And I want to be heard.
In a sense, I have been heard from time to time. The problem is that it has never been done in a nice way.
To explain what I mean, and why I want to be heard particularly this time, let me use as an example the most recently case, i.e., my March 9 blog. In it, I put forward some of my ideas on how to tackle the current global economic crisis - the subject of the London Summit - as part of a series on China's democratization and its impact on the world.
Three days later, President Barack Obama gave a speech to a group of U.S. business leaders. Comparing his speech with my March 9 blog, one could say that he was pretty receptive to my ideas. But he did not mention my name. -- That's not very nice, was it? -- I was so shocked by his speech that I scrambled to save my blog as screen graphics. (Of course, other pundits similarly "borrowed" my ideas, too.)
With the G20 coming to London, I particularly wanted to be heard this time. That's why you saw a flurry of book-borrowing activities from me in the last few days, culminating yesterday with my borrowing one book from Vancouver Public Library and returning 5 to SFU, making the total number on loan 4, thus signaling my willingness to be considered to replace Hu Jintao as the 4th generation of Chinese leadership.
Now, when I started my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang, I thought of myself just a simple guy trying to right a wrong. (Or maybe two wrongs, including the one inflicted on me.) Even with the realization that Chinese government was considering me for a leadership position in China, I have always held my cause in Canada very dearly.
That's why I do not always do what the Chinese government want me to do, as can be seen from more than one places in my blogs. The most recent example was from my last letter to the Governor General. On the day of President Obama's visit to Ottawa, I returned one book early in the morning, making the total number of books on loan 5. But I refused to return another one later that day, which, I believe, would have made the total number 4 and injected myself onto the Ottawa scene that day. Indeed, I borrowed three more items from SFU the following day, making the total number of items on loan 8 and signaling that my intention had been mostly personal. (I did not know at the time that 8 was used to refer to the 4th generation in China as well. To me, 8 has always been a lucky number and meant good fortune. Another possible misinterpretation of my borrowing records was that some people might have looked into them a little too carefully. If I want to signal numbers within a total number, I would go to different libraries. I will get back to these points later.)
As I said before, I was dragged into politics without my prior consent. But to say that I am totally uninterested in politics now is probably not true, either. I am a naturally curious person. As such, I learned quite a lot about politics in the past few years. Although I still maintain that to be a professional politician isn't a suitable career for me, I did give some thoughts about China's democratization, which has always been my wish for China as well as for the world. That's why I wrote about it recently. My thinking was that if people are interested in those ideas, they can talk about them, or even implement them. I just want to get recognized, which might also help me to get out of my insufferable situation.
The three numbers implied in the acknowledgement I published on March 17 perhaps best captured my intentions. The three numbers are 6, 8 and 9. (I think everyone knows 17 means 8 and 9. Indeed, the first time I was taken to the mental institution, I was assigned room No. 17.) And in my mind, 6 and 8 are pretty much the same, just with different emphasis.
The next day, I read an article which challenged the reader to discern 6 rainbows in an accompanying picture. I could not do it without seeing the answer. This exercise made me conscious of the 6 items I borrowed from SFU and I looked carefully into them. To avoid confusion, I simply started fresh and borrowed another 6 books from SFU.
Partly to continue making my point, I borrowed 2 more books from VPL the following day, March 19. I was aware that number 2 had been given the meaning of 11. But I hoped that from my recent writings, people should have realized that I had always favored "dialogue and cooperation" between China and U.S.A.
On Saturday, President Obama made 4 points in his weekly radio address. And he did so in front of a bookshelf. I wondered, for the first time, if in Chinese politics, 8 was used to refer to the 4th generation as well. I returned the 2 books from VPL later that day, just to be safe.
On Thursday, March 26, I read a new article by Li Yang, who had disappeared from the Internet in early 2006. This was a significant development especially considering that I had got the impression lately that Mr. Jiang Zemin, the 3rd generation of Chinese leadership and my chief backer, was ailing. His article seemed also to confirm that 8 was used to refer to the 4th generation in Chinese politics.
That's why I went to SFU that evening and returned a book. But I still did not want to give up my personal cause. I borrowed 3 books from VPL the following day, making the total number 8.
Nothing happening, I returned the 5 books from SFU and borrowed one from VPL yesterday. The total number is now 4. The message is clear: Even if it means losing my personal cause, I want to be heard this time.
I simply want to be heard.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 09, 2009
China’s democratization and its impact on the world (3)
Ninety years ago, John Dewey, one of the founders of American Pragmatism, went to China and gave a series of lectures across many parts of the country for over two years -- his longest stay overseas. It was a momentous time in China where people were hungry for new ideas. Dewey's lectures were well received. However, asides from his educational philosophy which had a lasting effect on China, his social and political philosophies were deemed too modest for a country ripe for revolutionary change.
I recall this little-known anecdote in Sino-U.S. relations to illustrate a couple of points. One is that I believe pragmatism still offers the best hope for dialogue and cooperation between Chinese people and American people. It did not work out ninety years ago; I do not see it happen any time soon given that Dewey's pragmatism is not mainstream in the U.S. and China has not emerged from its shadow of political control. But I have hope for the future. Two is that there was a reason for China's embrace of communism ninety years ago. Simply put, Chinese people were too destitute. As Warren Buffett observed, even Americans became very responsive to communism during the Great Depression.
And it is this second point that is related to our current affair of the world. As the global economic crisis seems to deepen everyday and ordinary people experience more and more hardship, the danger is ever more present for various extreme ideologies to take hold. It rests on our political leaders not to allow this to happen.
Many people have written about the global economic crisis. Since I had the chance to think about the issue in connection to my thoughts about China's democratic future, I'd like to add my two cents.
Many a time in our recent history, scholars of various stripes have pronounced the end of ideology. But the truth of the matter is, as long as there are divisions along various lines in our society, there will be ideologies. Ideology in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. What we need to guard against is ideological extremism. Since pragmatism is inherently modest, it should be relevant to our situation at hand here. Just like thirty years ago when China embraced pragmatism to save its economy from collapse after decades of rigid socialism, today's world should consider a similar philosophical approach to get itself out of the current global economic slump after decades of unfettered capitalism.
This unfettered capitalism has neo-liberalism at its foundation. Claiming to be a revival of classical liberalism at the beginning, neo-liberalism has become nothing short of liberalism taken to the extreme. In order to justify unrestrained personal greed and free-market fundamentalism, neo-liberals often refer to Adam Smith's invisible hand from The Wealth of Nations as their justification. The problem is not their going back to the source. The problem is their intellectual dishonesty in interpreting the source.
More than just the founding pioneer of modern economics as he is widely known, Adam Smith is also a moral philosopher. His first major work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, though rarely mentioned by today's neo-liberals, provided ethical and philosophical foundations to his economic theories. Besides using invisible hand to describe market in the creation of wealth, he also used the same term to describe morality in the distribution of wealth. As Smith put it himself: "What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." If socialism means more equitable distribution of wealth, one could say Smith is a socialist.
Another similarly distorted fact about Adam Smith is that he is an individualist. Far from explaining all human behaviors on a narrow presumption of self-interest, Smith developed his theory of sympathy as a centerpiece of his moral philosophy. Today, it is precisely this lack of sympathy for others that underlies much of the moral decline in our societies. As neo-liberalism became the dominant ideology of our time, self-interest and personal greed are increasingly used to justify all sorts of immoral behaviors. One of the consequences is that many people think it is perfect acceptable to be dishonest if there is a gain to be made personally. Business executives manipulate books and rules in order to award themselves extravagant paychecks. Economists - I have seen them both here and in China - develop theories in order to serve their respective interest groups. Journalists report stories in order to conform to the prevailing ideologies, etc, etc.
In political arena, this narrow individualist focus and lack of sympathy for others lead to an unwillingness to appreciate opposing views. Ideological positions become entrenched and political debates become confrontational. As a result, politics is increasingly polarized.
Pragmatism enables us to see a situation objectively. And objectivity is needed to ensure that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater when saving capitalism from its past excesses. For example, while objectively everyone would agree that protectionism is a sure receipt to turn the global recession into a depression, we can still witness a worrying trend towards adopting various protectionist measures around the world lately.
Acknowledgement (20090317):
If there are anything new in this blog, they are built on what I read in the public domain. To perhaps state the obvious, these include, among others: All recorded words by Warren Buffett that I could get my hands on, and in particular, an interview recorded in the book I.O.U.S.A. by Addison Wiggin and Kate Incontrera; Speeches, interviews and other public comments by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao; A recent essay by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society by Jerry Z. Muller; Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism by Patricia H. Werhane; And The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul.
I recall this little-known anecdote in Sino-U.S. relations to illustrate a couple of points. One is that I believe pragmatism still offers the best hope for dialogue and cooperation between Chinese people and American people. It did not work out ninety years ago; I do not see it happen any time soon given that Dewey's pragmatism is not mainstream in the U.S. and China has not emerged from its shadow of political control. But I have hope for the future. Two is that there was a reason for China's embrace of communism ninety years ago. Simply put, Chinese people were too destitute. As Warren Buffett observed, even Americans became very responsive to communism during the Great Depression.
And it is this second point that is related to our current affair of the world. As the global economic crisis seems to deepen everyday and ordinary people experience more and more hardship, the danger is ever more present for various extreme ideologies to take hold. It rests on our political leaders not to allow this to happen.
Many people have written about the global economic crisis. Since I had the chance to think about the issue in connection to my thoughts about China's democratic future, I'd like to add my two cents.
Many a time in our recent history, scholars of various stripes have pronounced the end of ideology. But the truth of the matter is, as long as there are divisions along various lines in our society, there will be ideologies. Ideology in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. What we need to guard against is ideological extremism. Since pragmatism is inherently modest, it should be relevant to our situation at hand here. Just like thirty years ago when China embraced pragmatism to save its economy from collapse after decades of rigid socialism, today's world should consider a similar philosophical approach to get itself out of the current global economic slump after decades of unfettered capitalism.
This unfettered capitalism has neo-liberalism at its foundation. Claiming to be a revival of classical liberalism at the beginning, neo-liberalism has become nothing short of liberalism taken to the extreme. In order to justify unrestrained personal greed and free-market fundamentalism, neo-liberals often refer to Adam Smith's invisible hand from The Wealth of Nations as their justification. The problem is not their going back to the source. The problem is their intellectual dishonesty in interpreting the source.
More than just the founding pioneer of modern economics as he is widely known, Adam Smith is also a moral philosopher. His first major work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, though rarely mentioned by today's neo-liberals, provided ethical and philosophical foundations to his economic theories. Besides using invisible hand to describe market in the creation of wealth, he also used the same term to describe morality in the distribution of wealth. As Smith put it himself: "What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." If socialism means more equitable distribution of wealth, one could say Smith is a socialist.
Another similarly distorted fact about Adam Smith is that he is an individualist. Far from explaining all human behaviors on a narrow presumption of self-interest, Smith developed his theory of sympathy as a centerpiece of his moral philosophy. Today, it is precisely this lack of sympathy for others that underlies much of the moral decline in our societies. As neo-liberalism became the dominant ideology of our time, self-interest and personal greed are increasingly used to justify all sorts of immoral behaviors. One of the consequences is that many people think it is perfect acceptable to be dishonest if there is a gain to be made personally. Business executives manipulate books and rules in order to award themselves extravagant paychecks. Economists - I have seen them both here and in China - develop theories in order to serve their respective interest groups. Journalists report stories in order to conform to the prevailing ideologies, etc, etc.
In political arena, this narrow individualist focus and lack of sympathy for others lead to an unwillingness to appreciate opposing views. Ideological positions become entrenched and political debates become confrontational. As a result, politics is increasingly polarized.
Pragmatism enables us to see a situation objectively. And objectivity is needed to ensure that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater when saving capitalism from its past excesses. For example, while objectively everyone would agree that protectionism is a sure receipt to turn the global recession into a depression, we can still witness a worrying trend towards adopting various protectionist measures around the world lately.
Acknowledgement (20090317):
If there are anything new in this blog, they are built on what I read in the public domain. To perhaps state the obvious, these include, among others: All recorded words by Warren Buffett that I could get my hands on, and in particular, an interview recorded in the book I.O.U.S.A. by Addison Wiggin and Kate Incontrera; Speeches, interviews and other public comments by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao; A recent essay by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society by Jerry Z. Muller; Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism by Patricia H. Werhane; And The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul.
Friday, March 06, 2009
China’s democratization and its impact on the world (2)
During the recent U.S. presidential election, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain accused his rival then Sen. Barack Obama of being a socialist on the central issue of the campaign -- economic policies. It was the first time that I followed a presidential election in the United States. I learned quite a lot. But I have to say that I found this particular episode a little bit amusing.
My amusement came from a reflexive comparison between the economic debate in U.S. and the economic approach in China, where ideology had long been replaced by an innate sense of pragmatism. This economic pragmatism is best highlighted by a Chinese proverb made famous by its late leader Deng Xiaoping: “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” This good cat has an official moniker. It’s called socialist market economy. Despite initial warnings by demagogues Left and Right that such an unorthodox approach could not possibly work, China has managed to achieve phenomenal GDP growth since the beginning of transformation to a socialist market economy thirty years ago. Overall, pragmatism worked wonders in China’s economic arena.
Historic as the transformation in economic policies is, the fundamental reason for China’s economic miracle, however, lies in its economic characteristics, the most important of which is its people. Rather than to strengthen those characteristics, some officials in parts of China have exhibited a foolish inclination to abandon them for want of something more glamorous. What this revealed is that some people in the ruling CCP appeared to have lost touch with reality.
This is not surprising, considering that, due to the authoritarian nature of Chinese government, the group of people who benefited most from thirty years’ economic expansion are those closest to the ruling CCP and the majority of people have not been able to share the economic benefits they deserved. The name of the communist party might give the appearance of a far left party. In reality, it has morphed into something far more right-wing than the central-left character of the overall population. That’s why, despite the official moniker of socialist market economy, the ruling CCP has not lived up to its promise of a just and equitable society -- the essence of socialism. The contradiction between slogan and reality is perhaps best captured by a Chinese saying: “Advertise with a goat head and sell dog meat.”
The evidence is everywhere. Growing income gap between rich and poor. Growing development gap between urban and rural areas. Environmental degradation. Rampant corruption. Mass demonstrations and social unrests. Just by looking at the miserable state of supply of public goods such as health insurance and social security, one might say China is a more capitalist society than, say, Canada. No wonder China has not unleashed the full potential of its domestic consumption.
The root problem is, of course, that the political superstructure has not kept up with pace of change in the economic fundamentals. In particular, it is very difficult to look after the interest of vast majority of working men and women in the current political system. Democratization, properly planned and implemented, should be viewed as the solution to many of China’s problems.
I believe a genuine democracy calls for a multi-party system. Besides, from what I can see, there are ideological and other fractions inside CCP already. Therefore, I see that CPP be broken into three separate parties for China’s democratization.
