I’m watching the NBA 2010 All-Star Weekend festivities right now on BTV 6, Beijing’s sports channel. (CCTV 5 would probably have this in other years, but today it’s showing the Winter Olympics.) After Steve Nash won the skills competition, Dwyane Wade stepped to center court and gave a short speech asking people to contribute to relief efforts for the Haiti earthquake. At the end he said, “And now please listen to this special message from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.”

The broadcast immediately switched back to the BTV studio, where the three hosts babbled for about five minutes straight. I can’t imagine that the NBA didn’t allow this message to be shown in China, so I can only assume it was BTV’s decision. I haven’t found any video clips posted online yet, but I did find the website for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which somehow hasn’t been blocked in China. Here are some excerpts from the homepage:

On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense. . .

Our immediate priority is to save lives. The critical needs in Haiti are great, but they are also simple: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. The best way concerned citizens can help is to donate funds that will go directly to supplying these material needs. . .

We ask each of you to give what you can to help ensure the people of Haiti can build back stronger and better than ever.

It’s too bad the ex-Presidents haven taken such an extreme position and chosen to use such inflammatory language. I can only hope that broadcasters around the world, American ones included, followed BTV’s lead and did not let this message go out.

UPDATE: NBA China uses oblique means and stealthy feints to implant another controversial message from Dwyane “Time Delay Capsule” Wade. This time he smiles and wishes the Chinese people a happy new year — in Chinese! Disgusting.

ODB just passed along a great interview from the new English language edition of China’s Global Times newspaper. GT’s Lu Jingxian talks with Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress and American Council for World Jewry. (It’s unclear whether or not Mr. Rosen is related to the well-known Dr. Rosen in Los Angeles.)

The tone of the interview reminds me of countless conversations I have had on politics here in China. The Chinese interviewer gets right to the point with a blunt statement and question:

American Jews are known for their formidable lobbying power in the US. How is this accomplished?

I get in a Beijing taxi and tell the driver my destination. He puts the car in gear and looks at me in the rearview mirror as the car starts to move. “Which country are you from?”

“The United States.”

“You Americans love to start wars!”

GT: The AJC is a powerful political group in the US. China is also learning to build more lobbying power there. What stage are Chinese currently at? What are your suggestions?

Rosen: The primary objective of the Jewish lobby has been in keeping US values.

If you go back 40 years, the Jewish lobby was lobbying on behalf of individual rights and civil rights. And they did it for African Americans, they did it for Latin Americans, and they did it for Chinese.

Working hard for the rights of individuals is a core US value. The Jewish lobby gained that influence by lobbying on behalf of issues that 90 percent of Americans would agree with.

Then there is the issue of Israel. Why are Jewish groups so successful in lobbying for Israel? Again the American public is very supportive of the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country in the Middle East that gives equal rights and freedom to everyone. Woman have equal rights in Israel.

So it’s easy to lobby for Israel, because 90 percent of Americans believe in what you are lobbying for….

That sounds about right.

If you ask if the Chinese community has a strong lobby, I don’t believe so, because they don’t lobby for those kinds of issues. What do they lobby for? “Love us Chinese?” It’s a nice idea, but it has no substance.

We don’t say, “We are Jews, love us, and make us powerful.” We have specific issue that we fight for. And the result is we become the leadership. We are very active in government in very high positions.

Usually it’s someone over 40. I can tell at the beginning of the conversation if the question is coming or not. I can feel how bad he wants to ask it, but he doesn’t seem sure how to put it. “So….do you like China?”

A thousand thoughts pass through my mind from the last fifteen years of study, life, work, travel, and thought about China. This question will take another fifteen years to answer properly. I suspect my face is betraying panic and confusion and try to maintain a casual expression. I take the easy way out. “Ummm…Yes? Yes, sure.”

GT: For Chinese to lobby in the US, obviously we have ideological clashes. How can Chinese remove that barrier and win the hearts and minds of American public?

Rosen: You have to understand there are differences. The US people understand you have something to offer, and they accept the differences. They disagree with you publicly sometimes, but we have to find things in common.

