From owner-china-nt@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Wed Sep 7 23:48:37 1994 Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 20:37:30 PDT Reply-To: dsheng@leea.cchem.berkeley.edu Sender: China-Net From: dsheng@leea.cchem.berkeley.edu Subject: Chinese Community Forum (#9447) Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu To: Multiple recipients of list CHINA-NT ==+==+==+== C h i n e s e C o m m u n i t y F o r u m ==+==+==+=== Wednesday, September 6, 1994 (Issue No. 9447) +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Chinese Community Forum (CCF) is an e-journal published on China-Net. CCF is dedicated to the discussion on the issues related to the Chinese community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the Editorial Board of CCF. Contributions to the discussions and suggestions of new topics are very much appreciated. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= # of Table of Contents Author | Lines ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 1. Democracy Works Best .................................The Economist 120 2. "It's the Twilight Zone Out There" ...........Katrina Vanden Heuvel 165 3. Late Night Casual Talk ......................Compiled by Andrew Lei 210 ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== -- From The Editor -- Guess we all have friends who visited China recently. Listening to their stories, it feels like that we, as oversea students, have been frozen in the refregirator in the last few years, while China has gone through profound changes. These changes are rapid and confusing at the same time, and challenge our ability to understand them. Andrew Lei, in his "Late Night Casual Talk", describes these changes and our confusions vividly. We would like to invite our readers to share with us your home-visit stories. China is not the only country that is going through transformation. Our next door neighbor to the north, Russia, is doing the same. The changes are no less profound or confusing, as described by Vanden Heuvel in the article "It's the Twilight Zone Out There". As the world becomes more global, we are no longer immune to the changes in other countries, especially in a country as huge and as important as Russia. Vanden Heuvel gives us an update. As if understanding these transformations is not difficult enough, there is also the challenge to manage and facilitate these changes. Along that line, "Democracy Works Best" can be thought as one of the answers to this challenge. I am sure there are as many answers as the number of netters on the CCF mailing list. The latter number is around 3,000. (written by Dave Sheng.) ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 1. Democracy Works Best .................................The Economist 120 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN CHINA this week, a despot celebrated his 90th birthday, and many capitalists applauded. Although he heads a dictatorial regime that has spilled the blood of millions during his lifetime, Deng Xiaoping is now famous for a more benign achievement: presiding over the world's fastest- growing economy. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, Mexico elected a new president, Ernesto Zedillo, in a vote (see page 33) that left markets sighing gratefully: because the election seemed fair, and because Mr Zedillo, candidate of the party that has ruled Mexico undemocratically for 65 years, was the clear winner. This election followed six years of dramatic economic reform by a dubiously-elected president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari; a surprise winner or an "unstable" result, it was thought, might threaten the country's economic progress. But try explaining that fascination with strong government to the thousands of desperate Cubans across the Gulf of Mexico who were simultaneously voting with their paddles to escape one of the world's most "stable" regimes (see page 19). Three countries that, on the face of it, have nothing more in common than that they were in the news this week. Yet together they point out the following: that the many western fund managers, economists and other pundits who laud Deng Xiaoping's economic achievements, and conclude from them that discipline, rather than democracy, brings economic growth, have not asked themselves why the same is not true of Cuba; nor have they wondered why reformist, free trading, hitherto undemocratic Mexico has this year found itself caught between an uprising, an assassination and a flat economy. Moreover, to put those thoughts into perspective, they should decide why they think it best for them (politically and economically) to live in a democracy, but not for more than a billion Chinese. Mr Deng's western fans have misunderstood. or probably never thought about, the economic case for democracy. Ask an American, a Briton or a Frenchman why he favours democracy, and the chances are that his answer will be moral and political. Those countries' revolutions of 1776, 1688 and 1789 may now be distant, but they are remembered as turning-points for rights and equality and liberty. And so they were. But what is forgotten is that they were also about economics: about economic freedom, and about unleashing economic growth. Not only is that point forgotten; it is now frequently turned on its head. Democracy, it is thought, is well worth having, but there is an economic