The first one I shall call the People’s Party. This is a central-left party representing the interest of peasants and vast majority of salaried workers, including white collar and other knowledge workers. The second one is a central-right party representing the interest of entrepreneurs, business managers and other professionals. I am leaving the name of the second party open because I feel, if and when China starts its democratization, peaceful unification with Taiwan will become a much more distinct possibility. It may not be far-fetched then for KMT to come back to mainland as a political entity.
The above two will be the main parties in China’s democratic future, with the People’s Party being the dominant one as it attracts the majority of people. CCP as a fringe party will still be there because I believe it may still be attractive to certain people who either believe in its ideology or want to guard its legacy. As for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Taiwan, because of its stated ideology, it will be extremely difficult for them to expand to mainland. Taiwan, in a unified China, will be similar to Quebec in Canada.
Democratization will be a long process. There will be some of the ideas we can learn from liberalism, such as individual responsibility and equality of opportunity. But we should firmly reject its narrow individualist focus and instead regard people as relational and moral beings in society. We need to strengthen and modernize the rule of law. We need to develop the media into an integral part of the democratic discourse. Most of all, we need to find democratic inspiration from our own cultural traditions and educate the mass on what it means to be democratic citizens. Just like economic pragmatism unleashed China’s economic potential, I believe political pragmatism - unearthed mostly from our own cultural resources - would unleash China’s democratic potential as well.
Party ideologies will be there. Yet from a pragmatist’s point of view, different ideologies such as socialism and capitalism, merely provide different sets of tools to address societal problems. The key for government is to reject extreme measures and achieve the right balance in formulating public policies. Pragmatism emphasizes facts, practical experiences and real results. Pragmatists are open to all ideas as long as they are useful to the situation at hand. When future Chinese democracy takes on its distinct pragmatist character, we will have a more accountable, more transparent, yet less confrontational, less polarized politics. Because the central-left People’s Party is the dominant party, an overall socialist approach should be expected from the resulting public policies.
That’s my hope for China’s democratic future -- a Chinese-style, socialist democracy.
My amusement came from a reflexive comparison between the economic debate in U.S. and the economic approach in China, where ideology had long been replaced by an innate sense of pragmatism. This economic pragmatism is best highlighted by a Chinese proverb made famous by its late leader Deng Xiaoping: “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” This good cat has an official moniker. It’s called socialist market economy. Despite initial warnings by demagogues Left and Right that such an unorthodox approach could not possibly work, China has managed to achieve phenomenal GDP growth since the beginning of transformation to a socialist market economy thirty years ago. Overall, pragmatism worked wonders in China’s economic arena.
Historic as the transformation in economic policies is, the fundamental reason for China’s economic miracle, however, lies in its economic characteristics, the most important of which is its people. Rather than to strengthen those characteristics, some officials in parts of China have exhibited a foolish inclination to abandon them for want of something more glamorous. What this revealed is that some people in the ruling CCP appeared to have lost touch with reality.
This is not surprising, considering that, due to the authoritarian nature of Chinese government, the group of people who benefited most from thirty years’ economic expansion are those closest to the ruling CCP and the majority of people have not been able to share the economic benefits they deserved. The name of the communist party might give the appearance of a far left party. In reality, it has morphed into something far more right-wing than the central-left character of the overall population. That’s why, despite the official moniker of socialist market economy, the ruling CCP has not lived up to its promise of a just and equitable society -- the essence of socialism. The contradiction between slogan and reality is perhaps best captured by a Chinese saying: “Advertise with a goat head and sell dog meat.”
The evidence is everywhere. Growing income gap between rich and poor. Growing development gap between urban and rural areas. Environmental degradation. Rampant corruption. Mass demonstrations and social unrests. Just by looking at the miserable state of supply of public goods such as health insurance and social security, one might say China is a more capitalist society than, say, Canada. No wonder China has not unleashed the full potential of its domestic consumption.
The root problem is, of course, that the political superstructure has not kept up with pace of change in the economic fundamentals. In particular, it is very difficult to look after the interest of vast majority of working men and women in the current political system. Democratization, properly planned and implemented, should be viewed as the solution to many of China’s problems.
I believe a genuine democracy calls for a multi-party system. Besides, from what I can see, there are ideological and other fractions inside CCP already. Therefore, I see that CPP be broken into three separate parties for China’s democratization.
The first one I shall call the People’s Party. This is a central-left party representing the interest of peasants and vast majority of salaried workers, including white collar and other knowledge workers. The second one is a central-right party representing the interest of entrepreneurs, business managers and other professionals. I am leaving the name of the second party open because I feel, if and when China starts its democratization, peaceful unification with Taiwan will become a much more distinct possibility. It may not be far-fetched then for KMT to come back to mainland as a political entity.
The above two will be the main parties in China’s democratic future, with the People’s Party being the dominant one as it attracts the majority of people. CCP as a fringe party will still be there because I believe it may still be attractive to certain people who either believe in its ideology or want to guard its legacy. As for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Taiwan, because of its stated ideology, it will be extremely difficult for them to expand to mainland. Taiwan, in a unified China, will be similar to Quebec in Canada.
Democratization will be a long process. There will be some of the ideas we can learn from liberalism, such as individual responsibility and equality of opportunity. But we should firmly reject its narrow individualist focus and instead regard people as relational and moral beings in society. We need to strengthen and modernize the rule of law. We need to develop the media into an integral part of the democratic discourse. Most of all, we need to find democratic inspiration from our own cultural traditions and educate the mass on what it means to be democratic citizens. Just like economic pragmatism unleashed China’s economic potential, I believe political pragmatism - unearthed mostly from our own cultural resources - would unleash China’s democratic potential as well.
Party ideologies will be there. Yet from a pragmatist’s point of view, different ideologies such as socialism and capitalism, merely provide different sets of tools to address societal problems. The key for government is to reject extreme measures and achieve the right balance in formulating public policies. Pragmatism emphasizes facts, practical experiences and real results. Pragmatists are open to all ideas as long as they are useful to the situation at hand. When future Chinese democracy takes on its distinct pragmatist character, we will have a more accountable, more transparent, yet less confrontational, less polarized politics. Because the central-left People’s Party is the dominant party, an overall socialist approach should be expected from the resulting public policies.
That’s my hope for China’s democratic future -- a Chinese-style, socialist democracy.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Letter to GG: Stupid is as stupid does
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jim Yu <jimdyu@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Subject: Stupid is as stupid does
To: info@gg.ca
Excellency:
As you may recall, I wrote you a letter in early December when prime minister Stephen Harper approached you for permission to prorogue the Parliament. Aside from the standard acknowledgement email I received on that same day, I have yet to hear anything from your office.
A lot of people wondered how Mr. Harper convinced you to prorogue the Parliament. I have no doubt that his pitch centered around my file, probably before you had a chance to see my letter. Indeed, as your spokeswoman said just before President Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa, Rideau Hall had been "in the loop" for a while.
Yes, yesterday's historical event in Ottawa prompted me to write you again. No, I am not pressing for a reply from Your Excellency. As is with the vast majority of the writings I put on the Internet in the past four and a half years, this letter is intended for the information of the Canadian people, who have "never failed to amaze me".
I chose to address the letter to Your Excellence because you were just as significant a part of the historical event yesterday as President Obama. I fully agree with you that Mr. Obama's arrival at the White House was a major step for all of humanity. You may not have known this, but he represented hope for me, too, when I was incarcerated in psychiatric hospital, and later, rooting for him in extremely difficult situations during the presidential election. As such, I was elated to see one black head of state walking together with another black representative of a head of state at the Ottawa airport. The picture would give millions of people around the world the hope they, just like I, desperately needed.
At the same time, a profound sense of sadness engulfed me because I knew that the picture did not fully reflect the racial realities of North America. Please allow me to be frank. As the title of the most recent column by Margaret Wente indicated, President Obama's visit to Canada was at least partly to prop up the political establishment here in connection to my file. As my blogs demonstrated, my problem is indeed with the establishment, or as your spokeswoman learned, what I called "people in the loop", the group typically most resistant to change and progress. If and when my story becomes known to the Canadian people, it is the establishment who would lose their credibility and privilege. The Canadian society as a whole, on the other hand, would only become better.
It is thus in Canada's interest for my story to be told. And it should have been told years ago. Unfortunately, our establishment uses "national interest" as sort of a code word for their self-interest to fool the public. Just take a look at the first interview Mr. Michael Ignatieff gave to Don Newman of CBC Politics program immediately after he became the sole contender for the leadership of the Liberal party. Why did they have to wink to each other talking about such lofty topic as "national interest"? No wonder the Liberals had become the de facto coalition with the ruling Conservatives. No wonder Mr. Ignatieff used such colorful language as "a hole in the head" to describe the need for a February election. No wonder there was such a burst of violence in Greater Vancouver after his comments. And I bet it will not be a wonder if I soon become just another statistic in this strings of shooting deaths. (Perhaps to send me a message, one of the shootings happened at a place I had passed through just a few hours before. And I disliked very much some of the people hanging around my building lately. Not to mention helicopters followed me almost daily this past couple of weeks.)
In connection to Mr. Obama's visit, the establishment also talked about the Canada-U.S. relations as if I was against it. This could not be further from the truth. Ever since I became aware that I was being considered for a leadership position in China years ago, I had been extremely cautious with my actions here. As I said previously, "the last thing I wanted was to be seen as someone who either causes worsening of Canada-U.S. relations, or challenges U.S. interest on its turf."
Not only in words, but also in deeds, including those in my private life. That's why I had not actively sought a relationship here, even though my solitude only added to my hardship. Even with chance encounters where mutual attraction was obvious - and there were many - I typically refrained from making a move, until very recently. (My usual obtuseness applies, too.)
And here comes the most horrible news of all. I believe I had been drugged by the governments as early as in the final period of the U.S. presidential election. And, I don't know how to put it, whatever the chemical/drug was/is, it affected my sex drive.
At the end of last October, when former President Bill Clinton campaigned for the then Senator Obama, he said: "We need a president who wants to understand and who can understand. … Yes, [Mr. Obama] can." At that time, I sensed that Mr. Clinton was cracking nuts of my blog Untitled, perhaps giving it a political or nuclear interpretation. What I didn't realize was Mr. Clinton's underlying sexual tone.
As I look back, it was indeed around that time that I first experienced decreased sex drive. I did not consciously pay attention to it at that time because I never had. However, as the decreased sex drive lasted into December, I started to wonder why.
In my December 25 blog, I mentioned Mr. Clinton's campaign rhetoric. From the reactions I got, I realized the sexual tone in his speech and became highly suspicious that there were video surveillance inside my home and I had very likely been drugged by the governments. (Later, Mr. Harper cracked nuts with the word "stimulus". Margaret Wente picked it up in her January 27 Globe column I'm feeling so very stimulated!.) That's the reason I deliberately aimed to publishing my next blog on January 11. I really really wished I had not been involved in politics. I mean, I experienced torture, assault, attempted assassination before. But this was punching below the waistline, literally, and even without my knowledge.
Some people called me stupid for not getting on the news yesterday. Perhaps. Indeed, I had been called the same name for not getting on the news before Mr. Obama pushed through his stimulus bill through congress last week. What can I say? As the hero in one of my favorite movies says, stupid is as stupid does.
I'll let people be the judge. And I hope you will, too.
Sincerely,
Jim Yu
From: Jim Yu <jimdyu@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Subject: Stupid is as stupid does
To: info@gg.ca
Excellency:
As you may recall, I wrote you a letter in early December when prime minister Stephen Harper approached you for permission to prorogue the Parliament. Aside from the standard acknowledgement email I received on that same day, I have yet to hear anything from your office.
A lot of people wondered how Mr. Harper convinced you to prorogue the Parliament. I have no doubt that his pitch centered around my file, probably before you had a chance to see my letter. Indeed, as your spokeswoman said just before President Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa, Rideau Hall had been "in the loop" for a while.
Yes, yesterday's historical event in Ottawa prompted me to write you again. No, I am not pressing for a reply from Your Excellency. As is with the vast majority of the writings I put on the Internet in the past four and a half years, this letter is intended for the information of the Canadian people, who have "never failed to amaze me".
I chose to address the letter to Your Excellence because you were just as significant a part of the historical event yesterday as President Obama. I fully agree with you that Mr. Obama's arrival at the White House was a major step for all of humanity. You may not have known this, but he represented hope for me, too, when I was incarcerated in psychiatric hospital, and later, rooting for him in extremely difficult situations during the presidential election. As such, I was elated to see one black head of state walking together with another black representative of a head of state at the Ottawa airport. The picture would give millions of people around the world the hope they, just like I, desperately needed.
At the same time, a profound sense of sadness engulfed me because I knew that the picture did not fully reflect the racial realities of North America. Please allow me to be frank. As the title of the most recent column by Margaret Wente indicated, President Obama's visit to Canada was at least partly to prop up the political establishment here in connection to my file. As my blogs demonstrated, my problem is indeed with the establishment, or as your spokeswoman learned, what I called "people in the loop", the group typically most resistant to change and progress. If and when my story becomes known to the Canadian people, it is the establishment who would lose their credibility and privilege. The Canadian society as a whole, on the other hand, would only become better.
It is thus in Canada's interest for my story to be told. And it should have been told years ago. Unfortunately, our establishment uses "national interest" as sort of a code word for their self-interest to fool the public. Just take a look at the first interview Mr. Michael Ignatieff gave to Don Newman of CBC Politics program immediately after he became the sole contender for the leadership of the Liberal party. Why did they have to wink to each other talking about such lofty topic as "national interest"? No wonder the Liberals had become the de facto coalition with the ruling Conservatives. No wonder Mr. Ignatieff used such colorful language as "a hole in the head" to describe the need for a February election. No wonder there was such a burst of violence in Greater Vancouver after his comments. And I bet it will not be a wonder if I soon become just another statistic in this strings of shooting deaths. (Perhaps to send me a message, one of the shootings happened at a place I had passed through just a few hours before. And I disliked very much some of the people hanging around my building lately. Not to mention helicopters followed me almost daily this past couple of weeks.)
In connection to Mr. Obama's visit, the establishment also talked about the Canada-U.S. relations as if I was against it. This could not be further from the truth. Ever since I became aware that I was being considered for a leadership position in China years ago, I had been extremely cautious with my actions here. As I said previously, "the last thing I wanted was to be seen as someone who either causes worsening of Canada-U.S. relations, or challenges U.S. interest on its turf."
Not only in words, but also in deeds, including those in my private life. That's why I had not actively sought a relationship here, even though my solitude only added to my hardship. Even with chance encounters where mutual attraction was obvious - and there were many - I typically refrained from making a move, until very recently. (My usual obtuseness applies, too.)
And here comes the most horrible news of all. I believe I had been drugged by the governments as early as in the final period of the U.S. presidential election. And, I don't know how to put it, whatever the chemical/drug was/is, it affected my sex drive.