We do have ideological differences, but they don’t matter compared with things we cooperate on. They won’t affect Chinese investment in US and US investment in China. They won’t affect economic policies, and they won’t matter where we support each other over issues of concern.

They will matter if there is an issue. Regarding Sudan, Americans care about humanitarian issues. You need to take the time, make the effort, and get the American people to understand you.

China’s position on Sudan aside, Rosen has a point. A couple of recent Global Times articles (one from September 30 and one from November 10) on Sino-Sudanese relations rely almost solely on official (and generally positive) Sudanese government statements; comments from the Chinese side, whether from the government or the reporter, are conspicuous in their absence.

GT: Inside the US, what is the general attitude of the Jewish population toward China?

Rosen: It’s a positive one. We know China has no anti-Semitism. We are always thankful of Chinese people for that and for those Chinese who saved Jews in World War II.

No anti-Semitism? Not so sure about that. At the very least there’s a tortured mix of admiration and envy — a less negative version of common Chinese attitudes toward the US and Japan.

GT: Last year, several Jewish groups in the US called for boycotting the Beijing Olympics. How should we see this?

Rosen: They probably didn’t call for boycotting Beijing Olympics because of Jewish issues, but for some other issues….

The Jewish community tends to be very liberal and they may disagree with certain issues in your country or countries you support. American people and some in the world oppose that, and some of them are Jewish.

The taxi driver again: “Why are you wearing that uniform?”

“I’m going to play soccer.”

“But you’re American!”

(neither of us knows what to say next)

GT: There are some Jewish politicians in the US who take a strong stance against China. What’s their influence on US policy toward China?

Rosen: The fact that they are Jewish is not relevant. They are politicians, American politicians, and they represent Americans. They may happen to be Jewish, and they may disagree with some Chinese issues, but connecting the two is not correct…

At this point the reporter seems to be trying hard to restrain himself from shouting, “Why don’t you Jews love us Chinese?!?”

GT: Chinese companies may meet local resistance when they try to expand in the US market. How should they work to avoid that?

I don’t think Chinese companies are particularly anticipating these problems, working through them, and doing the right public relations campaigns.

Rosen: I don’t think Chinese companies have problems in the US. Some Chinese companies have problems entering into the US market. It depends on the industrial sector they operate in. Chinese entrepreneurs are quite welcome in the US and they shouldn’t be fearful of that.

But on some sensitive business, China has to be thoughtful of what the reaction would be. They have to anticipate the reaction and work to limit the damage of that reaction.

Chinese business can’t just parachute into America. They have to anticipate the problems involved. The technology sector is probably problematic.

That’s good advice for both sides.

Bonus link 1: Here’s a “foreign view” published in the Global Times in August that discusses the lingering stereotype of the  Wealthy Jew in China.

Bonus link 2: There’s a tiny link on the Global Times article for True Xinjiang, which appears to be ssimilar in concept to the entertaining China Tibet Information Center and ChinaTaiwan.org.

Think about it.  The sitting mayor of Baltimore is on trial for petty theft.

Meanwhile, while American city mayors are bogging their cities down by committing criminal activities, Shanghai is emerging as world economic center.  Well, I suppose Shanghai did have its Chen Liangyu.

Here’s hoping Dixon meets the same fate.

The Guardian reports on a Chinese clothing company that has angered Iranians by creating a line of jeans bearing the Islamic expression “In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful”.

A Chinese clothing manufacturer probably thought it was on to a winner by exporting jeans bearing the Islamic expression “In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful” to Iran. But an otherwise sound marketing ploy was undone by one embarrassing flaw: the phrase (Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim in Arabic), which graces each of the Qur’an’s 114 chapters, was prominently displayed on the pockets of the jeans’ backsides, something likely to be seen as disrespectful by devout Muslims.

The Guardian is quoting Asriran.com who is accusing China of “attacking Iranian Muslim sacred symbols in the most offensive manner”. Also, the importers of the Jeans have been arrested.

The Middle East Media Research Institute – MEMRI reports on who the Syrians think are behind a recent disturbance in China.