price to be paid for it. Interest groups squabble, people demonstrate, legislatures become gridlocked. If economic success is about governments "getting things done", then would it not be better for them to be strong and authoritarian than weak and elected? Not only would the trains run on time (or, in Britain's case, every day) but economic growth would also surely pick up speed. That view would be harmless if it were limited to Troubled of Tunbridge Wells or bothered of Baltimore. But it is not. It is now widely held about new democracies in the developing and post communist world, and in those countries themselves. Mr Deng's China symbolises an apparent trade-off: the idea that the crack of the whip, the spilling of blood are acceptable-- perhaps even necessary--sacrifices on the altar of growth. Russia established a democracy before reforming its economy, and is paying the price in chaos--or so it is believed. And in the heartland of discipline- for-development, Singapore and Malaysia, ministers queue up to deride western soft headedness and to celebrate the undemocratic Asian Way. A BILLION CHINESE WON'T BE WRONG Slower growth for freedom of choice; rising living standards for the loss of a few rights. The trade-offs seem reasonable. But they are also false. Rise beyond the anecdote and the exception, and the evidence is clear: as our special article on pages 15-17 shows, across scores of countries and centuries of history, democracy has promoted growth, far more effectively and consistently than any other political system. Mr Deng, no doubt, would demur. But his birthday provides a clue to why he is wrong. One of the main reasons why democracy promotes growth is that it offers the security of property rights that is necessary for capitalistic progress. A dictator can offer that security for a time. That is what Mr Deng has done: beginning with farmers in the late 1970s, his economic reforms provided freedoms and property rights where none had existed before. The result, especially in the past five years, has been double- digit annual growth rates. But China is ruled by Mr Deng, not by law or its people. The security of those rights cannot be guaranteed beyond his death. China after Deng is likely to be an unstable place, with struggles for power, and possibly widespread social conflict. That instability poses a huge question-mark over China's economic potential. Mexicans, however, ought to agree. Mr Salinas the election-rigger forced the country to open itself to the invigorating but often harsh winds of trade and investment, enabling growth to resume for the first time since the early 1980s. He declared an end to agrarian reform, in an effort to strengthen property rights and bring foreign money to Mexico's poverty-stricken countryside. But the uprising by impoverished Indians in Chiapas on January 1st this year gave warning that Mexico's political institutions, laws and practices were far from commanding universal acceptance. Without such legitimacy, those institutions are vulnerable to challenge; and that challenge would itself scare away investors, domestic or foreign, worried about the fate of their assets. That is why, although Mr Zedillo is a fine economist, his greatest task is now political: to reform his own party and disentangle it from the Mexican state. Only by thus completing Mexico's transition to democracy can Mr Zedillo bestow lasting legitimacy on his and Mr Salinas's economic policies and so guarantee Mexico's stability. And what of Cuba? There, the boat people know full well that Castro the dictator has done them no favours economically. It is America, and the Clinton administration in particular, that has got itself into a muddle. Mr Clinton wants to prevent refugees escaping from Cuba, in the supposed hope of forcing Mr Castro to step down: yet he refuses to lift the trade and investment embargo, which might convince them it was worth staying. Doing so would be a risk; a risk, in particular, of helping Mr Castro remain in power. Yet it would also, given Cuba's fragile condition, offer a rewarding possibility: that the two-way flow of trade, investment and people, and the economic fruits that it offers, would finally encourage Mr Castro's opponents to topple him. Economic freedoms can promote the political sort; political freedoms promote economic growth. The connections are never guaranteed, the path between them often hazardous. But next time Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew tells you that democracy inhibits development, you are free to ignore him. [This is an Editorial from The Economist of Aug. 27, 1994. Forwarded by cqyang@chemistry.umass.edu] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. "It's the Twilight Zone Out There" ...........Katrina VANDEN HEUVEL 165 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's the Twilight Zone Out There" During five weeks in Moscow, I was endlessly reminded that "Russia is a country in transition." But, as my friend Leonid insists on asking, "to what and to where?" Even the many, mostly twentysomething Americans who work in law firms, investment banks, foundations and other transplanted institutions can't have escaped the dissonace. In the former Communist Party headquaters, represen- tatives of United Way teach Russians how to do volunteer work, while across the hall 500 chanting members of the Soyuz (Union) movement demand the restoration