.”

Yu Hua, the author of “China in Ten Words,” is a guest columnist. This
column was translated by Allan H. Barr from the Chinese.