[Stephen Secules]

"Chile to join China's Belt and Road initiative". Dave Sherwood. Reuters News Agency. 11/01/2018. Accessed 11/05/2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-china/chile-to-join-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-idUSKCN1N65YD

This is a brief article descirbing a recent decision by the Chilean government to opt into China's Belt and Road initiative and "deepen [it's] ecnonomic and political cooperation" with China. China is already Chile's top trading partner and this move further solidifies their relationship. This belies a trend of China's involvement in Latin America. China has become much more economically engaged with coutnries in Latin America-Chile, Brazil, and Argentina among them-since 2016 when President Donald Trump was elected. 

The article is not positive or negative about the Belt and Road initiative, instead it paints this interaction as part of a broader aggression by the Chinese to infiltrate Latin America. The tone is mildly critical and the author takes the perspective that China is making a strategic move in countries that the United States is distsancing itself from and therefore capitalizing on America's skepticism and missed opportunities.

[Stephen Secules]

"'Say no to China': Anger Mounts in Zambia over Beijing's presence". Unknown author. News24.com, 9/23/2018 (they sourced from AFP global news). Accessed 11/5/2018. https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/say-no-to-china-anger-mounts-in-zambia-over-beijings-presence-20180923 

This article begins by profiling a man by the name of James Lukuku, the leader of a small political party in the Zambian capitol of Lusaka. He is protesting China's increasing economic presence in Zambia. Mr. Lukuku believes that China is causing corurption in the country and will bring about an economic collapse. The article goes on to describe concerns over the vast amount of debt owed to China  and the potential takeover, by China, of Zambia's major electric company. There is also reporting about feelings over Chinese managers in Zambian industry, and Chinese laborers displacing Zambians. Government officials are quoted defending their connections to China but the article focuses on the protesters and is generally negative regarding China and it's exploits in the country.

This is quite different from the lectures I watched about China's relationship with Africa. Both the Brautigam and the French lecture cite the positive aspects of China's relationships with various countries in Africa, citing the benefits they are providing to those countries by investing in their development. Mr. French goes so far as to say that China recognized how Africa was largely abandoned by the West and now they are developing and supporting a continent poised for economic growth and development. The news articles seem to be largely negative surrouding China's relations with coutnries in Africa but the reports of these firsthand witnesses paint an entirely difference picture of what China is doing in Africa and why.

[Stephen Secules]

The story of Wu Meng seems to me to be about the integrity and personal pursuit of filial piety, without the expectation of reward. Wu Meng intends only to serve his parents in the best way he can, with an emphasis being placed on his keeping his devotion a secret, as in there's no reason for a show of devotion. The fact that it becomes known by accident and then reaches the ear of the emperor speaks to the value of his virtuous, solitary devotion made even more powerful by his lack of need for recognition. It relays the message that filial piety is reward unto itself and, I think, gives a hint that the showcasing of such devotion would be appreciated but not as well received.

[Stephen Secules]

This seems to be the problem of China's speedy development, the degradation of the environment. To make matters worse, China seems to lack the natural resources to adequately counteract the negative effects of their industrialization, namely water. I'm quite surprised by the major problem of it all but I suppose it is due to their singlar focus on economic development. You're right Marcos, China was ready to pick up the slack for manufacturing which was advantageous economically but detrimental in so many ways. As the weeks go by and we view source after source of info the increasing concern is over the fallout from China's advancement. It makes me wonder how much about my own country I'm unaware of in terms of a focus on growth and development without a care for consequences.

[Stephen Secules]

I've only read the one article so far and not watched any videos so i'm limited here but wanted to share. Rosen's article "Chinese Youth and State" was really eye-opening. I've been wondering so far about this seeming contrast between Party values and practices. The government seems to me to be serving the population by encouraging economic growth through personal enterprise and entrepreneurship, but this seems very individualistic in nature and opposed to the values of socialism. I found it a bit entertaining that the article focused on Chinese of my age group, the "post-1980s generation" (I'll be 38 this Saturday so I'm of the oldest people of this group), and I saw some parallels between that survey result and my own American generation. What's even more fascinating is the response to surveys about personal beliefs and reasons for joining the Party. It seems that many are searching for something substantial in their lives, which could explain the rise of faith adherence, but also that their self-inclusion in the Party is more out of the pursuit of guanxi than of passionate, ideaological conviction. With this generation in question being so Amer-o-phile? (that's not really a word but anglophile is incorrect here and I can't think of anything better) what's to stop them from leaning more heavily toward democratic, capitalistic solutions to their individual social, and potentially political needs? This article is 9 years old and from what we've learned about the Chinese economy, what has stopped them is rapid economic growth coupled with sharp increases in personal disposable income brought on by bergeoning urban opportunity; essentially there's no reason to be concerned with the state when everything is going great! I'm curious about how long this can be sustained, and the age gap between ranking Party officials and my generational equivalent in China. Basically, how long before the current 30-40 year olds are in power?