At the end of last October, when former President Bill Clinton campaigned for the then Senator Obama, he said: "We need a president who wants to understand and who can understand. … Yes, [Mr. Obama] can." At that time, I sensed that Mr. Clinton was cracking nuts of my blog Untitled, perhaps giving it a political or nuclear interpretation. What I didn't realize was Mr. Clinton's underlying sexual tone.
As I look back, it was indeed around that time that I first experienced decreased sex drive. I did not consciously pay attention to it at that time because I never had. However, as the decreased sex drive lasted into December, I started to wonder why.
In my December 25 blog, I mentioned Mr. Clinton's campaign rhetoric. From the reactions I got, I realized the sexual tone in his speech and became highly suspicious that there were video surveillance inside my home and I had very likely been drugged by the governments. (Later, Mr. Harper cracked nuts with the word "stimulus". Margaret Wente picked it up in her January 27 Globe column I'm feeling so very stimulated!.) That's the reason I deliberately aimed to publishing my next blog on January 11. I really really wished I had not been involved in politics. I mean, I experienced torture, assault, attempted assassination before. But this was punching below the waistline, literally, and even without my knowledge.
Some people called me stupid for not getting on the news yesterday. Perhaps. Indeed, I had been called the same name for not getting on the news before Mr. Obama pushed through his stimulus bill through congress last week. What can I say? As the hero in one of my favorite movies says, stupid is as stupid does.
I'll let people be the judge. And I hope you will, too.
Sincerely,
Jim Yu
Sunday, February 01, 2009
China’s democratization and its impact on the world (1)
Watching Barack Obama's presidential election victory speech in the evening of November 4, one can not help but marvel at America's capacity to renew itself. With what he called "the power of our democracy", Mr. Obama captured that historical moment not only for the American people, but for people around the world.
Indeed, no nation in today's world can make sustained progress towards modernity with an outdated political system. After 30 years' economic reform, there is a need to reform China's political superstructure to make it compatible with its evolved and still evolving economic fundamentals. Without such reform, the dream of The Great Renaissance of Chinese Nations would be beyond the reach of this generation of Chinese people.
Yet, democracy is more than just a political system. Democracy is an attitude, a culture, a way of life. Surprisingly to many, Chinese culture already contains tremendous resources that are consistent with the principles of a communitarian democracy. As philosophers David Hall and Roger Ames point out, despite decades of communist rule, communism has never been the defining creed of Chinese people. Rooted in the longest uninterrupted civilization, Chinese philosophical sensibilities are remarkably close to American Pragmatism.
For this reason, China's democratization can be propelled from within. But China should also learn from the experiences of other democracies, including Taiwan's. This is not to merely copy their practices, but to transcend them. Even in the United States, despite the overwhelming faith Americans have in their founding documents, far-sighted thinkers recognize that no democracy is perfect, even for its own situations.
It is therefore the calling of this generation of Chinese people to build a Chinese-style democracy in China. This democracy will be vastly different from the Western-style, liberal democracy characterized with atomistic individualism, yet also provide a philosophical platform for dialogue with its Western counterparts.
Before we discuss China's democratization - a process that will likely take many years to accomplish in an ideal environment - we need to know where we are going first. In other words, what will a Chinese-style democracy look like on a practical level?
To answer that question, I will start with an observation I heard many times during the recent U.S. presidential election: "The United States is essentially a central-right country."
From this observation arose many interesting questions, such as: What does it take to elect a Democratic president in a central-right country? Since I was interested in China's democratization, I asked myself: What about China in terms of its position on the left-right political spectrum?
That China is a central-left country seemed obvious to me. Perhaps we should ask the same question in historical and global contexts.
Looking back at history, China was definitely a leftist country 60 years ago. Since the late 1970's, China has been gradually moving to the right in keeping with its economic development. Looking into the future, China will continue its slow rightward political movement. However, given its conditions such as culture, populace, stage of economic development and recent history, China will remain a central-left country for a long time to come. From a global perspective, China has been moving towards the political center among the league of nations for quite some time. Now it's safe to say that China is the most important country among those around the international political center.
All these have implications for China's democratic future, such as party politics, ongoing economic debate, and impact on the world at large.
(TBD)
Indeed, no nation in today's world can make sustained progress towards modernity with an outdated political system. After 30 years' economic reform, there is a need to reform China's political superstructure to make it compatible with its evolved and still evolving economic fundamentals. Without such reform, the dream of The Great Renaissance of Chinese Nations would be beyond the reach of this generation of Chinese people.
Yet, democracy is more than just a political system. Democracy is an attitude, a culture, a way of life. Surprisingly to many, Chinese culture already contains tremendous resources that are consistent with the principles of a communitarian democracy. As philosophers David Hall and Roger Ames point out, despite decades of communist rule, communism has never been the defining creed of Chinese people. Rooted in the longest uninterrupted civilization, Chinese philosophical sensibilities are remarkably close to American Pragmatism.
For this reason, China's democratization can be propelled from within. But China should also learn from the experiences of other democracies, including Taiwan's. This is not to merely copy their practices, but to transcend them. Even in the United States, despite the overwhelming faith Americans have in their founding documents, far-sighted thinkers recognize that no democracy is perfect, even for its own situations.
It is therefore the calling of this generation of Chinese people to build a Chinese-style democracy in China. This democracy will be vastly different from the Western-style, liberal democracy characterized with atomistic individualism, yet also provide a philosophical platform for dialogue with its Western counterparts.
Before we discuss China's democratization - a process that will likely take many years to accomplish in an ideal environment - we need to know where we are going first. In other words, what will a Chinese-style democracy look like on a practical level?
To answer that question, I will start with an observation I heard many times during the recent U.S. presidential election: "The United States is essentially a central-right country."
From this observation arose many interesting questions, such as: What does it take to elect a Democratic president in a central-right country? Since I was interested in China's democratization, I asked myself: What about China in terms of its position on the left-right political spectrum?
That China is a central-left country seemed obvious to me. Perhaps we should ask the same question in historical and global contexts.
Looking back at history, China was definitely a leftist country 60 years ago. Since the late 1970's, China has been gradually moving to the right in keeping with its economic development. Looking into the future, China will continue its slow rightward political movement. However, given its conditions such as culture, populace, stage of economic development and recent history, China will remain a central-left country for a long time to come. From a global perspective, China has been moving towards the political center among the league of nations for quite some time. Now it's safe to say that China is the most important country among those around the international political center.
All these have implications for China's democratic future, such as party politics, ongoing economic debate, and impact on the world at large.
(TBD)
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Ha! Mr. Obama, is that who you are?
Note: The following letter was written early Wednesday morning, January 14 but was not sent out. Overhearing newsmen on TV calling President-elect Obama's inauguration process "getting into the bubble" gave me second thought.
Dear Mr. Obama:
I was going to get on the radio, but I thought I should give you a heads-up.
So, the Bush administration did secretly extract up to $200 billion commitment from Chinese government while his poodle, Hu Jintao, was in charge there.
$200 billion. That's the blood and sweat of millions upon millions of Chinese workers. Is that what you are up to this past couple of days?
Is that why on Monday, hours after I posted my story on the financial crisis, you worked hands-in-gloves with Mr. Bush to ask the Congress to release that remaining $350 billion bailout fund so that you could have complete control over that money? And, when you saw the process was too slow, you became worried that my story might break and the Chinese people might know the truth, so you even threatened your own party to speed up?
And is that why you decided on Saturday to come to Canada, while before that, coming to Canada had been something furthest from your mind because you knew, deep in your heart, that the Harper government had attempted to assassinate me right after Canadian election, an attempt that involved a helicopter, in order to get your opponent Mr. McCain elected? Are you going to deny also that my file was pretty much in the center of your November election?
Is that why you come to Canada, to lend you political support to the Harper government so that both of you could say that it's rubbish when I said that I borrowed those 7 books out of fear, and that there was no fear in this land?
So, then, you and Mr. Harper are going to deny that I had not been assaulted in prison orchestrated by his government, perhaps involving the Bush administration? Are you and Mr. Harper going to deny that I had not been forced to take suicidal-inducing drugs in mental institution? Or, maybe you are going to say that my fear was not rational and I should be taken back to mental hospital again?
Is that why your Treasury department in late Tuesday issued a piece of news about your record deficit so that the American public will be less sympathetic about your stealing $200 billion from the Chinese people to fund your Wall Street bailout?
Is that why Mr. Harper announced yesterday that oilsand was on your agenda during your trip to Canada, knowing that I had advocated increased commodity trades between Canada and Asia countries, including China, so as to create the appearance of a potential conflict between China and U.S. to change the subject?
I noticed that a CNN anchor praised you for your "lawyer's instinct", after I have used the phrase "an act of instinct" in my Sunday blog post.
Yes, I did hesitate after initial findings from my research into the financial crisis. I was shocked that my actions had had such an huge impact on the stock markets. And you know why? Precisely because I was not aware of it during the market tumult.
No, I did not screw up with my blog. Every word there is true, including "I don't know".
Lying would have been easy
If I had wanted to lie, there was a much easier way to do it. But then, I would not have been truthful to myself.
I could have written that I was totally oblivious to the market tumult at the beginning, and that I borrowed those 7 books because of another emergency, i.e., the tainted milk scandal in China, which broke around the same time.
(Had not been for the financial crisis, China's tainted milk scandal would have garnered much more international attention. Do you know how many Chinese babies got sick? By the way, the root cause of these two crises is the same: unfettered capitalism.)
Indeed, I actually used this scandal to mask my true intention, which was, to repeat, instinctively, to upset Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan to harm me, by borrowing Chinese books rather English ones, and by reading voraciously about the milk scandal online while paying little attention to the market activities.
Yes, it would have been a lot easier for me to write this way and much less doubtful, too. However, there is just one problem: I wouldn't be honest with myself.
I could also have stopped asking questions about myself, those deep, probing questions that I did not know the answers to. But I did. Do you know why? Because I am curious. I am curious even about myself. And I am relentless about getting the truth.
In searching for the truth, I am not even going to go easy on myself.
Library Card
I saw that some people have doubt about my forgetting my library card on September 16 when going to the library. Do you have doubt, too? Let me tell you why anyways.
I don't have a wallet. (Well, I don't.) I only keep two or three essential cards in my pocket, namely, my key card, phone card and/or bus pass. The rest of my cards I keep in my backpack, which I carry with me most of the times when I go out. Yes, that same American Eagle Outfitters backpack.
September 16, 2008 must have been a hot day. I haven't done the research, but it must have been. It takes me about 25 minutes to walk to the library from my home, and I almost always walked in the summer. Since it was a hot day, I must have taken one of my green bags with me, or, much less likely, no bag at all. -- It was rather uncomfortable, especially for someone with a back pain, inside an air-conditioned building when your back was all sweat from walking in the sun with your backpack strapped on. -- That's why I did not have my library card with me.
While I am on this subject, I should add that I did not have a definite idea of borrowing 7 books when I left my home that day. I wanted to do something, and the only thing I could do was to go to a library. The final idea gradually came about after I had browsed a few stacks and sat down with a few books. It was a process and it took some time.
To give you another example, I must have left more than a dozen books on the carrel table after I finally decided to check out those two books from SFU library on December 1, after your news conference. Without knowing what's available before I got to the library, I had no idea that I was going to borrow two books, then return one later that day.
A Repeated Message
Finally, Mr. Obama, do you remember the voice messages I left with your campaign when I was incarcerated in mental institution here in Canada? Here is last one:
Mr. Obama, is that who you are? Another W.? Another bubble-builder?
P.S. By the way, I did deliberately post my previous blog on January 11 so as to get out of this business. I noted that you were quite ambitious even when you were young. Perhaps you should know - maybe you knew already - that growing up, I never thought about a career in politics. That's a difference worth keeping in mind.
Dear Mr. Obama:
I was going to get on the radio, but I thought I should give you a heads-up.
So, the Bush administration did secretly extract up to $200 billion commitment from Chinese government while his poodle, Hu Jintao, was in charge there.
$200 billion. That's the blood and sweat of millions upon millions of Chinese workers. Is that what you are up to this past couple of days?
Is that why on Monday, hours after I posted my story on the financial crisis, you worked hands-in-gloves with Mr. Bush to ask the Congress to release that remaining $350 billion bailout fund so that you could have complete control over that money? And, when you saw the process was too slow, you became worried that my story might break and the Chinese people might know the truth, so you even threatened your own party to speed up?
And is that why you decided on Saturday to come to Canada, while before that, coming to Canada had been something furthest from your mind because you knew, deep in your heart, that the Harper government had attempted to assassinate me right after Canadian election, an attempt that involved a helicopter, in order to get your opponent Mr. McCain elected? Are you going to deny also that my file was pretty much in the center of your November election?
Is that why you come to Canada, to lend you political support to the Harper government so that both of you could say that it's rubbish when I said that I borrowed those 7 books out of fear, and that there was no fear in this land?
So, then, you and Mr. Harper are going to deny that I had not been assaulted in prison orchestrated by his government, perhaps involving the Bush administration? Are you and Mr. Harper going to deny that I had not been forced to take suicidal-inducing drugs in mental institution? Or, maybe you are going to say that my fear was not rational and I should be taken back to mental hospital again?
Is that why your Treasury department in late Tuesday issued a piece of news about your record deficit so that the American public will be less sympathetic about your stealing $200 billion from the Chinese people to fund your Wall Street bailout?
Is that why Mr. Harper announced yesterday that oilsand was on your agenda during your trip to Canada, knowing that I had advocated increased commodity trades between Canada and Asia countries, including China, so as to create the appearance of a potential conflict between China and U.S. to change the subject?
I noticed that a CNN anchor praised you for your "lawyer's instinct", after I have used the phrase "an act of instinct" in my Sunday blog post.
Yes, I did hesitate after initial findings from my research into the financial crisis. I was shocked that my actions had had such an huge impact on the stock markets. And you know why? Precisely because I was not aware of it during the market tumult.
No, I did not screw up with my blog. Every word there is true, including "I don't know".
Lying would have been easy
If I had wanted to lie, there was a much easier way to do it. But then, I would not have been truthful to myself.
I could have written that I was totally oblivious to the market tumult at the beginning, and that I borrowed those 7 books because of another emergency, i.e., the tainted milk scandal in China, which broke around the same time.
(Had not been for the financial crisis, China's tainted milk scandal would have garnered much more international attention. Do you know how many Chinese babies got sick? By the way, the root cause of these two crises is the same: unfettered capitalism.)
Indeed, I actually used this scandal to mask my true intention, which was, to repeat, instinctively, to upset Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan to harm me, by borrowing Chinese books rather English ones, and by reading voraciously about the milk scandal online while paying little attention to the market activities.
Yes, it would have been a lot easier for me to write this way and much less doubtful, too. However, there is just one problem: I wouldn't be honest with myself.
I could also have stopped asking questions about myself, those deep, probing questions that I did not know the answers to. But I did. Do you know why? Because I am curious. I am curious even about myself. And I am relentless about getting the truth.
In searching for the truth, I am not even going to go easy on myself.