of the Soviet Union. Outside our apartment, homeless women pick through garbage, while the Ford dealership around the corner does a thriving business. Elsewhere, a 10-year-old boy tells his Ameican playmate that he wants to be a racketeer when he grows up. The local bookstores display My Father, Lavrenti Beria (CCF Editor's note, Beria was the notorious Head of secret police so instrumental in many of Stalin's bloody purges, and was himself purged after Stalin's death.) and How to Give Erotic Messages with equal prominence, both titles selling briskly. And at a stylish Moscow Restraunt foreign patrons, jumpy from too many tales of gang shootouts, duck for cover at the sound of a car backfiring. Far more than the Russian mafia, though, political polarization and economic troubles are pushing the country to the edge. Russia's deathrate soared by 18 percent in 1993, with infant mortality, heart disease, accidents, suicide and alcohol abuse all up. Anatoly Lukyanov, the last speaker of the Soviet Parliament, one of the accused August 1991 coup plotters and now the eminence grise of the large parliamentary Communist opposition, told me of despair and hunger across the industrial heartland:"Entire cities have come to a standstill." His account is confirmed by other, less politically motivated travelers. Meanwhile, Anatoly Chubais, head of Yeltsin's privatization program, admitted that only 3 to 5 percent of Russians now have enough money to buy up denationalized enterprises. Financial indicators hailed by many Western observers obscure more than they reveal. "How can the West welcome a low inflation rate," a Russian economist asked, "when production has fallen by 42 percent since early 1992?" In many factories, workers haven't been paid since January. Things are unraveling, so it's no mystery that nationalism has become the most potent idea in Russia. Vladimir Zhirinovsky is only its most flamboyant exponent. In fact, while politicans commonly called themselves "democrats" two years ago, most now prefer the term "patriots", and from militant nationalists to placid liberals I found broad support for reintegration of the Union. To be sure, conceptions differ. Many speak of a loose, voluntary confederation-- with close economic and military ties -- that would include Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and several Central Asian republics. At parliamen- tary hearings in July, politicans who rarely agree on anything -- including Gorbachev, leaders of the 1991 coup attempt against him, and Sergei Shakrai, a former Yeltsin aide who helped draft the documents abolishing the Union-- all said reunification was inevitable. But how to facilitate it? Only those with ideological or institutional ties to the old order continue to insist that any new Union include all fifteen republics. "If it's a broken plate, it can never be as it once was," said Sergi Baburin, a young, popular and iconoclastic nationalist deputy. "We want to try to piece it back together in a new way." Reintegration with Russia featured strongly in the Ukrainian and Belarussian presidential campaigns in July. Down went the two men who with Yeltsin had abolished the Union in Shushkevich in Belarus -- a signal of the popular belief that close relations with Russia can solve domestic economic problems. But unlike Western press reports, Yeltsin cannot find consolation in all this. He is now in a lonely and potentially precarious position -- "the last liquidationist," as one Russian pundit put it. If and when some kind of new Union comes about, official U.S. reaction is likely to be stronly negative and even coldwar-like. ("But why should America have the right to decide this country's future?" Gorbachev insisted in a recent conversaion.) The recent agreements Yeltsin sighed with NATO and the European Union may seem to bind Russia firmly to the West, but they are unstable. The Russian Parliament had no constitutional right to ratify or even debate either treaty--one reason they lack consesus and are seen in Moscow as Yeltsin's foreign policy, not Russia's and thus politically rever- sible. There is much speculation about Yeltsin's latest quandary over election sche- dules, but as no Russian leader has ever left office voluntarily, it all has a certain academic air. Still, the theories are intriguing. One after- noon, a high-level opposition leader sketched three scenarios that he says are being considered in Yeltsin's inner circle. In one, Yeltsin would, with the support of Parliament, try to postpone the 1996 elections until 1998, as indeed one of his top associates has proposed publicly. In the second, if Parliament won't go along, Yeltsin would attempt to call a referendum on postponing elections until 2001. The third scenario--sounding more like fiction than fact, though my source claims to have seen documents drawn up by presidential advisers--would bring the 13-year-old Romanov heir, (CCF Note: Romanov is the family name of former Czar) now living in Spain back to the throne, with Yeltsin acting as regent. Postponing the elections would require a change in Yeltsin's hastily contrived and authoritarian Constitution. When it was "passed" in last December's referendum, U.S. officials and large segments of the American media hailed the Constitution as a "breakthrough to Russian democracy." But acconding to a recent and little-noted study prepared by Yeltsin-appointed