In a recent article in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, Syrian columnist Dr. Farid Hatem Al-Shahf wrote that it was the U.S. that was instigating the rioting by the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang, China. The U.S.‘s goal in doing so, he explained, was to pressure China so that it would agree to purchase U.S. government bonds and thus rescue the collapsing U.S. economy.

Another quote:

But wonder of wonders, they [the US] set up a great outcry over the Muslims of Xinjiang, who are [actually] victims of riots arranged by dubious circles in the U.S. and the West. The media, which has [always] turned a blind eye, and is still turning a blind eye, to the actions of the U.S. and its allies against Muslims all over the world, was summoned to cover the events [in Xinjiang]. It [continued to] ignore the fact that what was done and is still being done to the Muslims in China and elsewhere is clearly instigated by the U.S.

SHTig’s commentary to this news story are in blue

Aside from the Miss Switzerland pageant, it was clearly the top story of the weekend!

I was curious about the ”763 batches of Chinese milk found chemical free” link, however, so I searched the site for the keyword “milk”. Turns out there has been a lot of news about milk in the past couple of weeks. It’s all terribly complicated, and I’m still sorting out the facts. But these articles, all taken from China Daily and Xinhua, have been particularly helpful:

• “Shenzhou VII sets standard for China-made products“
• “Prompt response“
• “Wen stresses business ethics“
• “Mother offers fresh alternative“
• “Major Chinese dairy producers promise to improve“
• “Untainted milk not hit by scandal“

More than 100 terror victims filed a class action lawsuit August 21 against the Los Angeles branch of Bank of China (BOC) for allowing millions of dollars to be wired by Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Hamas and PIJ are designated terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, and such wire transfers are a crime under American law…

The plaintiffs allege that beginning in 2003, BOC executed dozens of wire transfers for the Hamas and PIJ totaling several million dollars. These dollar transfers were initiated by PIJ and Hamas leadership in Iran and Syria, were processed through BOC’s branches in the United States, and were sent on to a BOC account operated by a senior operative of the Hamas and PIJ in southern China’s Guangzhou City. If the accusation is true, BOC would have facilitated the funding of terrorist activities. 

In 2005, Israel counter-terrorism officers met with officials from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and BOC regarding these wire transfers. Despite Israeli warnings, BOC persisted in wiring funds for Hamas and PIJ. 

If true, this is another example of how China’s “internal affairs” (in this case, corruption and lack of oversight) inevitably become external problems that affect the rest of the world.

This article about Ghanaians in China popped up in my Google news alert yesterday. It contains some letters from Ghanians currently stuck in China, including this one from someone currently in Wuhan:

There are a lot of Ghanaians who are stranded here in China.

Most of them have no food to eat let alone job to do. Especially in Guangzhou many Ghanaians are behind bars for overstaying their visas. . . .

Most of the people here cannot even locate their passport, the reason being either they have been cheated by agents who promise to renew it and could not, so making away with the passport and the money or giving out to a friend to use and could not locate the friend again. . . .

I am writing from Wuhan a province in China. My passport has expired for a year now and I want to go home but I cannot. There is no work for me to do too, I have been hiding here for almost three months without a job.

I have posted before about the experiences of an American black man in China, but I rarely see much about Africans here. The girls at Pizza Buffet! did a podcast about Guangzhou earlier this year, and that was the first time I had heard about the large number of Africans living in Guangzhou, many illegally.

A few weeks ago SHTig and I were discussing immigration to and from China–for the last couple hundred years, there has been a lot of the latter but almost none of the former. Aside from North Korean refugees, the only other people coming to China in search of a better life are the Africans.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened and it doesn’t surprise me anymore,” Olympic Committee of Israel General Secretary Efraim Zinger told The Jerusalem Post.

“My heart goes out to the Iranian athletes. In the Athens Olympics one of their sportsmen, who was a gold medal favorite, had to pull out because he was drawn against an Israeli.”

“There’s no place for this kind of behavior in the Olympic movement and it’s a shame it continues.”