Library Card
I saw that some people have doubt about my forgetting my library card on September 16 when going to the library. Do you have doubt, too? Let me tell you why anyways.
I don't have a wallet. (Well, I don't.) I only keep two or three essential cards in my pocket, namely, my key card, phone card and/or bus pass. The rest of my cards I keep in my backpack, which I carry with me most of the times when I go out. Yes, that same American Eagle Outfitters backpack.
September 16, 2008 must have been a hot day. I haven't done the research, but it must have been. It takes me about 25 minutes to walk to the library from my home, and I almost always walked in the summer. Since it was a hot day, I must have taken one of my green bags with me, or, much less likely, no bag at all. -- It was rather uncomfortable, especially for someone with a back pain, inside an air-conditioned building when your back was all sweat from walking in the sun with your backpack strapped on. -- That's why I did not have my library card with me.
While I am on this subject, I should add that I did not have a definite idea of borrowing 7 books when I left my home that day. I wanted to do something, and the only thing I could do was to go to a library. The final idea gradually came about after I had browsed a few stacks and sat down with a few books. It was a process and it took some time.
To give you another example, I must have left more than a dozen books on the carrel table after I finally decided to check out those two books from SFU library on December 1, after your news conference. Without knowing what's available before I got to the library, I had no idea that I was going to borrow two books, then return one later that day.
A Repeated Message
Finally, Mr. Obama, do you remember the voice messages I left with your campaign when I was incarcerated in mental institution here in Canada? Here is last one:
September 26, 2007
After I left you a message through your campaign office yesterday, the hospital cut off my bread again. As I described in my letter to Sen. Harry Reid last week, I am on a bread-and-water hunger strike in order to avoid serious damages to my body. Taking away my bread therefore was a truly inhumane act.
I had long suspected that the patient phone was illegally monitored by the government because of my stay here at the hospital. Together with the fact that the hospital, which is doing the government's bidding, deliberately delayed my written communications with Sen. Reid last week, yesterday's events showed that, not surprisingly, the Canadian government and the Bush administration were working hand-in-hand against me.
That the governments were so brazen in hindering my efforts to communicate with you and your party probably meant that, finally, I am on the right track to get on the news. However, from my past experience, I also knew that this is also the time when the governments would come out in force to spin my story.
I don't know exactly what the governments' current spin is, although I'm pretty sure it would be of a political nature. I am not a politician, but a firm believer of democracy. Yet one of the most important factors that determine the quality of a democracy is how well the public informed. It is in the spirit of pursuing and spreading the truth that my three-year struggle to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang is fought.
However, there are too many people in power who want to hide the truth from the public. That's why my struggle has been such a difficult one. If our political and intellectual elites had been more honest with the people, perhaps I would have been on the news a long time ago. Besides, when people's inclination is to hide the truth, they normally would have to make up bigger lies to do so. Just like a bubble, eventually it would burst.
Mr. Obama, is that who you are? Another W.? Another bubble-builder?
P.S. By the way, I did deliberately post my previous blog on January 11 so as to get out of this business. I noted that you were quite ambitious even when you were young. Perhaps you should know - maybe you knew already - that growing up, I never thought about a career in politics. That's a difference worth keeping in mind.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Global financial crisis and the fate of two nations
Prompted by an observation where my "private" telephone conversation evidently became market-moving rumor, I researched on the issue of market corruption as related to my experience during the recent global financial crisis. To my initial shock and disbelief, I found that many of my actions during this period appeared to have had major impacts on the stock markets. Thanks are due to the Bush administration and the Harper government, who passed on the information about me to Wall Street.
As to why my actions had such impacts on the stock markets, I realized that the markets knew that the ultimate recovery of U.S. economy, whether it was through the earlier bailout of major financial institutions or the coming economic stimulus package, depended heavily on China's purchase of U.S. Treasury securities. Even when I myself do not have a full grasp of the practical significance of being the leader of China, other people and the markets know better than I do.
I noticed that after I posted my first blog on this subject on December 31, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson gave an interview to Financial Times, blaming other countries (mostly China) for the financial crisis. Apparently the Bush administration saw what's coming from my first blog and had already started to pre-spin. They could afford to do so now because the financial crisis had been offloaded to the next administration. That's probably why Mr. Paulson gave the interview to a non-U.S. newspaper.
I am not going to respond to Mr. Paulson's shameful and idiotic remarks here. Instead, I will let the facts of the financial crisis speak for themselves. And I will organize my description of the financial crisis into three parts, separated by the day when the sun came out on the markets.
Around the day when the sun came out on the markets
I wrote on December 31, 2008:
On January 4, 2009, I added:
The markets went up sharply on September 30 after it had discerned - thanks to the Bush administration and Harper government - that I was in a good mood. Yes, the sun had come out in Vancouver after days of rain or clouds when I called my mother on September 29. But that's hardly the reason for my good mood. I was in a good mood because of Mr. Bush's televised speech earlier that day.
As usual, Mr. Bush's message in his televised speech was in the setting. Previously, I talked about Mr. Bush's televised speech in front of a bookshelf on December 19, 2008. And I will talk about another bookshelf speech of his on September 30, 2008 later in this blog. A third example I could think of was his televised speech on September 13, 2007 where he used a piece of paper that was supposedly a letter he received from an average citizen.
I do not claim to have followed every one of Mr. Bush's televised speeches. But it would be safe to venture that it was extremely rare for Mr. Bush to go on camera at exact dawn. His message to everyone was that he had radically changed his mind and he now supported my leadership in China, where a super leader is sometimes referred to as the sun. -- Right after my blog on December 31, Mr. Bush's spokesman made a news about him being an "early riser", clearly trying to counter what I was about to reveal. If Mr. Bush really thought that my interpretation of his message were wrong, why did he bother to pre-spin my revelation?
Mr. Bush's televised message came as a big relief for me, which explained my good mood on September 29. Probing deeper, I think that the markets were reacting to the political implications of the rumor that "The sun has come out", rather than my personal mood, otherwise, how did the market know that my mood had not changed from the day before?
The markets interpreted my saying that "The sun has come out" in a good mood as a sign that I would support the U.S. bailout financially on behalf of China. (Looking back, I believe Mr. Bush would not have gone to the camera at exact dawn if he had not had that request in his mind.) At that time, however, I did not realize Bush's request, therefore, I never thought about helping the U.S. bailout. My good mood was largely a result of my sensing that I was going to be free soon. To be the leader of China was, and still is, largely a very, very abstract concept in my mind.
Now comes the important question: What made Mr. Bush, who had worked against me for years, change his mind 180 degrees? To answer that question, I'll have to go back to the beginning of the financial crisis and to my borrowing the 7 books on September 16-17.
Before the day when the sun came out on the markets
On January 4, I wrote about the problem I encountered in trying to borrow these 7 books and how it might be related to the market decline on September 17:
I had said that after I saw the U.S. economic bubble was going to burst in a big way, I changed my plan from doing nothing to doing something. I did so out of fear for my own safety, which was true. I did not know exactly what Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan would have been if I had not acted. But no matter what it was, it was not going to be good for me. Perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to do something so that they could not proceed with their plan.
I also mentioned that by borrowing 7 books, I wanted to deliberately grasp people's attention, which was also true because, of all the numbers, the meaning of 7 is the most dramatic. For people who do not already know, here is my summary of the political meanings of some of the commonly used numbers (I figured them out by myself over the years so I can not say that they are 100 percent accurate):
Looking back, I would say that, had I not acted, there was a very good chance that Mr. Bush would have unloaded the financial and economic mess created largely under his watch to other countries. That was evidently his best option. (His second-best option would be to minimize the fallout from the crisis and unload the rest of it to his successor.) And he would have done so by very possibly creating another crisis, likely of a military nature because that's what Mr. Bush is good at, backed up with years' astronomical military budget. Finally, he would have framed me in his scheme.
Indeed, I think the Bush administration, with the cooperation of the Harper government, would likely have succeeded in executing their plan. I mentioned in my previous blog that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a scathing speech on Russia on September 18, the day after I had borrowed those 7 books. Here in Canada, ever since I wrote to the Russian Embassy for political asylum on July 31, Russia-bashing had been on Mr. Harper's agenda. He increased the intensity during my visit to Ottawa, besides beating up the urgency of a snap election. He would have surely followed Bush administration's lead after I borrowed those 7 books if not for the election campaign he was in at the time. Indeed, Messrs. Bush and Harper had previously tried to taint me as either a terrorist or a spy who worked with the Russians against the United States. As I wrote about my May 2007 visit to the Russian Embassy, they repeatedly tried to frame me then by staging sensational bomb scare incidents in Ottawa. And they had the mainstream media, such as the National Post, on their side, creating false impressions among the public beforehand.
That's why I was so worried when I noticed suspicious persons and activities around me after I came back from Ottawa in late August. Given the lethal truth, i.e., it was Mr. Bush who gave the order to the Georgian president to provoke a war with the Russians on the day of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, I tried to postpone revealing to the world, I knew that Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan was going to involve some gigantic spin and be really bad, bad, bad.
In short, that's the background for my borrowing those 7 books. I wasn't signaling to anybody to take immediate action, even though that's how 7 is interpreted politically. I was simply trying to, perhaps instinctively, upset Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan, no matter what it was, and to save myself.
Apparently, my action even confused both the Chinese and the Russians. The Russian Embassy sent me an email two day later, asking for more documents to support my political asylum application, apparently in displeasure. Those were unnecessary given the implicit understanding I thought I had reached with them during my visit.
As for the Chinese, they might have interpreted that I was calling for action on the financial front. Frankly, that would have been stupid. But, I guess precisely because of this stupid interpretation of my action, Mr. Hu Jintao once again solidified his standing in the government as evidenced by "an important speech" he gave to a large gathering of provincial/ministerial level officials within 36 hours or so after I had checked out the 7 books, the earliest opportunity one could arrange such as assembly in Beijing.
In Washington, Mr. Bush canceled his travel to "closely monitor the situation in our financial markets" on Thursday September 18, as he said in a televised speech, sounding like a commander in a war. However, the markets tanked despite huge amounts of coordinated liquidity injections among several central banks. Edmund L. Andrews of New York Times reported:
Note the timing: Late afternoon Thursday September 18 would have been early morning Friday September 19 Beijing time, just hours before the big gathering organized for Hu Jintao. Later that evening, Mr. Bush sent Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke to the Capitol Hill to meet with congressional leaders for the bailout money. It appears to me that Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke were not so much forced by the jittering markets to do the bailout, as reported by the Times. They started doing the bailout once they had made sure that Mr. Hu was back in charge in China and would, as a poodle for George W. Bush, foot the bill for them. This could explain why they did not even have a concrete proposal going into the congressional meeting on Thursday evening. Indeed, it was reported that as late as Saturday, the proposal to Congress was only three page long. The $700 billion bailout figure was more intriguing, though.
At that time, I did not have my own Internet connection. I probably spent about a couple of hours a day on the Internet. I was not appraised of these developments on a hourly basis, as such, there was no way for me to connect them together. I do remember that on Tuesday September 23, I was quite downbeat. I went to bowling with a group of people that afternoon and my mind was entirely preoccupied with the off-putting political developments, especially Bush's phone call to Hu on Monday, as I had just learned.
The phone call between Messrs. Bush and Hu was meant to help each other politically, just like their telephone calls before. Since Sino-U.S. relation was the most important bilateral relation for China, Mr. Bush's support of Mr. Hu's leadership meant a lot to Mr. Hu politically. In return, Mr. Bush must have got what he wanted, i.e., commitment from Mr. Hu to help finance his huge bailout. (After the bailout plan had been passed by the U.S. Congress, a Hong Kong-based newspaper reported that the Chinese government had committed to purchasing up to $200 billion of new U.S. debt. Although I have not seen similar report through another news outlet.)
I knew these disheartening developments were connected to my borrowing those 7 books. So I started thinking of ways to fix the problem. If I could somehow let people know that the 7 books were actually supplemental to the key book, Democracy of the dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China, which was mentioned in American business in China, it would dilute the political interpretations of 7 somewhat.
However, I did not want people - mostly Chinese politicians - to know that I was interested in the book for a reason. -- I am interested in democratization in China; but I have to consider China's reality. I did not want to give the impression that I was interested in something that was out of reach in China. However, if the book has a Chinese translation, it probably is not that unacceptable, I thought.
The next afternoon, Wednesday September 24, I phoned UBC Asian Library to ask the librarian a question: How to find out if a English book has a Chinese translation. She was quite helpful. She not only told me the answer to my original question, she also found out that there was a copy of Chinese translation available in Vancouver Public Library.
I believe that my phone call to the UBC librarian, like virtually all my other calls, was monitored by the Harper government and Bush administration. I am not sure if this information gave Mr. Bush the urgency to imply publicly that foreign investors were to blame for the financial crisis, as he did in his prime time televised address a few hours later in the evening. (Although he did not mention China by name, it's not that difficult for people to see which country he had in mind.) China's fault was, according to him, investing too much in the United States. And this after he had played politics to make sure that China under Hu Jintao would finance his huge Wall Street bailout!
Note that, as I mentioned before, I believe that I was followed in SFU library and Mr. Obama appeared to know that I was reading Democracy of the dead there. (Indeed, from his campaign rhetoric, Mr. Obama appeared to be encouraging me to make my reading that book "public".) As such, Mr. Bush should know the book I was reading, too. Therefore, Mr. Bush did have a reason to act promptly, after my phone call to the UBC librarian, to put the blame on China, if that blame game had been part of his plan.
After watching Mr. Bush's speech, I felt a sense of urgency. Mr. Bush seemed to have completed his circle of blame: Russia, me, and now China. I immediately went to VPL that evening (in heavy downpour, if my memory is correct) to try to borrow that book.
To my disappointment as well as puzzlement, I could not find the book on the shelf, even though the computer showed that it was in the library and available. (Indeed, I remembered that, when I borrowed those 7 books one week before, I went through that bookshelf and this book was certainly not there. The first time I saw that book was on November 20.) When a library staff, having failed to locate the book for me, suggested that I put a hold on the book, I followed her suggestion.
I believe this book hold changed the perceptions of my book borrowing activities. I also believe I had come dangerously close of being framed by the Bush administration and Harper government. And I believe the consequence would have been really, really ugly - not just for myself, but for the world.
It was probably in this context that the Obama campaign told the McCain campaign that "you guys over-reacted". On Friday September 26, I first sensed that Mr. Bush was changing his attitude towards me when he repeatedly used the word "big" in his televised remarks. The following Monday morning, on September 29, he gave his "The sun has come out" televised speech at exact dawn to essentially entreat me to support his bailout plan on behalf of China.
After the day when the sun came out on the markets
Having listened into my telephone conversation with my mother on September 29, Mr. Bush knew that I had gotten his message, i.e., that I knew that he now supported my leadership. (Although not the complete one - I should add.) By making his televised speech in front of a bookshelf the following day, Mr. Bush hinted to me to look into my borrowing record, as if there was some problem there.
