I can never be a politician

After announcing in my last blog that I would return all my books, I did go to the library with all the six books. But I hesitated in returning them. I felt I owe people an explanation.

As I said before, I was dragged into politics without my prior consent. I was bothered by the fact that politics had complicated my situation and made my primary goal - which was to get my life back - seem harder to reach. Despite the complications, however, I had always used "doing the right thing" as my guiding principle along the way - usually with great personal costs. When I found out that I could not untangle myself from politics, I played along, hoping that I would be taken out politically. That's why I borrowed books to send out political messages.

However, in the past few weeks, with the realization that my depression had gotten markedly worse, I became increasingly convinced that this was all a mistake. To be taken out politically, I need to win politically. However, I could not possibly win this game, not only because I do not have the necessary experience and skills, but more crucially because I am just too nice. I can never be a politician. That's the reason why I wanted to return all the books and stop such activities in the future.

No, this is not a clever way of praising myself. I know very well from my own miserable experience that "nice guys finish last". Indeed, I did not even hide the fact that I had tried to change myself by, say, reading Machiavelli stuff. But I failed. I guess niceness is in my genes. Of course, everyone knew I am a nice guy already, including people who were not so friendly to me, such as Dick Cheney or Niall Ferguson.

Besides having the tendency to shy away from conflicts, I am also a sympathetic person - another trait of a nice guy. As I said elsewhere, I think that we needed more sympathy in our societies. I still maintain that view because I firmly believe the lack of sympathy is the root cause of moral decline in our societies. Besides, being a nice/sympathetic guy, I naturally subscribe to the social and political philosophy I have been advocating, a philosophy that requires "extensive sympathy" to work.

In my dealings with President Obama, I have always had extraordinary amount of sympathy toward him because I had great hope for him. (After all, I risked my life in electing him.) Note that this was in addition to the unusually large amount of sympathy I had towards an average person by simply being who I am. Understand this part of me, then you will understand why I hesitated for four days before posting my first blog that was critical of him; and why, while I had attached great importance to the integrity in documenting my journey of almost 5 years, I lied in two of my recent blogs during the G20 Summit in order not to embarrass him.

I should note that in each of those two instances, Mr. Obama did not take my critical revelations of truth well. In the first instance, Mr. Obama responded emotionally as reflected in his inauguration address that contained countless nuts, putting the entire Sino-U.S. relations in jeopardy. In the second, Mr. Obama could not give a coherent response to the unflattering truth I revealed about him, as reflected in the changing themes of his speeches during his post-G20 European tour. One of the themes, as BBC acutely put it, was "Yes, we can" again. Mr. Obama was, in effect, resorting to punching below the waistline again on that day.

Soon after he came back from Europe, the biggest news across all major media was the hijacking of a U.S. freighter and the taking hostage of its captain by Somali pirates. As a maritime expert pointed out on BBC, this was highly unusual. Very soon, multiple U.S. navy vessels were dispatched to the area, making people wonder why so many military assets would have to be deployed to deal with a few pirates on a small life boat. President Obama was reportedly on top of the situation but refused to answer questions from the media.

I was doing further research on China's planned war with India at the time. (Indeed, I had just determined that it was on or around February 2 that I first realized China's war plan. ) When the words "Indian Ocean" were mentioned by the media in connection to the hostage situation, I realized that those piracy activities were not that far from India. Of course, I knew China had earlier sent its navy vessels to the Gulf of Aden to protect its merchant ships from Somali pirates. All these made me realize that (1) the Chinese vessels very likely had a secret mission as part of the planned war with India; and (2) the hostage situation was very likely engineered by the Obama administration so as to send war ships to the area to counter the Chinese vessels.

As I probed deeper, I found that the Chinese vessels were dispatched on December 26, 2008, the birthday of Mao Zedong. I do not usually remember Mao's birthday. I remembered it this year because, while composing this blog - which was still to be titled then - on Christmas Day, I noticed Mao's birthday while browsing the Internet. Indeed, it was because I regarded Mao's birthday as a good date that I hurried up with my writing and posted the finished blog in the evening, which would still have been Mao's birthday in China. That's also why I gave this blog an unusual title, A Christmas Update, with an apparent emphasis on time. (I should add that I started writing that part of my story on Christmas morning because I felt particularly depressed, it being a holiday of all. -- One thing I learned about coping with my depression was to break my routine, or to do something fresh or unusual.)

I did not overtly make the connection to Mao's birthday in that blog because I knew what the impression of an average Westerner had on Mao and I knew I could not possibly change that perception in short order. Indeed in all my writings, I had tried to avoid the subject if I could.

