End Washington’s spurious extradition ‘lawfare’ now

It’s high time to return ‘the two Michaels’ and Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou to their respective homes
Alex Lo Published: 25 Jun, 2020

Canada and the United States may look similar but they are two very different countries.

The US is fundamentally a national security state for which the laws are made or remade to suit national security priorities. This is perhaps inevitable, as it has, after all, to maintain a global empire secured by the world’s most powerful military.


Canada, on the other hand, is probably as close as any country that has been able to run genuinely by the rule of law.

There is perhaps nothing as stark as the clash between American “lawfare” and the Canadian rule of law as in the tragic affair of “the two Michaels” and Huawei’s No 2, Meng Wanzhou.

It’s now clear as day the American case against Meng is part of Washington’s ruthless campaign to destroy the Chinese telecoms giant and its global 5G ambitions. Nor is there any doubt that the Chinese arrest of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – who have been charged with espionage – is directly linked to Meng’s detention in Vancouver.

Both China and the US have acted disgracefully and immorally. Likely to be apprehensive that many allies with which the US has an extradition treaty would challenge their arrest request for Meng, US authorities spent months, according to court testimonies, “shopping” for a reliable country that would do the deed without question.


China accuses detained Canadians of spying, following Huawei CFO extradition approval

Once all hell had proverbially broken loose, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Canadian pork, beef, canola, soy and peas rejected or banned by China and with the two Canadians in detention, Washington didn’t lift a finger to help a loyal ally.

Yet, Ottawa continues to insist the Meng case must be brought to an end in court before its justice minister can make a decision on the extradition. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the rule of law must be upheld.

Canadian Michael Kovrig’s wife calls for intervention in Meng Wanzhou case
24 Jun 2020


Now, though, a former justice minister and a former Supreme Court judge have come out to confirm that by law, the minister of justice has full power to halt an extradition proceeding. Factors to be considered include national interests. Kovrig’s father and his separated wife now demand the minister to act

If ever there is a legal case to be decided on the basis of the Canadian national interest, it’s this one. Americans will complain, but no one else will think the rule of law has been breached. It’s time to put an end to this sorry saga.


Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.

America is the world’s most powerful rogue state

Every state murders and pillages to some extent, but when you are the hegemon, it’s called promoting democracy and freedom. After all, the victor writes the history


Alex Lo Published:  15 Jun, 2020

America has never been a champion of democracy. That was what I wrote yesterday. But a reader pointed out that I only listed three terrifying incidents of US subversion involving the deaths of hundreds of thousands to millions: Indonesia in 1965 and 1966, the traumatic birth of Bangladesh in 1971, and the overthrow and killing of democratically elected Salvador Allende Gossens of Chile in 1973.

He is right; three incidents hardly count as “never”. Today, I have more space. Just a random example: the kind of bananas we get in supermarkets is a legacy due mostly to the United Fruit Company that turned numerous South American countries literally into “banana republics” with the help of the US military and Central Intelligence Agency up to the 1970s.

Still, the list of US subversions around the world is just too long. Stephen Kinzer’s 2007 Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, has a pretty full list. I still recall my life-changing experience of reading, in college, the two-volume Political Economy of Human Rights by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman. Unfortunately, it’s dated, as it only runs up to 1979.

Also, they skip many US subversions against non-state actors, the only type of which you ever hear about are terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, rather than legitimate political parties, popular democratic movements, labour and socialist groups, and persecuted ethnic and peasant organisations, especially in South America.

On a less bloody note, The New York Times cited a 2016 study by Dov H. Levin, now an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, who found that the US carried out both covert and overt election manipulation operations in other countries 81 times between 1946 and 2000, against 36 by the Soviet Union. These were not outright regime change or military takeover, but “influence operations”, exactly what Washington had angrily denounced the Russians for doing during the 2016 American presidential election.

Sometimes, though, it was a combination of terror and influence operations, such as those against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, by the Reagan administration, which funded, armed and trained the terrorist and drug-smuggling Contras and led to the Iran-Contra scandal. Subsequently, it tried less bloody influence operations and helped the opposition win the 1990 election.

Given Washington’s past behaviour, I have no doubt that it has been conducting at least “influence operations” in Hong Kong. But as anti-China hostilities intensify, our city is being turned into a battleground.

Is the US economy an oligarchy?




This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: US is the world’s most powerful rogue state


Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.

How coronavirus bailouts can kick off a ‘Great Reset’ – for a fairer, greener economy

Governments must use today’s short-term rescue measures to encourage more responsible business practices, save jobs, address inequality and climate change, and build resilience against shocks

Saadia Zahidi Published: 28 Jun, 2020

The Next Generation EU crisis fund, unveiled by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month, should be taken as a model in promising a fair and inclusive recovery by accelerating the transition to a green digital economy. Photo: European Commission/DPA
As the pandemic-induced lockdown wreaks havoc on the global economy, exposing the inadequacies of many institutions, an era of bigger – and perhaps bolder – government has arrived.

