The subject is, depressingly for me, the nuclear issue. The hesitancy of my more recent writings on the subject is a reflection of my self-consciousness in trying to explain the unexplainable part of the controversy. I often say that self-consciousness is my greatest enemy. But the effect of this particular one on me is much severer than that of the one I experienced in August 2005 when I came to the understanding that General Zhu made his nuclear comments so that I could criticize him to gain goodwill from the Americans. As I wrote in March:
Of course, now that a fly had gotten into my stomach, I needed to get it out. – I had to say something about General Zhu's comment. Actually, that was the initial objective when I started a separate blog because I wanted to separate it from my main (and single) issue about Cecilia Zhang. In other words, despite the perception that General Zhu's comment was connected to my situation, I attempted to disassociate myself from it. Talk about tough life!
By then, more than a month had passed since Zhu made his comments. Bashing him right after I started the new blog would seem – well, wired – for me. I guess I had become too self-conscious. It would have been much easier for me to criticize Zhu without knowing the circumstance surrounding his comments. Instead, I felt particularly awkward as if I was taking on a heavy task.
For me, the nuclear issue, which was entirely forced upon me, was disposed of once I had completed the "heavy task" of sharply chastising General Zhu for his comments on August 30, 2005. Indeed, I did not even think about the issue for a long time afterwards, until I sensed or realized various controversies. These controversies were the results of giving nuclear misinterpretations to my writings when in fact there were none. Because nobody told me directly what the controversies were, I had to figure them out myself. For similar reason, what I understood as the controversy might be different from what others understood as the controversy at various times.
Perhaps I should summarize what I knew and when I knew about various nuclear misinterpretations.
Although I wrote my blog Summer Hibernation before I used the quote "All reactionaries are paper tigers" in my second report, I sensed possible misinterpretations with respect to the quote first. This was because, soon after I published my second report on January 17, I noticed quite a few newspaper editorials and articles on Canadian election used the word reactionary or its variants. Initially, I thought the problem with the quote was that "reactionaries" and "paper tigers" are derogatory. That's why I tried to play it down a little bit with a sense of humor on my January 24 blog. Then I read on February 12 an article by a well-known Chinese dissident and learned that nuclear bombs were referred to as paper tigers at one time. However, I thought that, simply because nuclear bombs were referred to as paper tigers, my use of the quote somehow implied I was a nuclear terrorist - as suggested in Donald Rumsfeld's speech on February 17 - was so ridiculous that it did not even merit much disproof. -- A certain "crying wolf" effect was at work in my mind. Just take a look at all those names I had been called along my journey. None of them made much sense to me. Why should I give much thought to this particular one?
For my blog Summer Hibernation, it was after I had read Jim Travers' March 14 column that I realized the nuclear misinterpretation. I was quite upset at this realization that my motive was cast in doubt. That's why I spent a lot of time in April writing about Canadian Election 2006 ( part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8) to demonstrate the blog's meaning was political, not nuclear.
My initial reaction to the misinterpretation of this blog was that it did not make sense as I did not think there was a nuclear balance between U.S. and China. However, unlike the situation with respect to what I understood as the controversy surrounding the quote in February, I did start to pay attention to nuclear weaponry issues in April because Bush administration's misinterpretation of my blog implied that I was approval of General Zhu's comments, which suggested that an all-out nuclear war between U.S. and China would result in mutually assured destruction. It was probably around late April or early May that I realized that Bush administration's implied conclusion on Sino-U.S. nuclear relations was right and my amateurish analysis was wrong. I hesitated to correct the record because I became conscious about how my correcting the record might be perceived.
Next came the emotional aftermath of Cecilia Zhang "trial" on May 9. Fighting for justice for Cecilia Zhang was my primary goal. I was indeed quite consumed by the aftermath of Cecilia Zhang "trial" as can be seen from my blogs posted during this period of time. As such, nuclear issue naturally faded away from my mind in the following couple of months.
As I explained in a previous blog, nuclear issue came up to my mind again when I wrote my open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in late July:
When I wrote my open letter to Stephen Harper, I felt I had to deal with the nuclear controversy because (1) Harper government had been towing the line of the Bush administration in tagging me a nuclear terrorist when they clearly knew that my original blog Summer Hibernation was meant to provide a political principle/strategy - to him, no less - for the coming federal election; and (2) Dr. Jiang's nuclear physics background might have contributed to his death.