(Perhaps a few words on Mao is in order. I know that Mao had been portrayed as a horrible person in western media for ideological reasons. I agree that he was a brutal dictator. People here should realize, though, that to the Chinese people, he will always be regarded as the undisputed founder of the new China. And because of that, I admire him greatly. Without a strong, independent China he founded, Chinese people would still live in destitute. That said, I should point out that any comparison between Mao and me is unfortunate because the only similarity I could think of is that both of us are true advocates for the less advantaged in society. Yet the differences between Mao and me are huge. For one thing, Mao was a strong man and a revolutionary but I am only a modest person by nature. I subscribe to Confucianism - in its modern sense - but Mao disdained Confucius. Mao was a brutal political leader adept at the power game. I am a nice guy hopelessly stuck with my life. And finally, Mao was a dictator at his core. Because I had lived both in China and in Canada and saw these two political systems up close and personal, I am a firm believer of democracy.)

Back at the situation at hand, I first wondered: given all these coincidences, did I give people the impression that I had known China's war plan as early as on December 25, and that I was in support of this mission? This was the first question that came to my mind because I was researching on the question of when I first realized China's war plan. Frankly on that early a date, I did not have a whiff of impression of China's war plan.

I also wondered: Why did the Chinese navy send out its war ships on Mao's birthday on an apparent anti-piracy mission? Was it just a coincidence, or did it have a political significance? I knew that both Mao and I had been compared to the sun. The constant headline of "Captain Phillips Held Hostage" also reminded me that Mao had been called the "Great Captain". I wondered if the Chinese navy mission was initially conceived to cross the Pacific Ocean to rescue me (or to be seen to rescue me in order to put pressure on the U.S. and Canadian governments), as I had said many times that I was in a virtual prison here; and by posting my blog A Christmas Update on that same day, if I had created the impression that I had "sent off" these ships to the Indian Ocean.

If that's the case, I could even be regarded as the real person behind China's planned war with India. This scenario was highly plausible because under this scenario, a message from the whole "Captain Phillips Held Hostage" episode was that the Obama administration would take hostage of me if China-India war did break out. Indeed, helicopters were hovering above my head again to perhaps reinforce the message.

But I knew I had nothing to do with China's planned war with India. That's also part of the reason why I had so resisted accepting Mr. Osama's "endorsement" of me for the 5th generation of Chinese leadership in his Georgetown speech on April 14.

Probably because of my resistance, Mr. Obama must have gone back to all the intelligence reports he had on me and concluded that I had done nothing wrong and he himself had broken the law by deliberately putting the lives of American citizens in danger. That's why he gave a speech at CIA on Monday April 20 in which he talked about "hard/easy" while looking away from the camera - an extremely rare occurrence for him. I knew he was afraid that I would blow the whistle on him and he was apologizing to me for punching below the waistline. That's actually how my blog title, "It's not easy to be a politician", came about. Note that the markets dropped heavily on that day, too.

Being a nice guy, I readily accepted his apology, and with a reading of Norman Spector's column on Tuesday April 21, I again sympathized with Mr. Obama and hid the damaging information about him from my blog posted on April 23. Mr. Obama responded by assuring me that he would come to my side in his weekly address on Saturday April 25. He not only made 4 points, signaling his "improved endorsement" of me, but also used Mao's famous "serve the people" in his speech.

Not wanting to compete with Hu Jintao, I proposed on April 28 to stay here so that I would also have a chance to learn from Mr. Warren Buffett in person. It had always been a dream of mine, as Mr. Obama must have surely known. However, I do not know whether all of Mr. Obama's nice gestures were just meant to appease me so that he could get through his 100 day celebration on April 29 without a hitch, or he just particularly disliked my idea of working alongside Mr. Buffett. In the end, he did not come along to my side at all.

Note that he was visibly more relaxed in the morning of April 29, probably knowing that, even if I wanted to blow the whistle on him, it would be too late now. In his town hall meeting that day, he made 5 points again. At the beginning of the town hall speech, he remarked that "it's good to be in the middle of America", or something along the line. -- One reason I was drawn to Mr. Buffett and regarded him as my hero was precisely because of the American heartland values that Mr. Buffett embodies. I believe Mr. Obama was again borrowing ideas from me to help himself look good politically. (Even worse, a TV reporter from BBC later in the evening borrowed my words "lest I offended anyone" from my blog to apply on Mr. Obama. In effect, she knew what Mr. Obama wanted and she was doing the job for him already.)

I do not know how to describe my feelings that night. Please, folks! I didn't write my blogs to seek office, even after the realization that politics had intruded into my life. I wrote them because they were the truth, they were what happened along my journey, they were a reflection of me - a true me, a "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" me. You all know it is not easy for me to write. Faking a likeliness of me in words while keeping the real me away from the public is both shameful and cruel. (Of course, I would not mind people subscribing to my philosophy, as long as they are genuine in their efforts. And genuine Mr. Obama was not. Eventually, I believe people will see through all his rhetoric and oratory and realize that he is just another politician driven by personal ambitions.)