I looked into my book records and the problem seemed to be that, since the book I reserved with VPL on September 24 still had not been found (a mystery!), the record was 7-1 rather than 8. And in Chinese, 7-1 is the short for July 1, which is the birthday of CCP. Therefore, this part of my book record might give people the impression that I was for CCP, in contradiction to my reading the book, Democracy of the dead, itself.
Now, I am a nice guy. If people are nice to me, I would be nice back, even if I had been wronged before. I understood that this was an important concern for Mr. Bush because it was related to his legacy, i.e., whether or not he could claim that he had played a role in China's moving to the direction of democracy, even though I knew how hypocritical he had been on this issue. So, I started thinking of ways to fix the problem for him.
Since it had been a week since I put a hold on the Chinese version of Democracy of the dead with VPL, I'd better give up waiting for it to show up. This meant that I would need to borrow the original version from the SFU library, the book I had moved to another location inside the library and read there. I also wanted to keep the total number of books 9, to make my message clear. This meant that I would have to return at least one of the two books on loan from SFU at the time.
After Mr. Bush had "told" me, with his bookshelf speech, that he was watching closely the books I was reading and wanted to communicate with me this way, I became a little conscious about my book borrowing activities. This was in comparison to my trying to draw people's attention with those 7 books earlier. Knowing that other people, especially those in the U.S. election, would be watching too, I was determined to give my best efforts. I decided to borrow the best book on Warren Buffett: The essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for corporate America, arranged by Lawrence Cunningham. Given the financial crisis at hand, I wished that the Americans had had heeded Mr. Buffett's warnings years before. (I should note that, when John McCain accused Mr. Obama as a socialist during the campaign, Mr. Obama countered that "Warren Buffett is not a socialist".)
In the morning of October 1, I used the Internet and telephone to check the availability of these two books in SFU library. That's probably why someone had deliberately but slightly moved the book, Democracy of the dead, just before I got to the library later that day. It was clearly intended to bully, just like the many occasions where police cars would watch me near my home coming back from libraries. Despite being bullied, I checked out Democracy of the dead and put in a request for The essays of Warren Buffett as it was still in processing. (It would be interesting to examine the intra-day charts to see if my morning activities had impacted on the markets.)
Now, I don't remember when I first realized that people had given the number 2 the meaning of 11. But I am positive that, on October 1, I wasn't aware of it. Indeed, my goal was to make the total number of books on loan 9 and that was my focus on that day. (Just to be clear, I am still in favor of establishing a multi-party democracy in China, as long as it can be done in an orderly fashion.)
While researching on the financial crisis, I realized that the stock markets might have interpreted my borrowing records quite differently. If the markets interpreted the two books as 11, there were three key numbers in my borrowing records: 7, 9 and 11. The political interpretations could be complicated but the implications for the markets were not good as the markets knew the key to the success of the bailout and the recovery of U.S. economy was China's cooperation.
Since 7 is a bad number for China, 9 a bad number for CCP and 11 a bad number for the U.S., that three number came together in my borrowing records appeared to suggest that the fate of both China and U.S., plus the future prospect of CCP or China's democratization, were all intertwined, although I had not intentionally sent out that message with my borrowing records. Think of it. The markets got it right on the money. Whether it's nuclear weaponry (as I unwittingly discovered) or the economy (as popularized by Larry Summers), there are so-called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) between these two countries. And as I argued before, how to manage the democratic transition of China without creating chaos is not only a challenge for China, but also one for the world at large.
Given the uncertainty coming out of the interpretations of my borrowing records, it's no surprise, then, that we saw ten consecutive declines in stock markets in early October, representing 2.4 trillion dollars in total losses, despite the fact the Congress had approved the $700 billion bailout package.
As a former trader, I learned that the markets are always right. Intriguingly, the Dow Jones industrial average on the day when Mr. Bush gave his "The sun has come out" speech dropped 777 points.
That's 7 times 111. I can't explain that.
Update (20090228):
I did some editing of the above blog today, after weeks’ reluctance. This blog is permeated with two failings: smugness and haste. The editing today was aimed at improving upon the second shortcoming. I chose to leave the first failing untouched because, I felt, to erase the smugness from this blog would affect its authenticity.
As I mentioned before, every word I ever put on the Internet was true to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing. I also said that, whenever possible, I posted my blogs using an email program so that I would always have a copy of the original. This original copy came handy in this case because I have posted it here so that people could compare it with the edited version above and confirm that no substantial changes had been made.
I also did some research about Vancouver’s weather conditions on September 16 and 24 and found that in both cases, my memories were correct.
I am normally confident with my memory, especially when I have “collaborating events” to help me recall what happened. In the case of my library card, I knew I had always kept it in my backpack and I knew under what exceptional circumstances I did not bring my backpack with me. As for the weather in the evening of September 24, I could recall that it was quite a frustrating night for me in the library. Between searching the computer catalogue, looking for that Chinese book and asking for help from library staff, I had to carry a lot of stuff with me, namely a wet umbrella, my winter (and only) jacket, and of course, my backpack.
However, in the case of my borrowing 7 books on September 16-17, I still could not recall anything that would remotely suggest that the potential market impact of my actions was on my mind at the time. All I could recall on my mind while visiting the library was the Bush administration and Harper government and the associated fear. After countless such fruitless attempts, my frustration gradually turned to resignation because I had to conclude that the potential market impact of my actions was, in fact, not on my mind at all.
Indeed, thinking from another angle confirmed my above conclusion: If I had not had happened to hear on TV on September 30 that my “private” conversation had become market-moving rumor, I would not have researched on the financial crisis in connection to my personal experience, and without careful and detailed research to connect the many dots, I would never have realized that my actions had impacted on the stock markets throughout the mid-September-to-early-October financial crisis.
People might ask: What went through your mind after you watched that TV program? Frankly, I had gotten used to people cracking nuts of my words that I did not think too much of it. If anything, perhaps at the back of my mind, I thought that if my words on the day before were the cause for market advances, maybe the markets discerned my good mood as a sign of easing tensions between Mr. Bush and me.
Indeed, I repeated my thought process in my original January 11 blog and subsequently probed deeper. Perhaps I should have gotten right to the point in my writing to avoid unnecessary confusion. However, as I said, I was searching for the truth and in the process of embarking on such an endeavor, I, being who I am, remained true to myself, including my thought process. If I had had more time before I first published it, I probably would have abbreviated my intermediate thought process in my writing.
As I said many times before, I am not a writer and I do not enjoy writing. Besides, my depression just makes things much worse. That’s why I typically write only when I feel I have to write. Another reason that I almost always write “at the last minute” is because I do not know if my writing activities are monitored by the governments, even though I always disconnect my Internet and save my files to an external disk when using a word processor. What’s more, on January 11, my computer program mysteriously crashed in mid-day and I had to re-type everything I had done since early morning. Because I wanted to publish the blog on that day, the haste was particularly evident in the final section of the blog.
In fact, if I had had more time later that day, I would have been able to determine roughly when I realized that other people had given the number 2 the meaning of 11. As I think of it, I believe my realization of the special meaning for number 2 was connected to my unwittingly picking the date of APEC Summit for my debut.
Here is what happened.
There is a computer in my building used by tenants. Back in October, I did not have my own Internet connection so I used that computer almost daily. Note it was a shared computer and there was time restrictions on the usage.
In connection to my reading the book, Democracy of the dead, I did further research on the Internet. I would “copy and paste” information I needed to MS Word program on the computer and save the files onto my disk so that I could organize and read them later on my own computer.
When saving files, I did not want to have to spend time in thinking of a file name so I normally just typed in random numbers. Using numbers as file names has the advantage of naturally grouping the files together without having to create a separate directory on my disk. Remember that each of those temporary Word files is a hodgepodge of information gathered from different websites.
The following are the three Word files with the time that they were created:
Soon after I saved the third file, I did become conscious of the file name because I knew from my past experience, 22 is a number with bad meaning. But I did not think much of it because, frankly, I thought that nobody would know the file names. (I knew my Internet activities were monitored by the governments even on a shared computer. But how could they know the name of a MS Word file?) Soon, the following events happened, which made me realize that other people had interpreted my actions as choosing the APEC Summit dates.
Naturally, my next question was: Where did November come from? Did I unwittingly choose the month too? Apparently, Mr. Obama thought that I did. It was in this context that I realized that people probably had interpreted the 2 books - borrowed either in October or in August - with the meaning of 11 or November.
Although I can not ascertain the exact dates of the above events, I am pretty sure both of them took place after October 14. Therefore, it was after October 14 that I realized that people had given the number 2 the meaning of 11.
As to why my actions had such impacts on the stock markets, I realized that the markets knew that the ultimate recovery of U.S. economy, whether it was through the earlier bailout of major financial institutions or the coming economic stimulus package, depended heavily on China's purchase of U.S. Treasury securities. Even when I myself do not have a full grasp of the practical significance of being the leader of China, other people and the markets know better than I do.
I noticed that after I posted my first blog on this subject on December 31, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson gave an interview to Financial Times, blaming other countries (mostly China) for the financial crisis. Apparently the Bush administration saw what's coming from my first blog and had already started to pre-spin. They could afford to do so now because the financial crisis had been offloaded to the next administration. That's probably why Mr. Paulson gave the interview to a non-U.S. newspaper.
I am not going to respond to Mr. Paulson's shameful and idiotic remarks here. Instead, I will let the facts of the financial crisis speak for themselves. And I will organize my description of the financial crisis into three parts, separated by the day when the sun came out on the markets.
Around the day when the sun came out on the markets
I wrote on December 31, 2008:
"During the more recent financial market turmoil, the Dow Jones index shot up hundreds of points one day and nobody seemed to able to explain it. A market professional told the host of a business program on TV that the market rumor of the day was that "The sun has come out." Well, that's exactly what I told my mother over the phone the afternoon before when she asked me about Vancouver's weather. But an implication of this case was that both Bush administration and Harper government knew the plan to - I don't know how to put it - make me a super leader of China, not simply just replace Hu Jintao."
On January 4, 2009, I added:
"I still can't find out from which TV program (Nightly Business Report?, Business News Network?, or least likely, CNN?) I heard that my "private" telephone conversation had become market-moving rumor. But I am confident with my memory. As a matter of fact, I remember this market professional used bipolar - which is what I likely have - to describe the market.
I am able to determine, however, that the day when the sun came out on the markets was September 30. The Dow shot up 485 points, representing a capital gain of hundreds of billions of dollars.
As such, things are coming back to me now. Bush televised speeches. The weather in Vancouver. My own mood and how the markets reacted to my mood. Bush came on TV again in front of a bookshelf. I went to SFU library…. Plus the inexplicable. Details Soon."
The markets went up sharply on September 30 after it had discerned - thanks to the Bush administration and Harper government - that I was in a good mood. Yes, the sun had come out in Vancouver after days of rain or clouds when I called my mother on September 29. But that's hardly the reason for my good mood. I was in a good mood because of Mr. Bush's televised speech earlier that day.
As usual, Mr. Bush's message in his televised speech was in the setting. Previously, I talked about Mr. Bush's televised speech in front of a bookshelf on December 19, 2008. And I will talk about another bookshelf speech of his on September 30, 2008 later in this blog. A third example I could think of was his televised speech on September 13, 2007 where he used a piece of paper that was supposedly a letter he received from an average citizen.
I do not claim to have followed every one of Mr. Bush's televised speeches. But it would be safe to venture that it was extremely rare for Mr. Bush to go on camera at exact dawn. His message to everyone was that he had radically changed his mind and he now supported my leadership in China, where a super leader is sometimes referred to as the sun. -- Right after my blog on December 31, Mr. Bush's spokesman made a news about him being an "early riser", clearly trying to counter what I was about to reveal. If Mr. Bush really thought that my interpretation of his message were wrong, why did he bother to pre-spin my revelation?
Mr. Bush's televised message came as a big relief for me, which explained my good mood on September 29. Probing deeper, I think that the markets were reacting to the political implications of the rumor that "The sun has come out", rather than my personal mood, otherwise, how did the market know that my mood had not changed from the day before?
The markets interpreted my saying that "The sun has come out" in a good mood as a sign that I would support the U.S. bailout financially on behalf of China. (Looking back, I believe Mr. Bush would not have gone to the camera at exact dawn if he had not had that request in his mind.) At that time, however, I did not realize Bush's request, therefore, I never thought about helping the U.S. bailout. My good mood was largely a result of my sensing that I was going to be free soon. To be the leader of China was, and still is, largely a very, very abstract concept in my mind.
Now comes the important question: What made Mr. Bush, who had worked against me for years, change his mind 180 degrees? To answer that question, I'll have to go back to the beginning of the financial crisis and to my borrowing the 7 books on September 16-17.
Before the day when the sun came out on the markets
On January 4, I wrote about the problem I encountered in trying to borrow these 7 books and how it might be related to the market decline on September 17:
"While researching on this subject, I also discovered another case of potential market corruption. I strongly suspect that market insiders knew before the start of trading on September 17 that I was going to borrow 7 books later that day. This may help to explain the 449 points drop in Dow that day. -- A New York Times report that day only attributed a general fear in the market for the decline. -- Of course, the potential market impact of my borrowing books was never on my mind. As I said in the [main] previous blog, I borrowed the 7 books out of fear for my own safety.
It was actually on Tuesday September 16 that I first went to the Vancouver Public Library central branch to try to check out 7 books. After I had chosen those 7 Chinese books, however, I realized that I had forgot to bring my library card with me. So I asked the library staff to hold the books for me and I went home to get my card. When I came back to the library - it must have been in the late afternoon - I found, to my surprise, that the central library was closed due to "an unknown fume". That's why those 7 books were checked out the next morning.
So the questions are: Where did the fume come from? Did it have anything to do with the governments? Was I followed in the library? Did the governments know the 7 books I left with the reserve counter on September 16? If so, did they leak that information to Wall Street insiders?"
I had said that after I saw the U.S. economic bubble was going to burst in a big way, I changed my plan from doing nothing to doing something. I did so out of fear for my own safety, which was true. I did not know exactly what Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan would have been if I had not acted. But no matter what it was, it was not going to be good for me. Perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to do something so that they could not proceed with their plan.
I also mentioned that by borrowing 7 books, I wanted to deliberately grasp people's attention, which was also true because, of all the numbers, the meaning of 7 is the most dramatic. For people who do not already know, here is my summary of the political meanings of some of the commonly used numbers (I figured them out by myself over the years so I can not say that they are 100 percent accurate):
- One is rarely used. It could mean unity?
- Two is rarely used until people gave it the meaning of eleven recently.
- Three is used to refer to former president JIANG Zemin, the third generation of Chinese leadership.
- Four is normally used to refer to current president HU Jintao, the fourth generation. Recently it has also been used to mean me.
- Five has been used for a long time to mean me as I was initially known as the candidate for the fifth generation.
- Six was sometimes used to mean me, too, after I said that I wanted to be considered for the sixth generation. (Frankly, I just wanted to get out of politics.)