Looking back, I can see that it was because I had put my pen on paper - literally speaking - and given some serious thoughts on all the possible controversies that I realized the underlying connection - aided by Bush administration's media nuclear bomb - between the misinterpretation of my blog Summer Hibernation and the misinterpretation of my use of the quote. As I wrote in my October 3 blog:
Later [during the writing of my open letter], when I tried to follow the line of Bush administration's thinking in terms of interpreting the "controversial" quote…, I became even more shocked. Bush administration must have thought the quote was my response to their media nuclear bomb because it was attributed to Mao Zedong, who was the leader of China at the time. Of course, … it did not cross my mind when I wrote the report that the Bomb was referred to as "paper tiger" by Mao.
And I realized that this connection between these two misinterpretations must be the real controversy. No word could describe how shocked I was at this realization. (Another reason why it took me so long to figure out the connection was, of course, that in my mind, the blog and the quote had no connection whatsoever. - I can't stress enough that the connection was based on two misinterpretations of my separate writings. - I would like to add that, with my depression, rarely do I find myself in a mood to write. To be frank, most of the times I do not even want to think about my story.)
Since I had paid some attention to the issue of nuclear weaponry back in April, I gained some understanding of it. My increased understanding included, as I wrote in my October 3 blog, the realization that there was certain logic and purpose in General Zhu's comments. His major purpose was to deter a possible U.S. armed interference in Taiwan so that China could strive for an eventual peaceful unification of the whole country.
Because Bush administration had misinterpretated my writings as an approval of General Zhu's comments, they must have taken my writings as deterrence too. And this perceived deterrence might have been a contributing factor in stopping a potential military conflict across the Taiwan Straits, as I discussed in this November 24 blog.
Of course, as I demonstrated again and again, I had no idea of the misinterpretations of my blog or the quote at the time of my writings, let along the deterrence effect they had on Bush administration. Obviously, that there was a connection between these two misinterpretations was merely a coincidence. However, considering the magnitude of the underlying issues - war and peace, nuclear weaponry, the unity of China, etc, I thought during the writing of my open letter that the deterrence effect of my writings in August 2005 and in February 2006 - as perceived by the Bush administration and totally unknown to me at the time - particularly those effect reinforced by the underlying connection between those two misinterpretations, had to be a divine intervention. At the mean time, I was amazed at how lucky I was that everything turned out to be fine on a lethal subject that I had been totally ignorant of, and specifically, that the end result was the avoidance of a potential war. -- This initial reaction of mine was reflected in a summary paragraph in my open letter to Stephen Harper. (Insomuch as the Harper government thought that there was a problem in my writing, I regarded the problem as the creation of Bush administration through its release of the media nuclear bomb, which brought out the misinterpretation of my blog, which, in turn, brought out the misinterpretation's deterrence effect onto Bush administration themselves.)
Besides, you should know the problem with my blog was in the over-reaction by the Bush administration, which was beyond my control. To paraphrase a legal jargon, it was an act of a Buddha. (And a merciful one, too, because my previous "technical analysis" of Sino-America nuclear imbalance could be wrong.)
After realizing the real controversy during the writing of the open letter, I knew I would have to offer an explanation. As I saw it, I needed to convince people that (1) neither of my writings had anything to do with nuclear issue; and (2) more importantly, I wasn't aware of any of the misinterpretations for a long time. I was fairly confident that I was able to do those. However, I was also conscious of the difficulty in explaining the connection between those two misinterpretations because, well, it's really unexplainable.
The effect of my self-consciousness on me was reflected in my first installment of the explanation posted on August 20, in which I explained that the quote was one of my pet phrases, used in the specific context and had nothing to do with nuclear bomb. The title was negative: "I don't know how to write about this". So was the first sentence: "As they say, self-consciousness is a man's greatest enemy." The last sentence also had a sense of hesitancy too: "I hope I have dealt with all possible controversies resulted from this quote." Technically, yes. But in my mind, I was still worried about how I was going to explain the connection between the misinterpretation of this quote and the misinterpretation of the previous blog.
My second installment of the explanation, whose title was derived from the fact that I had lost my usual sense of humor in my writing ever since I realized the nuclear misinterpretation of my blog in mid-March, was not finished until early October because of my financial and health problems. Mr. Thomas Friedman's "clear question" helped to speed up my writing, though. This blog demonstrated that it was impossible for me to provide the logical connection between those two misinterpretations.
In between, I read an interview of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao by several European media organizations, in which Premier Wen quoted a German philosopher in the interview:
有两种东西，我对它们的思考越是深沉和持久，它们在我心灵中唤起的惊奇和敬畏就会日新月异，不断增长，这就是我头上的星空与心中的道德定律。
Reading this quote, I felt that Premier Wen was criticizing me for the language I used in my summary explanation. Although I was just paraphrasing a legal jargon, the religious connotation was there. That's why I toned down my language a little bit in my more recent blog:
I saw some pundit later talk (sic) about "divine intervention". But I wouldn't go that far.I still think religion should be left out of the discussion of earthly matters.