Already, an estimated US$9 trillion has been pumped into the global economy to support households, stem job losses and keep businesses afloat. As some countries emerge from lockdowns, their leaders have a unique opportunity to reshape the economy to provide better, greener and more equitable outcomes for all – what the World Economic Forum deems the “Great Reset”.]\

Building on lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis, many governments are attaching meaningful conditions to bailouts and other rescue measures. This short-term help can and should be leveraged to encourage more responsible business practices, save jobs, address inequality and climate change, and build long-term resilience against shocks.

For example, France, Denmark and Poland have denied government support to companies with headquarters in tax havens outside Europe. And Britain has banned dividend payments and restricted bonuses in companies accessing its loan scheme.

Governments are also safeguarding jobs by providing incentives for companies to maintain employment levels. US companies accessing Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds must maintain at least 90 per cent of pre-pandemic employment levels until September 30. Japan has applied similar conditions in extending employee-retention help to companies.

Meanwhile, Russia is subsidising wages for companies that retain at least 90 per cent of their workforce, and Italy is implementing a temporary ban on dismissals. It remains to be seen if employment will be maintained after the restrictions are lifted but, for now, they provide a cushion – and a fighting chance – for workers.

Even in deeply distressed sectors such as the
airline industry, rescue measures are being designed to emphasise social and environmental responsibility, and encourage more long-term thinking.
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Over the past decade, the largest airlines in the United States spent 96 per cent of their free cash flow on share buy-backs, nearly double the rate of other S&P 500 companies. Now, cash-strapped airlines wishing to access government funds must not only cease stock buy-backs and dividend payments until the end of next year, but also agree not to use involuntary furloughs or reduce pay rates until September 30.

Likewise, the French government attached “green strings” to its €7 billion (US$7.9 billion)
bailout of Air France-KLM, requiring that it commit to halving carbon dioxide emissions (per passenger and per kilometre), relative to its 2005 level, by 2030.

Embedding long-term thinking into short-term measures are steps in the right direction. But given the sheer scale of fiscal support being provided and rising concerns about inequality, climate change, unemployment and public debt, the next wave of recovery measures should go further.

The European Commission’s
Next Generation EU crisis fund should be taken as a model. With €750 billion in grants and loans, it promises a fair and inclusive recovery by accelerating the transition to a green digital economy. It would help European countries shift from declining heavy industries while supporting vulnerable workers. But whether all European Union states will get on board remains to be seen.



Experts reluctant to predict end of Covid-19 pandemic as global case numbers keep setting records 

The pandemic has thrust governments into a more proactive role than anyone would have imagined just a few months ago. Beyond the immediate health crisis, policymakers must seize the opportunity to implement bold reforms. That includes redesigning social contracts, providing adequate safety nets, cultivating the skills and jobs the future economy will need, and improving the distribution of risk and return between the public, state and private sector.

But while governments must assume leadership, shaping the recovery and charting a new course for growth will require greater collaboration between businesses, public and government institutions, and workers. For the Great Reset to succeed, all stakeholders must have a hand in it.

We cannot return to a system that benefited a few at the expense of many. Forced to manage short-term pressures and confront long-term uncertainties, leaders find themselves at a historic crossroads. Governments’ new clout gives them the means to start building fairer, more sustainable and more resilient economies.

Saadia Zahidi is managing director and head of the Centre for the New Economy and Society at the World Economic Forum. Copyright: Project Syndicate
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Bailouts can kick off a great economic reset

Saadia Zahidi
is managing director and head of the Centre for the New Economy and Society at the World Economic Forum.

How London’s wealth was built on the backs of slaves

More than 3,000 voyages engaged in the trade in enslaved Africans left from London, responsible for transporting at least 800,000 into slavery

Many in the city made their fortunes off the back of slavery and colonial oppression, a fact that is only now being partially acknowledged

Bloomberg Published: 24 Jun, 2020


A statue of a City of London dragon stands on a street lamp outside the Royal Exchange in the City of London. Photo: Bloomberg

If there’s one thing that foretold the City of London’s ambition to become the epicentre of finance it was the founding of the Royal Exchange almost 500 years ago.

The driving force behind the capital’s first purpose-built centre for trading stocks was Sir Thomas Gresham, whose legacy survives in the college, City street and law of economics that bear his name.

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Less celebrated is the role of his prominent backer in the venture, Sir William Garrard: former Lord Mayor and pioneer of English involvement in the slave trade.