- Seven means hyper-urgency and calls for immediate action. Its origin was that some anti-China crowd dreamed of dividing China into 7 pieces.
- Eight is a lucky number in Chinese. It means good fortune. As such, it could mean anything related to money, such as business or economy.
- Nine means the end of Chinese Communist Party.
- Ten means perfect?
- Eleven is considered a challenge for the United States as it invokes the event of 9/11.
Looking back, I would say that, had I not acted, there was a very good chance that Mr. Bush would have unloaded the financial and economic mess created largely under his watch to other countries. That was evidently his best option. (His second-best option would be to minimize the fallout from the crisis and unload the rest of it to his successor.) And he would have done so by very possibly creating another crisis, likely of a military nature because that's what Mr. Bush is good at, backed up with years' astronomical military budget. Finally, he would have framed me in his scheme.
Indeed, I think the Bush administration, with the cooperation of the Harper government, would likely have succeeded in executing their plan. I mentioned in my previous blog that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a scathing speech on Russia on September 18, the day after I had borrowed those 7 books. Here in Canada, ever since I wrote to the Russian Embassy for political asylum on July 31, Russia-bashing had been on Mr. Harper's agenda. He increased the intensity during my visit to Ottawa, besides beating up the urgency of a snap election. He would have surely followed Bush administration's lead after I borrowed those 7 books if not for the election campaign he was in at the time. Indeed, Messrs. Bush and Harper had previously tried to taint me as either a terrorist or a spy who worked with the Russians against the United States. As I wrote about my May 2007 visit to the Russian Embassy, they repeatedly tried to frame me then by staging sensational bomb scare incidents in Ottawa. And they had the mainstream media, such as the National Post, on their side, creating false impressions among the public beforehand.
That's why I was so worried when I noticed suspicious persons and activities around me after I came back from Ottawa in late August. Given the lethal truth, i.e., it was Mr. Bush who gave the order to the Georgian president to provoke a war with the Russians on the day of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, I tried to postpone revealing to the world, I knew that Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan was going to involve some gigantic spin and be really bad, bad, bad.
In short, that's the background for my borrowing those 7 books. I wasn't signaling to anybody to take immediate action, even though that's how 7 is interpreted politically. I was simply trying to, perhaps instinctively, upset Messrs. Bush and Harper's plan, no matter what it was, and to save myself.
Apparently, my action even confused both the Chinese and the Russians. The Russian Embassy sent me an email two day later, asking for more documents to support my political asylum application, apparently in displeasure. Those were unnecessary given the implicit understanding I thought I had reached with them during my visit.
As for the Chinese, they might have interpreted that I was calling for action on the financial front. Frankly, that would have been stupid. But, I guess precisely because of this stupid interpretation of my action, Mr. Hu Jintao once again solidified his standing in the government as evidenced by "an important speech" he gave to a large gathering of provincial/ministerial level officials within 36 hours or so after I had checked out the 7 books, the earliest opportunity one could arrange such as assembly in Beijing.
In Washington, Mr. Bush canceled his travel to "closely monitor the situation in our financial markets" on Thursday September 18, as he said in a televised speech, sounding like a commander in a war. However, the markets tanked despite huge amounts of coordinated liquidity injections among several central banks. Edmund L. Andrews of New York Times reported:
"This forced Mr. [Henry M.] Paulson [Jr. The Treasury secretary], and Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, to think the unthinkable: committing taxpayer money to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in distressed assets from struggling institutions.
Rumors about the Bush administration's new stance swept through the stock markets Thursday afternoon. By the end of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average shot up 617 points from its low point in midafternoon, the biggest surge in six years, and ended the day with a gain of 410 points or 3.9 percent."
Note the timing: Late afternoon Thursday September 18 would have been early morning Friday September 19 Beijing time, just hours before the big gathering organized for Hu Jintao. Later that evening, Mr. Bush sent Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke to the Capitol Hill to meet with congressional leaders for the bailout money. It appears to me that Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke were not so much forced by the jittering markets to do the bailout, as reported by the Times. They started doing the bailout once they had made sure that Mr. Hu was back in charge in China and would, as a poodle for George W. Bush, foot the bill for them. This could explain why they did not even have a concrete proposal going into the congressional meeting on Thursday evening. Indeed, it was reported that as late as Saturday, the proposal to Congress was only three page long. The $700 billion bailout figure was more intriguing, though.
At that time, I did not have my own Internet connection. I probably spent about a couple of hours a day on the Internet. I was not appraised of these developments on a hourly basis, as such, there was no way for me to connect them together. I do remember that on Tuesday September 23, I was quite downbeat. I went to bowling with a group of people that afternoon and my mind was entirely preoccupied with the off-putting political developments, especially Bush's phone call to Hu on Monday, as I had just learned.
The phone call between Messrs. Bush and Hu was meant to help each other politically, just like their telephone calls before. Since Sino-U.S. relation was the most important bilateral relation for China, Mr. Bush's support of Mr. Hu's leadership meant a lot to Mr. Hu politically. In return, Mr. Bush must have got what he wanted, i.e., commitment from Mr. Hu to help finance his huge bailout. (After the bailout plan had been passed by the U.S. Congress, a Hong Kong-based newspaper reported that the Chinese government had committed to purchasing up to $200 billion of new U.S. debt. Although I have not seen similar report through another news outlet.)
I knew these disheartening developments were connected to my borrowing those 7 books. So I started thinking of ways to fix the problem. If I could somehow let people know that the 7 books were actually supplemental to the key book, Democracy of the dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China, which was mentioned in American business in China, it would dilute the political interpretations of 7 somewhat.
However, I did not want people - mostly Chinese politicians - to know that I was interested in the book for a reason. -- I am interested in democratization in China; but I have to consider China's reality. I did not want to give the impression that I was interested in something that was out of reach in China. However, if the book has a Chinese translation, it probably is not that unacceptable, I thought.
The next afternoon, Wednesday September 24, I phoned UBC Asian Library to ask the librarian a question: How to find out if a English book has a Chinese translation. She was quite helpful. She not only told me the answer to my original question, she also found out that there was a copy of Chinese translation available in Vancouver Public Library.
I believe that my phone call to the UBC librarian, like virtually all my other calls, was monitored by the Harper government and Bush administration. I am not sure if this information gave Mr. Bush the urgency to imply publicly that foreign investors were to blame for the financial crisis, as he did in his prime time televised address a few hours later in the evening. (Although he did not mention China by name, it's not that difficult for people to see which country he had in mind.) China's fault was, according to him, investing too much in the United States. And this after he had played politics to make sure that China under Hu Jintao would finance his huge Wall Street bailout!
Note that, as I mentioned before, I believe that I was followed in SFU library and Mr. Obama appeared to know that I was reading Democracy of the dead there. (Indeed, from his campaign rhetoric, Mr. Obama appeared to be encouraging me to make my reading that book "public".) As such, Mr. Bush should know the book I was reading, too. Therefore, Mr. Bush did have a reason to act promptly, after my phone call to the UBC librarian, to put the blame on China, if that blame game had been part of his plan.
After watching Mr. Bush's speech, I felt a sense of urgency. Mr. Bush seemed to have completed his circle of blame: Russia, me, and now China. I immediately went to VPL that evening (in heavy downpour, if my memory is correct) to try to borrow that book.
To my disappointment as well as puzzlement, I could not find the book on the shelf, even though the computer showed that it was in the library and available. (Indeed, I remembered that, when I borrowed those 7 books one week before, I went through that bookshelf and this book was certainly not there. The first time I saw that book was on November 20.) When a library staff, having failed to locate the book for me, suggested that I put a hold on the book, I followed her suggestion.
I believe this book hold changed the perceptions of my book borrowing activities. I also believe I had come dangerously close of being framed by the Bush administration and Harper government. And I believe the consequence would have been really, really ugly - not just for myself, but for the world.
It was probably in this context that the Obama campaign told the McCain campaign that "you guys over-reacted". On Friday September 26, I first sensed that Mr. Bush was changing his attitude towards me when he repeatedly used the word "big" in his televised remarks. The following Monday morning, on September 29, he gave his "The sun has come out" televised speech at exact dawn to essentially entreat me to support his bailout plan on behalf of China.
After the day when the sun came out on the markets
Having listened into my telephone conversation with my mother on September 29, Mr. Bush knew that I had gotten his message, i.e., that I knew that he now supported my leadership. (Although not the complete one - I should add.) By making his televised speech in front of a bookshelf the following day, Mr. Bush hinted to me to look into my borrowing record, as if there was some problem there.
I looked into my book records and the problem seemed to be that, since the book I reserved with VPL on September 24 still had not been found (a mystery!), the record was 7-1 rather than 8. And in Chinese, 7-1 is the short for July 1, which is the birthday of CCP. Therefore, this part of my book record might give people the impression that I was for CCP, in contradiction to my reading the book, Democracy of the dead, itself.
Now, I am a nice guy. If people are nice to me, I would be nice back, even if I had been wronged before. I understood that this was an important concern for Mr. Bush because it was related to his legacy, i.e., whether or not he could claim that he had played a role in China's moving to the direction of democracy, even though I knew how hypocritical he had been on this issue. So, I started thinking of ways to fix the problem for him.
Since it had been a week since I put a hold on the Chinese version of Democracy of the dead with VPL, I'd better give up waiting for it to show up. This meant that I would need to borrow the original version from the SFU library, the book I had moved to another location inside the library and read there. I also wanted to keep the total number of books 9, to make my message clear. This meant that I would have to return at least one of the two books on loan from SFU at the time.
After Mr. Bush had "told" me, with his bookshelf speech, that he was watching closely the books I was reading and wanted to communicate with me this way, I became a little conscious about my book borrowing activities. This was in comparison to my trying to draw people's attention with those 7 books earlier. Knowing that other people, especially those in the U.S. election, would be watching too, I was determined to give my best efforts. I decided to borrow the best book on Warren Buffett: The essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for corporate America, arranged by Lawrence Cunningham. Given the financial crisis at hand, I wished that the Americans had had heeded Mr. Buffett's warnings years before. (I should note that, when John McCain accused Mr. Obama as a socialist during the campaign, Mr. Obama countered that "Warren Buffett is not a socialist".)
In the morning of October 1, I used the Internet and telephone to check the availability of these two books in SFU library. That's probably why someone had deliberately but slightly moved the book, Democracy of the dead, just before I got to the library later that day. It was clearly intended to bully, just like the many occasions where police cars would watch me near my home coming back from libraries. Despite being bullied, I checked out Democracy of the dead and put in a request for The essays of Warren Buffett as it was still in processing. (It would be interesting to examine the intra-day charts to see if my morning activities had impacted on the markets.)
Now, I don't remember when I first realized that people had given the number 2 the meaning of 11. But I am positive that, on October 1, I wasn't aware of it. Indeed, my goal was to make the total number of books on loan 9 and that was my focus on that day. (Just to be clear, I am still in favor of establishing a multi-party democracy in China, as long as it can be done in an orderly fashion.)
While researching on the financial crisis, I realized that the stock markets might have interpreted my borrowing records quite differently. If the markets interpreted the two books as 11, there were three key numbers in my borrowing records: 7, 9 and 11. The political interpretations could be complicated but the implications for the markets were not good as the markets knew the key to the success of the bailout and the recovery of U.S. economy was China's cooperation.
Since 7 is a bad number for China, 9 a bad number for CCP and 11 a bad number for the U.S., that three number came together in my borrowing records appeared to suggest that the fate of both China and U.S., plus the future prospect of CCP or China's democratization, were all intertwined, although I had not intentionally sent out that message with my borrowing records. Think of it. The markets got it right on the money. Whether it's nuclear weaponry (as I unwittingly discovered) or the economy (as popularized by Larry Summers), there are so-called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) between these two countries. And as I argued before, how to manage the democratic transition of China without creating chaos is not only a challenge for China, but also one for the world at large.
Given the uncertainty coming out of the interpretations of my borrowing records, it's no surprise, then, that we saw ten consecutive declines in stock markets in early October, representing 2.4 trillion dollars in total losses, despite the fact the Congress had approved the $700 billion bailout package.
As a former trader, I learned that the markets are always right. Intriguingly, the Dow Jones industrial average on the day when Mr. Bush gave his "The sun has come out" speech dropped 777 points.
That's 7 times 111. I can't explain that.
Update (20090228):
I did some editing of the above blog today, after weeks’ reluctance. This blog is permeated with two failings: smugness and haste. The editing today was aimed at improving upon the second shortcoming. I chose to leave the first failing untouched because, I felt, to erase the smugness from this blog would affect its authenticity.
As I mentioned before, every word I ever put on the Internet was true to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing. I also said that, whenever possible, I posted my blogs using an email program so that I would always have a copy of the original. This original copy came handy in this case because I have posted it here so that people could compare it with the edited version above and confirm that no substantial changes had been made.
I also did some research about Vancouver’s weather conditions on September 16 and 24 and found that in both cases, my memories were correct.
I am normally confident with my memory, especially when I have “collaborating events” to help me recall what happened. In the case of my library card, I knew I had always kept it in my backpack and I knew under what exceptional circumstances I did not bring my backpack with me. As for the weather in the evening of September 24, I could recall that it was quite a frustrating night for me in the library. Between searching the computer catalogue, looking for that Chinese book and asking for help from library staff, I had to carry a lot of stuff with me, namely a wet umbrella, my winter (and only) jacket, and of course, my backpack.
However, in the case of my borrowing 7 books on September 16-17, I still could not recall anything that would remotely suggest that the potential market impact of my actions was on my mind at the time. All I could recall on my mind while visiting the library was the Bush administration and Harper government and the associated fear. After countless such fruitless attempts, my frustration gradually turned to resignation because I had to conclude that the potential market impact of my actions was, in fact, not on my mind at all.
Indeed, thinking from another angle confirmed my above conclusion: If I had not had happened to hear on TV on September 30 that my “private” conversation had become market-moving rumor, I would not have researched on the financial crisis in connection to my personal experience, and without careful and detailed research to connect the many dots, I would never have realized that my actions had impacted on the stock markets throughout the mid-September-to-early-October financial crisis.
People might ask: What went through your mind after you watched that TV program? Frankly, I had gotten used to people cracking nuts of my words that I did not think too much of it. If anything, perhaps at the back of my mind, I thought that if my words on the day before were the cause for market advances, maybe the markets discerned my good mood as a sign of easing tensions between Mr. Bush and me.
Indeed, I repeated my thought process in my original January 11 blog and subsequently probed deeper. Perhaps I should have gotten right to the point in my writing to avoid unnecessary confusion. However, as I said, I was searching for the truth and in the process of embarking on such an endeavor, I, being who I am, remained true to myself, including my thought process. If I had had more time before I first published it, I probably would have abbreviated my intermediate thought process in my writing.