experts, the Constitution is invalid because only 46.1 percent of registered voters--not 54.8 percent, as reported at the time by the Central Electroal Commision-- cast ballots. (Fifty percent participation was required.) These findings are a ticking bomb. If the Constitution wasn't properly ratified, the actions of President Yeltsin, his government and the Par- liament all lack legitimacy. The government understand this. Last month, according to a well-placed source, authorities confiscated the print run of a book that documented the real election results. I asked several opposition figures who had been harsh critics of the Con- stitution why they hadn't seized on this startling finding. Content with their gains in Parliament, where they have a majority and lots of perks, most shrugged their shoulders as if to say, "After all, this is Russia." But when the next political showdown comes, the legitimacy of the Consti- tution, and all political decisions taken since December 1993, are likely to be called into question. One of Yeltsin's strengths, perhaps his only one, is the weakness of the opposition. Apart from calls for economic stabilization and appeals to patriotism, the red/brown (i.e., Communist/nationalist) opposition tends to defer to the government at crucial moments. In late June a coalition of Communits, nationalists and centrist deputies approved Yeltsin's budget, which mandates deep cuts in social welfare. "Our ideology is constructive realism," Gennadi Zyganov, the Communist leader, told me as we sipped tea and cognac in the party's spacious suite in the Parliament. (it is the third largest faction in the Duma and, with its allies, the largest voting bloc.) The party, Zyganov said, is attempting to combine nationalism and social democracy: "Without a nationalist platform, no party can succeed here." The party's greatest influence lies in the provinces, in what Zyganov calls the "Red Belt" beyond Moscow, where Communists and the Agrarian Party hold sway. But Zyganov's moderate parliamentary strategy may not be so pupular with the Communist rank and file. A secret internal party poll reportedly shows that fewer than 10 percent of members support Zyganov, the rest pre- fering more militant leaders. The few genuine democratic socialists active in Russian politics have mixed feelings about Zyganov's attempts to play the nationalist card. "It will mean the discrediting of left ideas under the banner of socialism," Aleksandr Buzgalin warned. "And the result will be a mixture of paternalism, capitalism and nationalism." But Boris Kagarlitsky, an adviser to the contry's largest trade union movement, observed that in such a traumatized and polarized country, "the left needs its own 'national idea'," involving "a new, non- capitalist and non-imperial Union, based on voluntary itegration and genuinely democratic sovereignty." Both Buzgalin and Kagarlitsky, however, admit that the democratic left underestimated the level of passivity in the country. "We made a prediction," Buzgalin said, "that struggles would develop as a result of shock therapy. We were mistaken." The several left parties have only a few thousand supporters in cities across Russia -- mainly engineers, semi-skilled wokers, some miners. The central trade union movement is quiescent, if not collaborationist, though local unions may be growing increasingly militant. As for the future? The next political confrontation, many Russian political observers believe, will not be between the President and the Parliament but will develop as a result of spontaneous strikes by miners or from a food riot in a large and dying industrial city. Then, as one Russian political analyst put it, "Moscow won't know what the hell to do -- except to raise wages or use force. But who can tell at this time? It's kind of the twilight zone out there. And it's hard to tell now if it's getting lighter or darker." (from The Nation, Augest 8/15, 1994, forwarded by zfliu@leea.cchem.berkeley.edu ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- x. Late Night Casual Talk ....................... Compiled by Andrew Lei 210 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a compilation of a conversation between two friends, one of whom was just back from Shanghai, China, and the other was eager to know something about China. For conciseness, I've cut out irrelevant parts. A: You just came back from Shanghai. Can you tell me something about China? Well, start from your general impression first. B: Where to start... Well, a few words: changes are beyond my imagination. The city, the people, everything. A: I am not quite interested in the city, but how about the people? B: Another few words: Zui4 Sheng1 Meng4 Si3. Of course, the people I contacted were mostly "middle" or "upper-middle" class in Shanghai. You can't generalize to all, and you can't generalize to the whole China. A: How is that? B: Well, they all have a lot of money, but they all do not know how long they will be having the money. When I got back there, I thought that I should give all my nephews some money. What I had in mind was in the order of ten US dollars. Well, I found that it would have been a big embarrassment if I had done that because they all gave my son at least a thousand yuan RMB as Jian4 Mian4 Li3 wrapped in a little red pack (Hong2 Bao1). You know, we got more than twenty thousands in total, and that was much more than what we