The next day, I could see that Mr. Obama was still a little nervous. I thought about blowing the whistle, but I was so depressed that I just did not have the energy or motivation to do it. Instead, I retreated again, borrowing one more book in the evening and hoping that by giving up the idea of working for Warren Buffett, Mr. Obama would not think that I was going to compete with him for the spotlight.

Instead of coming to my side, Mr. Obama made four points on countering the A(H1N1) virus in his weekly address on May 2, as if I was the virus. If I had any doubt on Mr. Obama's underlying hostile tone, it was quelled by CBC Radio's interpretation with the phrase "barely understood" in its reporting of the speech that morning. Feeling that I had had enough of Mr. Obama's about-faces, I brought my total number of books on loan to six that day, signaling that I just wanted to be out.

Even with that clear signal that I wanted to get out of politics, Mr. Obama would not let me go. On Wednesday, May 6th, Mr. Obama and Mr. Hu Jintao had a telephone conversation. They talked about cooperation in dealing with the virus, of course.

I did not know what else I could do, until May 14 when I thought about returning all the books once for all, signaling that I was out of politics, instead of waiting to be taken out politically.

And that is what I am going to do today, for sure.


Update (20090518):

If you read my above blog carefully, you could raise a legitimate question: "Since everyone knew that you were a nice guy and nice guy could not succeed in politics, why did you have to blow the whistle on Mr. Obama to explain your reason for stopping your 'political activities', i.e., borrowing books?" Indeed, that is a valid question, even with my worsening depression. And the answer is that I left out something more alarming.

What really pushed me to blow the whistle on Obama was a piece of news I read on Bloomberg website last Tuesday night, May 12, about the possibility raised by a respected Australian scientist that the A(H1N1) virus was man-made. I had some suspicion already that the flu outbreak was another work by the Obama administration to put further strain on other countries still coping from the global economic downtown, especially those populous ones such as China. This news seemed to have backed up my suspicion scientifically.

Indeed, I was so alarmed by it that I could not fall sleep. -- Putting the lives of a few American citizens in danger in the hostage story was one thing. The so-called swine flu outbreak was something totally different. A potential flu pandemic could put the whole world population in danger. -- I got up in the middle of the night and stayed up for several hours, changing my recent sleep pattern. Since, as I said before, there was video surveillance inside my apartment, the Obama administration must have sensed that I would become more likely to blow the whistle on him now. Not surprisingly, the Down Jones Index dropped 184 points the next day. (I should say that U.S. stock markets under the Obama administration are still driven by insiders, just like in their Bush years. This is not surprising given that Mr. Obama surrounds himself with so many people with close ties to Wall Street.)

And Mr. Obama quickly adjusted his domestic politics in anticipation of my revelations. On Wednesday May 13, he reversed his earlier commitment to allowing the release of torture photos. On Thursday May 14, he did another about-face by retaining the Bush-era military commission for terrorism suspects. Both decisions were meant to appease the opposition so that he could get away with breaking the law. I don’t know if it will work.

Of course, I noticed that a high-ranking WHO official had contradicted the claim of the Australian scientist since the initial report. I believe in science and hope that it will eventually help to pinpoint the origin of the virus. At the mean time, I think the world deserves to know my strong suspicion.


Update (20090602):

Like I said, I am out of politics now. I don’t really want to write any more. However, the development in the past week made feel that I had to speak out.

Let me start on the North Korea situation, considering that I disclosed just a few weeks ago that their rocket launch in April had the implicit backing from the Chinese government.

Essentially, the rocket launch was meant to create a phony war situation in northeast Asia so that China could concentrate its war efforts on India. It would not lead to a real war, as, just like China’s planned war with India itself, was known to the Obama administration. That’s why U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on a Sunday morning talk show before the launch that he was not concerned. That’s also why I hesitated a little bit in urging North Korea not to do it.

Last Monday, North Korea conducted a underground nuclear test, to the surprise of a lot of countries, including China, as Mr. Gates observed. China’s stand has always been a “nuclear-free Korea peninsula”. If North Korea becomes a nuclear state, it will undoubtedly trigger an arms race in the region to the detriment of China’s own security. Therefore, unlike the rocket launch, the North Korea nuclear test could not have the backing of the Chinese government. Indeed, the nuclear test last week caused the greatest security damage to China among all the countries concerned.

While the North Korea regime had its own reasons to develop nuclear weapon, such as ensuring the continuation of their family dictatorship or exacting a higher price in the ensuring denuclearization negotiations, they could not have made such a move without a major backer. Indeed, judging from their war-mongering after the test, one had to conclude they did have a backer, unless the regime was suicidal.