As I said many times before, I am not a writer and I do not enjoy writing. Besides, my depression just makes things much worse. That’s why I typically write only when I feel I have to write. Another reason that I almost always write “at the last minute” is because I do not know if my writing activities are monitored by the governments, even though I always disconnect my Internet and save my files to an external disk when using a word processor. What’s more, on January 11, my computer program mysteriously crashed in mid-day and I had to re-type everything I had done since early morning. Because I wanted to publish the blog on that day, the haste was particularly evident in the final section of the blog.
In fact, if I had had more time later that day, I would have been able to determine roughly when I realized that other people had given the number 2 the meaning of 11. As I think of it, I believe my realization of the special meaning for number 2 was connected to my unwittingly picking the date of APEC Summit for my debut.
Here is what happened.
There is a computer in my building used by tenants. Back in October, I did not have my own Internet connection so I used that computer almost daily. Note it was a shared computer and there was time restrictions on the usage.
In connection to my reading the book, Democracy of the dead, I did further research on the Internet. I would “copy and paste” information I needed to MS Word program on the computer and save the files onto my disk so that I could organize and read them later on my own computer.
When saving files, I did not want to have to spend time in thinking of a file name so I normally just typed in random numbers. Using numbers as file names has the advantage of naturally grouping the files together without having to create a separate directory on my disk. Remember that each of those temporary Word files is a hodgepodge of information gathered from different websites.
The following are the three Word files with the time that they were created:
- File 23, created at 7:59:03PM, October 9, 2008.
- File 24, created at 12:04:14PM, October 10, 2008.
- File 22, created at 9:31:34PM, October 14, 2008.
Soon after I saved the third file, I did become conscious of the file name because I knew from my past experience, 22 is a number with bad meaning. But I did not think much of it because, frankly, I thought that nobody would know the file names. (I knew my Internet activities were monitored by the governments even on a shared computer. But how could they know the name of a MS Word file?) Soon, the following events happened, which made me realize that other people had interpreted my actions as choosing the APEC Summit dates.
- Mr. Obama used the phrase “act of God” in his campaign speech in a positive tone;
- I learned, for the first time, that APEC Summit was to take place on November 22-23 in Peru from reading a newspaper (hardcopy).
Naturally, my next question was: Where did November come from? Did I unwittingly choose the month too? Apparently, Mr. Obama thought that I did. It was in this context that I realized that people probably had interpreted the 2 books - borrowed either in October or in August - with the meaning of 11 or November.
Although I can not ascertain the exact dates of the above events, I am pretty sure both of them took place after October 14. Therefore, it was after October 14 that I realized that people had given the number 2 the meaning of 11.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
How corrupt is American’s capital markets under George W. Bush?
Very very indeed. From my experience, the financial gains made by market insiders who had the knowledge of my story dwarfed even the recently-revealed $50 billion Pyramid scheme by Madoff.
Cases in points:
In the morning of November 1, 2007, minutes after I handed in my hunger strike notice to the prison authority, the Dow Jones index was in a virtual free fall.
During the more recent financial market turmoil, the Dow Jones index shot up hundreds of points one day and nobody seemed to able to explain it. A market professional told the host of a business program on TV that the market rumor of the day was that "The sun has come out." Well, that's exactly what I told my mother over the phone the afternoon before when she asked me about Vancouver's weather. But an implication of this case was that both Bush administration and Harper government knew the plan to - I don't know how to put it - make me a super leader of China, not simply just to replace Hu Jintao.
On December 9, I phoned in and was on CFRB Toronto between 3:10PM and 3:15PM. If you compare my "appearance" on CFRB and the intra-day chart of say, Dow Jones index, you will find that the markets dropped almost instantaneously the moment I spoke, and rebounded when host Michael Coren hanged up on me. I also believe an earlier drop minutes after 2:00PM, was an reaction to my connecting to radio stations through the Internet.
There are other cases. I will do some research and provide more details later. The point is, people who made money out of my story are those who are close to the Bush administration and Harper government, not the little guys on the main street.
Update (20090104):
I still can’t find out from which TV program (Nightly Business Report?, Business News Network?, or least likely, CNN?) I heard that my “private” telephone conversation had become market-moving rumor. But I am confident with my memory. As a matter of fact, I remember this market professional used bipolar - which is what I likely have - to describe the market.
I am able to determine, however, that the day when the sun came out on the markets was September 30. The Dow shot up 485 points, representing a capital gain of hundreds of billions of dollars.
As such, things are coming back to me now. Bush televised speeches. The weather in Vancouver. My own mood and how the markets reacted to my mood. Bush came on TV again in front of a bookshelf. I went to SFU library…. Plus the inexplicable. Details Soon.
-- While researching on this subject, I also discovered another case of potential market corruption. I strongly suspect that market insiders knew before the start of trading on September 17 that I was going to borrow 7 books later that day. This may help to explain the 449 points drop in Dow that day. -- A New York Times report that day only attributed a general fear in the market for the decline. -- Of course, the potential market impact of my borrowing books was never on my mind. As I said in the previous blog, I borrowed the 7 books out of fear for my own safety.
It was actually on Tuesday September 16 that I first went to the Vancouver Public Library central branch to try to check out 7 books. After I had chosen those 7 Chinese books, however, I realized that I had forgot to bring my library card with me. So I asked the library staff to hold the books for me and I went home to get my card. When I came back to the library - it must have been in the late afternoon - I found, to my surprise, that the central library was closed due to “an unknown fume”. That’s why those 7 books were checked out the next morning.
So the questions are: Where did the fume come from? Did it have anything to do with the governments? Was I followed in the library? Did the governments know the 7 books I left with the reserve counter on September 16? If so, did they leak that information to Wall Street insiders?
Cases in points:
In the morning of November 1, 2007, minutes after I handed in my hunger strike notice to the prison authority, the Dow Jones index was in a virtual free fall.
During the more recent financial market turmoil, the Dow Jones index shot up hundreds of points one day and nobody seemed to able to explain it. A market professional told the host of a business program on TV that the market rumor of the day was that "The sun has come out." Well, that's exactly what I told my mother over the phone the afternoon before when she asked me about Vancouver's weather. But an implication of this case was that both Bush administration and Harper government knew the plan to - I don't know how to put it - make me a super leader of China, not simply just to replace Hu Jintao.
On December 9, I phoned in and was on CFRB Toronto between 3:10PM and 3:15PM. If you compare my "appearance" on CFRB and the intra-day chart of say, Dow Jones index, you will find that the markets dropped almost instantaneously the moment I spoke, and rebounded when host Michael Coren hanged up on me. I also believe an earlier drop minutes after 2:00PM, was an reaction to my connecting to radio stations through the Internet.
There are other cases. I will do some research and provide more details later. The point is, people who made money out of my story are those who are close to the Bush administration and Harper government, not the little guys on the main street.
Update (20090104):
I still can’t find out from which TV program (Nightly Business Report?, Business News Network?, or least likely, CNN?) I heard that my “private” telephone conversation had become market-moving rumor. But I am confident with my memory. As a matter of fact, I remember this market professional used bipolar - which is what I likely have - to describe the market.
I am able to determine, however, that the day when the sun came out on the markets was September 30. The Dow shot up 485 points, representing a capital gain of hundreds of billions of dollars.
As such, things are coming back to me now. Bush televised speeches. The weather in Vancouver. My own mood and how the markets reacted to my mood. Bush came on TV again in front of a bookshelf. I went to SFU library…. Plus the inexplicable. Details Soon.
-- While researching on this subject, I also discovered another case of potential market corruption. I strongly suspect that market insiders knew before the start of trading on September 17 that I was going to borrow 7 books later that day. This may help to explain the 449 points drop in Dow that day. -- A New York Times report that day only attributed a general fear in the market for the decline. -- Of course, the potential market impact of my borrowing books was never on my mind. As I said in the previous blog, I borrowed the 7 books out of fear for my own safety.
It was actually on Tuesday September 16 that I first went to the Vancouver Public Library central branch to try to check out 7 books. After I had chosen those 7 Chinese books, however, I realized that I had forgot to bring my library card with me. So I asked the library staff to hold the books for me and I went home to get my card. When I came back to the library - it must have been in the late afternoon - I found, to my surprise, that the central library was closed due to “an unknown fume”. That’s why those 7 books were checked out the next morning.
So the questions are: Where did the fume come from? Did it have anything to do with the governments? Was I followed in the library? Did the governments know the 7 books I left with the reserve counter on September 16? If so, did they leak that information to Wall Street insiders?
Thursday, December 25, 2008
A Christmas update
Prime minister Stephen Harper's announcement of senate appointments on Monday was an reaction to my returning a book to SFU library on Sunday.
My book borrowing activities have political significance, which is of course known to Mr. Harper. After my trip to SFU library on Sunday, my books on loan changed from 3 (from VPL), 4 (from UBC library) and 5 (from SFU library) to 3, 4 and 4. The political implication was that I was going to reveal the true power structure of Chinese politics and that I was in fact being considered to replace President Hu Jintao as the fourth generation of Chinese leadership. Sensing that I was going to reveal everything, Mr. Harper made the senate announcement to rally his political base to ensure survival. (By making a televised announcement on Friday December 19 before a bookshelf just like he did before, President Bush sensed what I would do from my visit to UBC the night before. To duly respond, I picked 4 rather easy-to-understand books from UBC that afternoon.)
By the way, I have always maintained that I am only a candidate for the 5th generation for a couple of reasons: (1) to strive for an orderly transfer of power in China; and (2) to ensure that I will be able to pursue justice for Cecilia Zhang. Messrs. Bush and Harper was able to force me to reveal the whole truth because of the blackmail they held with respect to my dignity photos. Their motive? If I have to guess, I would say that they wanted to feel morally superior because both U.S. and Canada have elections to effect peaceful transfer of powers. Indeed, both leaders talked about it recently. -- I do admire the political systems of both Canada and USA. I think they work very well for these two countries respectively. But obviously, the same can not be said about either of these two leaders personally. (Another motive could be that Mr. Bush did not want to be known as someone beaten by a simple "jobless-immigrant-without-privacy" turned NEXT generation of Chinese leadership.)
Indeed, in recent time, the international politics had, to a fair extent, been concerned with bringing me out to the public and the associated transfer of power in China and in particular, whether it can be done peacefully. As for myself, I said enough about my own views on my association with politics and I did not want to repeat myself here.
There were two opportunities for the transfer. One was the Beijing Olympic in August and the other APEC Summit in November.
I wrote in my December 4th letter to the Governor General that it was my July 31 letter to Russian Embassy in Ottawa that prompted Mr. Harper to muse about a snap election. I believe Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin planned to make my story public during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on August 8. It was apparent that Mr. Bush instructed the Georgian president to provoke a war with Russia earlier that day in order to foil Mr. Putin's plan in Beijing. (By the way, I was so appalled that a respected host of five former secretaries of state on CNN could not even get the very basic fact of Georgia-Russian conflict straight, the fresh fact I provided here aside. If the guest had not been a person of Gen. Colin Powell's stature, he would have challenged the General that it was the Georgians who deliberately started the war.)
I did not want to see the military conflict escalate to the brink of a new cold war in the long term or to the benefit of McCain presidential campaign in the short term. I believe both the U.S. and the world needed a change and a President McCain would almost surely follow Bush's disastrous policies.
That's why I remain silent during the conflict, much to the chagrin of the Russians. Immediately after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia and the closing of Beijing Olympics, I paid a visit to the Russian Embassy in the last week of August. I wanted to say sorry to them. I also wanted to convey to them my consideration of U.S. presidential election in my decision.
However, I was a political asylum seeker and wanted to remain so. I could not say what I wanted to say plainly. So I decided to drop some hints.
My first hint was the two books I borrowed from SFU library just before I went to Ottawa. The first book was American business in China: balancing culture and communication. I personally liked the book because it was a business book written by two experts on intercultural communications, an area I had been interested in. The meaning I hoped to convey to everyone was that U.S.-China has mutually beneficial economic relationship and we should try our best not to jeopardize it. Remember, the world was at the brink of cold war at the time due to Bush's recklessness.
The second book was The arc of Japan's economic development. I could not find any books on the impending burst of U.S. economic bubble and this book was a close approximate. I knew that if the U.S. election was to be fought on economy - which it should be given the economic deterioration of late - it would increase Obama's chance. Of course, I could not predict that the U.S. economic bubble would explode in such a dramatic way or in less than a month. (What bothered me was that too many smart people around of the world tended to overanalyze me and give my actions more meanings or credits than I ever thought of. For example, I later found that people would give the number two (books) the meaning of eleven or November. Frankly, I did not think of that at the time. Remember, not everything I do has some significant political meanings, especially since I do not even know which actions of mine are "public".) In any case, my goal with borrowing these two books was to point to their common subject, i.e., the economy.
My second chance of dropping hints came with my conversations with the Russian embassy. I kept looking at my American Eagle Outfitters backpack while talking to them about my political asylum application. When Mr. Putin gave an interview to CNN later that week, linking Georgian provocation with U.S. election, I knew I had succeeded with my trip.
Now, when I made that decision to postpone the "zero hour", I did fear one thing, my own life. Since I had been tortured in mental hospital with the knowledge of George W. Bush, forced to take suicide-inducing drugs and assaulted in prison orchestrated by Harper government from behind the scenes, I knew the chance was very high that Messrs. Bush and Harper could always attempt on my life again to blow up everything so as to elect Sen. McCain. This scenario became more probable when Mr. Harper ratcheted up his election urgency to beat the U.S. vote date. (Indeed, right after Canadians voted on October 14, there was at least one attempt which involved a traffic-violating vehicle and a helicopter.)
Frankly, I had not planned to do anything after coming back from Ottawa. I just planned to be extra careful between these two voting dates. It was the financial market meltdown in mid-September that changed my plan. The meltdown increased the likelihood that Messrs. Bush and Harper would make a news out of me so as to influence the U.S. election. Indeed, there appeared to be suspicious persons or activities around me whenever I went out of my home after I came back from Ottawa.
That's why I borrowed 7 books from Vancouver Public Library on September 17, in the middle of market meltdown. The number 7 has a very ominous meaning in Chinese politics because hardcore anti-China forces of the world wanted to see China be divided into 7 pieces. Therefore, my borrowing 7 books that day was almost a cry for attention.
The Bush administration took the bait readily. The next day, secretary Rice gave a scathing speech on Russia. (Frankly, it was long on rhetoric and short on substance.) I soon noticed that I was introduced to the U.S. presidential campaign. And I knew I would be safe for the time being. Indeed, I remained in the background throughout the campaign.
The second opportunity for my debut and the peaceful transfer of Chinese power was the APEC Summit on November 22-23 in Peru. Insofar as I unwittingly picked or contributed in picking this date, President-elect Obama correctly pointed that out during the campaign with the phrase "an act of God", which, by the way, Sen. McCain subsequently mocked using the same phrase.