needed for the whole period of stay. So, I did not spend a penny, but rather "earned" some money by just visiting relatives and friends. Wasn't it nice? A: Gee, that is something. Where did they get the money from? Average salary in Shanghai is what? RMB 400 yuan a month? B: I don't know where the money came from, I only knew I was so poor compared with them. We bought some gifts too, but brought them back untouched because they were all too cheap in their eyes! However, even though they spent money like dusting dirt, they all felt very uncertain about the future. Several friends told me almost the same thing, "This is a socialist pancake on a capitalist plate. If you do not get a bite, who knows when it'll be gone, or the plate will become a box such that nobody can bite anymore". You see, because of this mentality, they never cared about anything but getting money by whatever means. Of course, I never figured out how they did it. Bonus? Bribe? Business income? I don't know. This is really the Chinese Miracle in my eyes. A: What were your friends and relatives doing for living? B: Some were factory chiefs, some working for joint-ventures, some having private business, none of which are big business yet. You know, they must have many more means to make money than we do. A: Well, I am sure they have to work very hard too. I don't believe that the money could come from doing nothing. B: You can't view this with an American eye. In the US, you use your own money to make money, right? There, they do not have to because they can get money from the government for whatever business they do, and then a substantial chunk of the profit from the business goes to their own pockets. For example, a friend got a loan from the government for their realty business. In a about two months period, the land they "bought" was sold to another company about ten times higher than what he spent on. He told me there are many execuses to get about a half of the profit to their own accounts. Of course, he was the only one who told me how to make their money, still, I do not know how the others did. A: You do not have any friends who are still working in universities? B: Yes I do. But they all feel ignored by the society. Why? because no one really cares about learning something. Well, this may be too extreme a statement. According to him, only those from the countryside still honor the value of higher education. A friend of mine is an Associate Professor now. He said that it hardly happened anymore that a student came in the office to argue that he should have higher score in his examination. He remembered only once that a student from Anhui contryside did that. A: But why so many high school students are still struggling to death to get into colleges? B: They need a diploma. That's it. Once they get that, they may find a better job with higher pay in those joint ventures. You may not believe this. Nowadays, prostitution in Shanghai is not anything rare. If a girl has a college degree, she will earn more by prostituting. A friend of mine had the experience. By the way, if you go around the streets in Shanghai, you'll see many ads for "healing sexual diseases". Simply too many that remind you as if every Shanghainese needs such doctors! Is it unbelievable? Shanghai people have a slang for those prostitutes: Pa1 Jiao3 Wan4 Yuan2 Hu4, got it? You know, if you check in some hotels by your own, often the front desk lady will give you a call soon, "Are you lonely? We can have some girls come to talk with you." I was told that this was called Yi4 Tiao2 Long2 service: the hotel will inform some organization out there to send girls to you if you agree, the hotel will charge the organization, which got money from you. A: I can't believe this! Are people disgusted by this? B: Well, people are really not sensitive to this anymore, because after all, they aimed at foreigners most of the time, although some rich Ge4 Ti3 Hu4 try this from time to time. I guess this must be one of the reasons why sexual diseases are so common that many doctors are needed, at least appeared that way seeing those ads on the streets. A: Do you think they have concerns about the future of the country? B: It's hard to tell. You know, people treat those who talk about the future of the country as fools, at least seemingly so. I really do not know. But I can tell you what a friend of mine, who is a director of a pretty big factory, told me. He said something like this, "Are we concerned about this country? Deeply in heart, we are. But, the problem is that it does not have any effect because you have to stay away from politics. The only thing that you can do and that does not sting the nerve of the authority is making money. Also, so many died in 6.4, so what? We are very Guai1 Qiao3 now. Go where the government does not care. That is true, if you have money, you have everything, and you can even buy democracy and human rights. But if you have democracy, can you buy me a car?" You see, I really do not kow what you guys are doing mean much to them. A: But do they know that without democracy, their money could be taken away anytime, just like at the beginning of the PRC? B: Who cares! As long as they have money today, they enjoy today. Tomorrow, who knows if it is Deng Xiaoping or one of those people who is going to die. You see, I found that this is really the difference in mentality between the overseas