And that backer could only be Russia, its other traditional ally in the region. Indeed, the whole history of North Korea after the Korean War has been a history of maintaining good relations with these two countries and, in periods of animosity between China and Russia (or former Soviet Union), maintaining a delicate balance in their dealings with these two allies.

And I can see that Russia had an incentive to back North Korea’s nuclear test. For a long time, it has not been happy with my G2 proposal of China-U.S. cooperation. And I left out some critical information in my above update regarding the spread of A(H1N1) virus by the Obama administration.

The truth of the matter is, while the Obama administration did not oppose China’s planned war with India, it did not support the war either. Far from support, it wanted to ensure China bear maximum cost for its war efforts. The spreading of A(H1N1) virus was aimed at exactly putting more cost on China’s war efforts. Knowing this aim of the Obama administration, one then can easily understand why the virus targeted mostly young to mid-aged adults, besides being highly contagious; and why the Obama administration appeared to take a rather leisurely approach to the public health emergency created by the new virus and made U.S. one of the most affected countries despite its high quality health care system; and why many of China’s confirmed cases came from the United States; and why Keiji Fukuda, the high-ranking WHO official from America, immediately contradicted the scientific claim made by the respected Australia scientist Adrian Gibbs that the virus could come from a lab.

I should add that the reason that I withheld those information was that I wanted a trouble-free post-politics life here. Indeed, I feared being tortured again by the governments as retaliation. Don’t believe Mr. Obama has changed much from Mr. Bush. Yes, he closed Guantanamo Prison. But what about the so-called Afghan Gitmo? What Mr. Obama is good at is political theater. He closed Gitmo because that was the symbol of the previous administration’s torture policy. It was for the same reason that he scheduled his speech on this subject on the same morning as that made by former Vice-President Dick Cheney. In my case, I believe the incident where he or his spokesman “misspoke” on torture was intended to send me a message. (More research needed to find the details.)

As for my G2 proposal that Russians were so unhappy about, I do not have a formal training in international relations and it is very hard for me to write about my ideas. But I believe the essentials could be found from what I have already written. (G2 being an embryonic concept, it did not elicit an official response from the Russian government. But I saw a Russian researcher reportedly spoke vehemently against it.) I did not envision G2 as U.S. and China working together to dominate the world. Rather, I see China’s role as a counter-weight against U.S.’s hegemonic tendencies. Through China, it will give voice to the many developing countries who are traditionally underrepresented in international affairs.

Actually, I don’t know what the letter G entails. As I said, I learned of the name G2 from the media. Initially, I focused much attention on Sino-U.S. relation because, from my own experience, it was a relation fraught with potential conflicts, (of which I had foiled a few.) As I learned more from my own experience, I found that the Sino-U.S. relation was much more complicated than I originally thought. The first two “political” books I borrowed from SFU library last August perhaps summarized my feelings about the relationship. -- If these two countries cooperate well, the relationship will benefit both sides. If not, both sides could get hurt.

Later, in my search for China’s democratic future, I found the philosophy that could underpin China’s democratization as well as Sino-U.S. relationship. In U.S., it’s called Pragmatism. In China, it’s called Confucianism. (In deference to the Americans, I had always used pragmatism up until this blog.) Indeed, as Joseph Grange’s book illustrated, this common philosophy has the potential to become a global philosophy.

As such, the cooperation I proposed was really a global cooperation in the end. But it has to work between U.S. and China first. (I think the current North Korea nuclear crisis presented just such an opportunity for U.S. and China, as Mr. Gates acknowledged.) It doesn’t exclude anyone. Actually, I am glad to see that some European politicial leaders had called on Europe to join G2, in which case it will become a G3.

Of course, maybe this was all some naive idea from a nice guy who could never be a politician. But here are some more explanations in response to Russia’s unhappiness. Now, if you would all excuse me, I really don’t want to have anything to do with politics any more.

That's it

My depression is getting worse lately. Without my first realizing it, I had not wanted to get out of my apartment for days in a row.

To motivate myself to get out daily, I have been finding all sorts of excuses. Today's excuse? Library.

I have decided that I shall return all the books today. I am not going to finish the democratization series any time soon. But I got the feeling that I would feel much better after returning the books.

Oh, if you are interested, these six books are:

1. Confucianism for the Modern World, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong
2. East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia, by Daniel A. Bell
3. Globalization and Culture, by John Tomlinson
4. Communitarianism: A New Agenda for Politics and Citizenship, by Henry Tam
5. Democratic Hope: Pragmatism and the Politics of Truth, by Robert B. Westbrook
6. The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society, by Amitai Etzioni