There were other examples suggesting my being in the background of the campaign, such as:
On the day before the APEC meeting, my SFU website was taken down by the government. As such, the plan to peacefully transfer the power from Hu to me was again disrupted. I was naturally quite frustrated. Since I understood it was President-elect Obama's preference, too, to stick with the plan and thus avoid inheriting Bush's negative legacy, I decided to ask for his help. That's why I went to two libraries on November 29 to make my borrowing records 3 (VPL), 4 (SFU) and 4 (UBC) from 3 (VPL) and 5 (SFU). My message was: "You and I wanted November. Look what we get." Disorderly transfer of power and potential chaos is not only bad for China, but also for the world.
Unfortunately, President-elect Obama took the message the wrong way. To be fair, the four Chinese books I borrowed from UBC that day might be the problem. President-elect Obama must have thought that I was rebuking what President Clinton said about him during the campaign. Since they injected political or nuclear meanings to my original blog, the wrong message President-elect Obama got must have been that I was challenging him nuclear. Indeed, when I borrowed those four books, Clinton's campaign speech was nowhere near my mind. The only thing in my mind was to borrow four books. I went to UBC's Asian library (thus borrowed Chinese books instead of English ones) because, up to that time, I had always visited Asian library each and every time I went to UBC. Of course, the total number 11 might be considered as a deliberate affront to the Americans. But I did want to convey a sense of potential direness of the situation here.
In the morning of Monday, December 1, Mr. Obama replied my message with his news conference announcing 6 members of his national security team. His message was that he wanted to move me down to the 6th generation of Chinese leadership. (In his first news conference after the election, he announced 4 nominations, indicating his support of my 4th generation status, just like what he did a couple of times during the campaign. In the next two news conferences, he announced 2 nominations each, indicating his preference in sticking with the November schedule.) However, from my own source of information, I also knew that if I accepted his message, they (US and Canadian governments) would use my dignity photos to crush my credibility, even threaten that Hong Kong might be in play. (Presumably, they knew I could not fully understand Cantonese.) This really got my blood boiling. I immediately left for SFU library.
If by the will of God, I hold the truth on U.S.-China nuclear relations, I am not going to let anybody bully me. I checked out two books from SFU:
I only kept the second book for a few hours before I returned it. I also returned the 4 books to UBC library on the same day. Therefore, I came down to 3 (VPL) and 5 (SFU) books again. The messages were clear, besides telling Obama that I understand his message: (1) China's status in East Asia is being taken down off the table; (2) there is a great opportunity for U.S. and China to engage in dialogue on global issues such as economy and climate; and (3) I still wanted an orderly transfer of power in China.
(By the way, both books are supplemental to a key book I have been reading since September: The democracy of the dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the hope for democracy in China. I learned of this political philosophy book from American business in China: Balancing culture and communication. Soon I realized it was an important book and I did not want anyone know that I was reading it. So I moved the book to another location in the library (sorry) and read it there. It was from Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric that I first suspected that I was followed inside the library. This was confirmed on the day I finally decided to check the book out on my card - somebody had slightly and deliberately moved that book. By the way, the final due date for this book was December 3. That's another reason why the consensus among people on my side was to stick to the November schedule. -- I said this before and I will say it again: When Messrs. Bush and Harper say that they want to promote democracy and human rights around the world, don't believe it.)
When I came back from SFU library in the evening, I noticed that a police car was watching me near my home, just like on a few other occasions. Bully.
After the political crisis manufactured by Mr. Harper in Ottawa, I wrote a letter to GG and tried to break the news myself through radio phone-ins. This was not easy, partly because the Harper government was able to stay one step ahead of me, partly because I am orally-challenged. After I blogged about part of my experience in trying to get on the radio, Messrs. Bush and Harper raised their ransom again. This time, they wanted me to admit that I was being considered for the 4th generation of Chinese leadership, using again my dignity photos as blackmail. Apparently they did not want me to confront Mr. Michael Coren on the radio. I was incensed. If they are so interested in my readings, I hope they at least learn one concept there: Junzi.
After some deliberation, I decided to tell the truth. And I hope truth shall set me free.
My book borrowing activities have political significance, which is of course known to Mr. Harper. After my trip to SFU library on Sunday, my books on loan changed from 3 (from VPL), 4 (from UBC library) and 5 (from SFU library) to 3, 4 and 4. The political implication was that I was going to reveal the true power structure of Chinese politics and that I was in fact being considered to replace President Hu Jintao as the fourth generation of Chinese leadership. Sensing that I was going to reveal everything, Mr. Harper made the senate announcement to rally his political base to ensure survival. (By making a televised announcement on Friday December 19 before a bookshelf just like he did before, President Bush sensed what I would do from my visit to UBC the night before. To duly respond, I picked 4 rather easy-to-understand books from UBC that afternoon.)
By the way, I have always maintained that I am only a candidate for the 5th generation for a couple of reasons: (1) to strive for an orderly transfer of power in China; and (2) to ensure that I will be able to pursue justice for Cecilia Zhang. Messrs. Bush and Harper was able to force me to reveal the whole truth because of the blackmail they held with respect to my dignity photos. Their motive? If I have to guess, I would say that they wanted to feel morally superior because both U.S. and Canada have elections to effect peaceful transfer of powers. Indeed, both leaders talked about it recently. -- I do admire the political systems of both Canada and USA. I think they work very well for these two countries respectively. But obviously, the same can not be said about either of these two leaders personally. (Another motive could be that Mr. Bush did not want to be known as someone beaten by a simple "jobless-immigrant-without-privacy" turned NEXT generation of Chinese leadership.)
Indeed, in recent time, the international politics had, to a fair extent, been concerned with bringing me out to the public and the associated transfer of power in China and in particular, whether it can be done peacefully. As for myself, I said enough about my own views on my association with politics and I did not want to repeat myself here.
There were two opportunities for the transfer. One was the Beijing Olympic in August and the other APEC Summit in November.
I wrote in my December 4th letter to the Governor General that it was my July 31 letter to Russian Embassy in Ottawa that prompted Mr. Harper to muse about a snap election. I believe Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin planned to make my story public during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on August 8. It was apparent that Mr. Bush instructed the Georgian president to provoke a war with Russia earlier that day in order to foil Mr. Putin's plan in Beijing. (By the way, I was so appalled that a respected host of five former secretaries of state on CNN could not even get the very basic fact of Georgia-Russian conflict straight, the fresh fact I provided here aside. If the guest had not been a person of Gen. Colin Powell's stature, he would have challenged the General that it was the Georgians who deliberately started the war.)
I did not want to see the military conflict escalate to the brink of a new cold war in the long term or to the benefit of McCain presidential campaign in the short term. I believe both the U.S. and the world needed a change and a President McCain would almost surely follow Bush's disastrous policies.
That's why I remain silent during the conflict, much to the chagrin of the Russians. Immediately after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia and the closing of Beijing Olympics, I paid a visit to the Russian Embassy in the last week of August. I wanted to say sorry to them. I also wanted to convey to them my consideration of U.S. presidential election in my decision.
However, I was a political asylum seeker and wanted to remain so. I could not say what I wanted to say plainly. So I decided to drop some hints.
My first hint was the two books I borrowed from SFU library just before I went to Ottawa. The first book was American business in China: balancing culture and communication. I personally liked the book because it was a business book written by two experts on intercultural communications, an area I had been interested in. The meaning I hoped to convey to everyone was that U.S.-China has mutually beneficial economic relationship and we should try our best not to jeopardize it. Remember, the world was at the brink of cold war at the time due to Bush's recklessness.
The second book was The arc of Japan's economic development. I could not find any books on the impending burst of U.S. economic bubble and this book was a close approximate. I knew that if the U.S. election was to be fought on economy - which it should be given the economic deterioration of late - it would increase Obama's chance. Of course, I could not predict that the U.S. economic bubble would explode in such a dramatic way or in less than a month. (What bothered me was that too many smart people around of the world tended to overanalyze me and give my actions more meanings or credits than I ever thought of. For example, I later found that people would give the number two (books) the meaning of eleven or November. Frankly, I did not think of that at the time. Remember, not everything I do has some significant political meanings, especially since I do not even know which actions of mine are "public".) In any case, my goal with borrowing these two books was to point to their common subject, i.e., the economy.
My second chance of dropping hints came with my conversations with the Russian embassy. I kept looking at my American Eagle Outfitters backpack while talking to them about my political asylum application. When Mr. Putin gave an interview to CNN later that week, linking Georgian provocation with U.S. election, I knew I had succeeded with my trip.
Now, when I made that decision to postpone the "zero hour", I did fear one thing, my own life. Since I had been tortured in mental hospital with the knowledge of George W. Bush, forced to take suicide-inducing drugs and assaulted in prison orchestrated by Harper government from behind the scenes, I knew the chance was very high that Messrs. Bush and Harper could always attempt on my life again to blow up everything so as to elect Sen. McCain. This scenario became more probable when Mr. Harper ratcheted up his election urgency to beat the U.S. vote date. (Indeed, right after Canadians voted on October 14, there was at least one attempt which involved a traffic-violating vehicle and a helicopter.)
Frankly, I had not planned to do anything after coming back from Ottawa. I just planned to be extra careful between these two voting dates. It was the financial market meltdown in mid-September that changed my plan. The meltdown increased the likelihood that Messrs. Bush and Harper would make a news out of me so as to influence the U.S. election. Indeed, there appeared to be suspicious persons or activities around me whenever I went out of my home after I came back from Ottawa.
That's why I borrowed 7 books from Vancouver Public Library on September 17, in the middle of market meltdown. The number 7 has a very ominous meaning in Chinese politics because hardcore anti-China forces of the world wanted to see China be divided into 7 pieces. Therefore, my borrowing 7 books that day was almost a cry for attention.
The Bush administration took the bait readily. The next day, secretary Rice gave a scathing speech on Russia. (Frankly, it was long on rhetoric and short on substance.) I soon noticed that I was introduced to the U.S. presidential campaign. And I knew I would be safe for the time being. Indeed, I remained in the background throughout the campaign.
The second opportunity for my debut and the peaceful transfer of Chinese power was the APEC Summit on November 22-23 in Peru. Insofar as I unwittingly picked or contributed in picking this date, President-elect Obama correctly pointed that out during the campaign with the phrase "an act of God", which, by the way, Sen. McCain subsequently mocked using the same phrase.
There were other examples suggesting my being in the background of the campaign, such as:
- An Obama campaign staff telling his counterpart in McCain camp on TV that "you guys over-reacted".
- An Obama campaign staff telling his counterpart in McCain camp on TV that "you guys confused strategy with tactics".
- The first public statements by both Obama and McCain after the vote were about sleep, in apparent reference to my Summer Hibernation blog.
- The final word of Sen. McCain was: "We don't hide from history. We make history." This was in reference to my quote on reactionaries, which are usually defined as those who go against history. Sen. McCain was obviously becoming more and more frustrated in the last stretch of the campaign that I had not been in the open. -- Another campaign rhetoric of his was: "Stand up. Stand up and fight."
- A worried U.S. lawmaker told a puzzled ABC host George Stephanopoulos on the financial crisis: "We can't talk about this on Sunday morning talk shows", knowing that I will be watching.
- Of course, there was Vice-President-elect Biden's famous gaffe about a major test for the Obama administration within six month. Sen. Biden was clearly spun.
On the day before the APEC meeting, my SFU website was taken down by the government. As such, the plan to peacefully transfer the power from Hu to me was again disrupted. I was naturally quite frustrated. Since I understood it was President-elect Obama's preference, too, to stick with the plan and thus avoid inheriting Bush's negative legacy, I decided to ask for his help. That's why I went to two libraries on November 29 to make my borrowing records 3 (VPL), 4 (SFU) and 4 (UBC) from 3 (VPL) and 5 (SFU). My message was: "You and I wanted November. Look what we get." Disorderly transfer of power and potential chaos is not only bad for China, but also for the world.
Unfortunately, President-elect Obama took the message the wrong way. To be fair, the four Chinese books I borrowed from UBC that day might be the problem. President-elect Obama must have thought that I was rebuking what President Clinton said about him during the campaign. Since they injected political or nuclear meanings to my original blog, the wrong message President-elect Obama got must have been that I was challenging him nuclear. Indeed, when I borrowed those four books, Clinton's campaign speech was nowhere near my mind. The only thing in my mind was to borrow four books. I went to UBC's Asian library (thus borrowed Chinese books instead of English ones) because, up to that time, I had always visited Asian library each and every time I went to UBC. Of course, the total number 11 might be considered as a deliberate affront to the Americans. But I did want to convey a sense of potential direness of the situation here.
In the morning of Monday, December 1, Mr. Obama replied my message with his news conference announcing 6 members of his national security team. His message was that he wanted to move me down to the 6th generation of Chinese leadership. (In his first news conference after the election, he announced 4 nominations, indicating his support of my 4th generation status, just like what he did a couple of times during the campaign. In the next two news conferences, he announced 2 nominations each, indicating his preference in sticking with the November schedule.) However, from my own source of information, I also knew that if I accepted his message, they (US and Canadian governments) would use my dignity photos to crush my credibility, even threaten that Hong Kong might be in play. (Presumably, they knew I could not fully understand Cantonese.) This really got my blood boiling. I immediately left for SFU library.
If by the will of God, I hold the truth on U.S.-China nuclear relations, I am not going to let anybody bully me. I checked out two books from SFU:
I only kept the second book for a few hours before I returned it. I also returned the 4 books to UBC library on the same day. Therefore, I came down to 3 (VPL) and 5 (SFU) books again. The messages were clear, besides telling Obama that I understand his message: (1) China's status in East Asia is being taken down off the table; (2) there is a great opportunity for U.S. and China to engage in dialogue on global issues such as economy and climate; and (3) I still wanted an orderly transfer of power in China.
(By the way, both books are supplemental to a key book I have been reading since September: The democracy of the dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the hope for democracy in China. I learned of this political philosophy book from American business in China: Balancing culture and communication. Soon I realized it was an important book and I did not want anyone know that I was reading it. So I moved the book to another location in the library (sorry) and read it there. It was from Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric that I first suspected that I was followed inside the library. This was confirmed on the day I finally decided to check the book out on my card - somebody had slightly and deliberately moved that book. By the way, the final due date for this book was December 3. That's another reason why the consensus among people on my side was to stick to the November schedule. -- I said this before and I will say it again: When Messrs. Bush and Harper say that they want to promote democracy and human rights around the world, don't believe it.)
When I came back from SFU library in the evening, I noticed that a police car was watching me near my home, just like on a few other occasions. Bully.
After the political crisis manufactured by Mr. Harper in Ottawa, I wrote a letter to GG and tried to break the news myself through radio phone-ins. This was not easy, partly because the Harper government was able to stay one step ahead of me, partly because I am orally-challenged. After I blogged about part of my experience in trying to get on the radio, Messrs. Bush and Harper raised their ransom again. This time, they wanted me to admit that I was being considered for the 4th generation of Chinese leadership, using again my dignity photos as blackmail. Apparently they did not want me to confront Mr. Michael Coren on the radio. I was incensed. If they are so interested in my readings, I hope they at least learn one concept there: Junzi.
After some deliberation, I decided to tell the truth. And I hope truth shall set me free.