and the insiders. No wonder they often laughed at me, "you are still living in Lei Feng times", and this was why I said people are Zui4 Sheng1 Meng Si3. In my point of view, moral standard is gone in China, well, maybe just in Shanghai. Oh, I want to tell you something else. I have a relative in Chengdu. He has a son in middle school. In order to get him in a upper-middle level school, they paid something like RMB 4,500.00 yuan a semester. But he told me that this was already pretty Wen1 Rou2 a charge. If they wanted to send him to one of those key middle schools, they would have to pay something like RMB 10,000 yuan per semester, unless he could pass the entrance tests. Don't you think this is too crazy? How many families can afford this? A: Wait a minute. What do you mean by passing the entrance test? B: If you pass the entrance test, you'll go there for some lower tuition. If you can not pass, you can still go paying a much much higher tuition. This is how those schools make money. Don't think that the teachers in middle schools have many ways to make money. So, as a matter of fact, many of those key middle schools really do not wish to have too many brillliant kids who can pass their test in their classes; otherwise, they won't be able to make more money. A: I see. ... Did you have chance talk to them about overseas Chinese? B: Of course I did. Almost every time, they always ask, "have you got your green card?" "how much money can you make?" "can you invest some to establish a joint venture?" and so on. Nobody really cares if you are a PhD or a MS or whatever, and nobody cares if you want to go back. In fact, if you say that you are going back to work there, I am 100% sure that you'll meet some strange eyes. You see, don't ever expect welcome sign when you go back there. Well, I don't know. Beijing might be different. Another interesting thing is this. In the minds of Shanghai people, overseas Chinese are classified in terms of richness. You know what, the overseas from US are rated the poorest. A: Who's the richest? B: Those from Japan, especially ladies. You know, I was planning to have a dinner in a restaurant together with my old friends. One told me, "I know it is not easy for you to make money there in the US. You do not have to do this. We all understand." You see, they are paying some pity to us now. Well, I did that anyway. Remember that we got more than RMB 20,000 yuan red-pack money, and we spent about 2,000 on that dinner, which was just a lower-middle level dinner in Shanghai. A: I heard about this kind of stories several times already. B: Here is something else that marks some kind of changes. You know, at the time we came out, if people knew that someone married with a foreigner, they usually thought, "Aha, this guy/girl is going to have some happy life from now on.", or at least "He/she is not going to worry about money now". Now, it seems very different. One day, I was talking with my friend on a street. A lady with a foreigner, maybe an American, hand in hand passed by. My friend glanced at them and murmured, "Jian4 Huo4". A: Well, that may just be his own feeling. B: No. A friend of us married with a Japanese business man. We visited her. She told us that she had a pretty miserable life in Shanghai because wherever she went with her husband, she always heard people murmuring some nasty words at her back. So, she stayed home most time. Of course, she had a lot of money to spend. But, who can bear with that kind of life for too long? It is a house arrest, isn't it? So, she begged her husband to go back to Japan as soon as possible, but he could not because he was the China-office director of his company. I really do not know why people have this kind of mentality. Also, Shanghai people looked down those from Taiwan, Hongkong, Southeast Asia even more. A: Why? B: Poor and stingy in their eyes. My friend told me that they hardly had any super dinner with Taiwan business people. I said to them: they had to spent their own money to treat you, but you spent the nation's money, and this was why. But, still, they do not like that. You know, my friend is entitled to spent RMB 20,000 yuan a year on cigarette, which was just a part of his public relation fee provided by his company. Is this also something? A: Somehow I have a feeling that you do not have a good impression about Shanghai after this trip. B: Well, I can't say it is bad, but it is not good either. It just surprises me greatly. Okay, something good is this. At least they still think us, the ones in the US, are doing some serious things, hard working, pretty decent. They do not have the same feeling towards those in Japan, Australia and so on. If you ask me, and if the picture of Shanghai represents China, I would say this. People are getting rich because somehow everyone gets a bite of the socialist pancake, as they called. The country is hanging there because it borrows money from outside, either loan or investment. The real terrible feeling in my heart is this. China is like a pressure pot on a stove right now. You really do not know what is going on in the pot. What you see is that Deng Xiaoping is sitting on the valve at the top of the pressure pot so that the steam inside can not burst out. When he dies, who is capable of sitting there? I don't know. How the steam inside will burst out? No answer either. 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