Letter from China

There’s a Chinese artist in the news, who’s under investigation for economic crimes. Forgive me for not naming him but this column is emailed over the Great Firewall of China and it’s tiresome when you lose your internet connection. He has a beard and recently scattered some seeds in London. My Chinese wife has never heard of him.

In my previous career as an illegal magazine publisher in China (there’s no such thing as a legal one) I was investigated for economic crimes on a regular basis. No matter how naughty we had been with content, advertising or distribution, it was always the money that they came after.

One of many visits—the term “raids” is closer, but still doesn’t do it justice—was from the Culture Investigation Bureau, one of many that might investigate an outspoken artist. The name makes you think they’d be hunting the Chinese Elgin Marbles, or at least behave with a modicum of culture.

“How much money are you making?” they screamed. “We know you’ve got lots. Where is it? Where is your accountant? Get her in here now! How much? How much? Where is it? Where is it? We’ll find it!” That’s verbatim. After an hour of interrogation, they demanded I sign a statement. “After you,” I said. My lecturers at the School of Oriental and African Studies never covered the words they used in reply.

On their way out, the CIB seized some hard drives that they thought contained our financial records. They didn’t, but our loyal delivery man (a former Red Guard) put up a fight to keep up the pretence.

My experience is nothing compared to being locked up for months without charge, in a secret location, unable to contact your family or a lawyer. But it might give you a small idea of the way these things work.

Cleaning the streets

In early June, I was in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in northwest China for a five-day bicycle race. I’ve loved the area and its people since I first went there in 1993. My career as a magazine publisher was ended by the rumour that I supported independence for the Muslims of the region. At least it made a change from economic crimes.

After each day’s race my teammates and I would wander the town we were staying in that night. We ate street food, chatted to locals, and tried to work out their ethnicity: Han, Kazakh, Mongol, Uighur and so on.

One evening we found a popular street stall with a jovial Uighur proprietor. He was roasting marinated lamb kebabs on a charcoal brazier made of beaten metal. It had an elegant curved chimney that made it look like a mosque on wheels. On one side of his stall was a baker of fresh naan and on the other a fruit-seller. Perfect. We ordered food and took a table on the pavement.

Midway though our meal, panic swept down the street. Our chef and his neighbours hustled customers under the awnings of the shop fronts and pushed the tables in after us. A van pulled up and out jumped the dreaded chengguan, the urban administration and law enforcement bureau, known for their thuggery. These ones were polite, but delivered a severe ticking off and left.

“There’s a tidy-up campaign going on,” our host explained.

“Why now?” I asked him.

“Because you lot are in town,” he said. We finished our meal, which was delicious, cramped up against the wall.

When a golf course is not a golf course

Before the annual rains of late May and early June we had a run of dry weather. The reservoirs were critically low. For most of May the villagers at the foot of the mountain were rationed to two hours of running water a day. Much of the tall “feathery bamboo,” a cornerstone of the local economy, died before it grew more than a few feet.

But the good weather was a boon for the teams building three golf courses below our village. Work has proceeded at breakneck speed. Where once there were mountain slopes there are now cliff faces overlooking villa complexes, clubhouses, lakes, bunkers, all the trappings. The fairways are still bare earth but you can be sure they will soon be emerald green year round.

Golf courses are contentious luxuries in rural China. Strict rules forbid them being constructed on agricultural land. Last year, in a notorious case in a neighbouring county, the local government had to demolish a course and hand it back to the farmers. They also use vast quantities of water.

When I bumped into a local government official I “congratulated” him on getting away with building three golf courses.

“Those aren’t golf courses,” he said, with a wink. “They are practice ranges.”