[Stephen Secules]

I was surprised to see the photo of the group of protesters flipping off the government building in Dalian over the proposed chemical plant. I didn't know it ewas so widespread. Chinese contmeporary artist and expatriot Ai Weiwei enjoys the same thing. Here is a link to an article discussing his series A Study in Perspective where he raises his middle finger to a number of important locations. https://publicdelivery.org/ai-weiwei-study-of-perspective/ 

I would be interested to know if his Twitter feed, which is full of these images, had any influence on people's actions in Dalian in 2011.

[Stephen Secules]

The "why" of migration to urban centers seems obvious and eerily recognizable; these people are moving toward opportunity and the possiblities of improving their own well-being, much like the immigrants who come to the US seeking better opportunity. I am unsure if Chinese migrants engage in the same activity of US immigrants in that they send money home. What's more interesting to me is the intersection of some of your questions, Prof. Dube, regarding the reasons why migrants leave, the problems they solve and create, rthe children, and the rise of interest in faith.

Chinese migrants appear to move toward opportunity, which is what the Party wants in order to engender economic growth and tap into an almost limitless labor force in the form of rural migrant labor. These migrants, responding to demand for labor and demand for greater skills (shown in the Lu and Xia, 2013 labor statistics graphs regarding levels of education), have found the economic opportunities they seek and gain better living conditions and more disposable income. The problem is the people they leave behind; the children get profiled but the larger numbers, according to the tables from Lu and Ye (2017), belong to the women and elderly. Nonetheless, these people become even more marginalized by the separated family and disproportion in opportunity within the family; the greater prosperity of the migrant father and/or father and mother does not seem to trickle down to the rural leftovers. As a result, the broken family struggles and problems ensue; such as education issues for the children and lack of moral cohesion within the fmaily unit. Lu and Ye (2017) claim that this migration is responsible for the breakdown of family values, morals governing proper behavior and respect among each other. This is leading to a greater incidence, in particular, of teen pregnancy and abortion, and even marriage between minors for lack of other generatonal guidance. Faiths like Christianity and Falun Gong, bring with them definitive moral positions on behavior and their rising popularity may indicate a need by the people for more strict moral guidance. It is possible that the Chinese people, espeically the rural population, while wanting to stay true to their government's values overall, are lacking in spiritual and moral guidance to the extent that they are turning to faith-based options to help self-govern, in the spirit of Xiaobing, their spiritual and moral needs. 

[Stephen Secules]

Those final propaganda videos, especially the rap version with the mantra "everybody let's be friends", makes me wonder if China is looking to bring in new labor. With their own work force shrinking and the population aging, would China possibly want immigrants to move there and bolster the labor population? Is their propaganda designed to entice other countries to be like China or just to be receptive to relations with China? As their economy grows and their wealth gap increases China seems more capitalist and so may seem easier to cooperate with in the global market.

[Stephen Secules]

What interested me was the change in social norms with the establishment of the Communist party. Mao uses propaganda heavily in promoting the culture he envisions, though the ultimate product of the Great Leap Forward seems to me to be a clash between idealism and reality. I thought the new idealism of Communist China was best demonstrated in the first slide showing early propaganda posters, in particular I focused on the one on the left, of the man fixing/installing the light. Looking at it from an Art Historical point-of-view, the warm colors and bright light create a cheerful atmosphere, the children are on the fringes of the compositon but are noticeably interested in the tools and materials for the job, and all of the lines, especially lines of sight from the figures within the poster, are focused not on the citizen but on the hands and work being done. The ladder points upward and the composition is asymmetrically balanced but the woman's hand with the lightbulb and the man's hands with the fixture form the focal point of the piece. Propaganda is an extremely powerful tool and has a way of subtley changing the mind by suggesting the way things should be. What Mao was aiming for was to change the social norm to one of cooperation first in order to increase and maximize productivity. Interestingly, it was not until later, after Mao, when Deng Xiaoping relaxes the rules of the commune system and allows for the improvisation of the populace, in particular the rural population, that the economy begins to rise. Robert Sternberg (1985) posed that some of the ingredients of creativity include expertise and time for rumination and I believe that when given the freedom to "stretch out" with the relaxation of the social rules, the people were able to begin the enterprising process of improving quality of life through their own industriousness. I'm interested to learn about the extent to which that reinforced the Communist social norms.

[Stephen Secules]

Hi, my name is Stephen Secules. I teach AP/IB Art History and AP/IB Psychology at Great Oak High School in Temecula, CA where I have been for 13 years now. My Art History curriculum covers a little bit of historical and contemporary Chinese art, especially featuring Ai Weiwei, and my Psychology curriculum places an emphasis on students understanding the differences between individualist cultures, like our own here in the U.S., and collectivist cultures like that of China. I'm looking forward to gaining new knowledge of culture and behavior and hoping to get a more comprehensive picture of what China is as a country and what characterizes Chinese people.

I have the great opportunity to be traveling to China for the first time in early December, actually the weekend when the final assignments are due for this seminar. I'm a consultant for the College Board in AP Art History and will be delivering a workshop in southeastern China to train teachers in the teaching of the AP Art History course and curriculum. I'm very excited for the opportunity and elated that this seminar popped up just in time to give me some context before I head off on this small adventure!

I look forward to working with all of you and speaking with you this evening.

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