The City of London is interwoven with so many layers of history, from Roman to medieval, the civil war and the age of empire, that the lives of the myriad figures who contributed to its status today are often obscured by time.

A sign for the street named after Sir Thomas Gresham sits on a building in the City of London. Photo: Bloomberg

But with outside scrutiny comes the realisation that many made their fortunes off the back of slavery and colonial oppression, a fact that is now being acknowledged by some of the financial district’s most venerable names, shaking the foundations upon which many of these institutions were built.

The Bank of England apologised last week for “some inexcusable connections” to slavery by former governors. Barclays is examining its own history. While “we can’t change what’s gone before us,” the bank is committed to “do more to further foster our culture of inclusiveness, equality and diversity.”

“We understand that we cannot always be proud of our past,” Lloyd’s of London, which began life insuring ships and their cargo in the late 17th century, said in a statement. “In particular, we are sorry for the role played by the Lloyd’s market in the 18th and 19th century slave trade – an appalling and shameful period of English history, as well as our own.”

Those cases were far from isolated.

This was big business, and the rich men of the City were in the thick of itRichard Drayton, history professor

According to Richard Drayton, professor of imperial history at King’s College London,
Britain became the principal slaving nation of the modern world, with the City providing the finance to facilitate trade with the plantation colonies. “This was big business, and the rich men of the City were in the thick of it,” Drayton said in a lecture delivered in the Museum of London last October.

The “triangle trade” involved shipping manufactured goods to western Africa and exchanging them for human beings, who were transported in appalling conditions to the Caribbean and sold as slaves to work in the plantations.

The tobacco, rum and most of all the sugar that were the fruits of their forced labour were then taken back to Europe. “The formation of the City of London was shaped significantly by sugar,” said Nick Draper, one of the lead researchers on University College London’s groundbreaking Legacies of British Slave Ownership project. “Merchants in London would advance credit to planters and guarantee remittances to slave traders so that London merchant houses became the centre of this economic system built on Caribbean slavery.”

That uncomfortable, probing questions are now being asked of the institutions that profited from the trade is down to the Black Lives Matter movement that began in the
US and crossed the Atlantic, prompting a re-examining of the role of prominent figures with sometimes contradictory histories in London but also in the mercantile cities of Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow.

A protester holds a US flag during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of New York City Hall. Photo: DPA

More than 3,000 voyages of ships engaged in the trade in enslaved Africans left from London, responsible for transporting at least 800,000 people into slavery in the Americas, according to Diana Paton, a history professor at the University of Edinburgh. “The slavery economy ran on credit, an important proportion of which was extended by London-based individuals and firms,” she said.

Walk through the warren of ancient streets lined with discrete Victorian facades and modern steel-and-glass towers that make up London’s Square Mile – effectively a city within a city – and it’s possible to find echoes of that legacy.

Pubs with names like the Jamaica Wine House in St Michael’s Alley, or the Sugar Loaf on Cannon Street – while both housed in 19th century buildings constructed after the abolition of slavery – hint at what came before.

Whereas in the Elizabethan age, financiers like Garrard invested in the voyages of glorified privateers, by the 17th century the trade was more developed, if no less barbaric.

A section of the ‘Gilt of Cain’ monument commemorating the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade stands in the City of London. Photo: Bloomberg

Barbados became England’s first sugar producing colony in the 1640s, followed by Jamaica after it was seized from Spain. Cargoes of cane were landed at the sugar wharf beside the Tower of London at what is now Customs House. Cannon Street was the site of sugar refineries that helped fuel the rise of England, and after the union of 1707, Great Britain, to a world power.

In 1672 came the founding of the Royal African Company, an enterprise backed by the monarchy that historian William Pettigrew has said “shipped more enslaved African women, men and children to the Americas than any other single institution” during the transatlantic slave trade.

Its shareholders included 15 lord mayors and 38 City of London council members known as ldermen, according to Drayton. Edward Colston, whose statue was torn down and dumped in Bristol harbour this month, was a deputy governor. Its symbol – as stamped on guineas of the day made with African gold – was an elephant with a riding carriage, or houdah: the Elephant and Castle.

It’s not known if the symbol bears any relation to the London landmark of the same name, such are the layers of juxtaposed history. Take the Lloyd’s building: Located off Leadenhall, it occupies the site of the headquarters of the former East India Company, which employed a private army to appropriate the subcontinent’s wealth. The East India Company’s original marble fireplace was incorporated into the Foreign Office in Whitehall when it opened in 1868.

Pedestrians pass a section of the Lloyd's of London building in the City of London. Photo: Bloomberg


Some evidence of past complicity is barely concealed. In the basement of the Bank of England are the papers of one former governor, Humphry Morice, who was the largest slave trader of his day in the 1720s, according to Anne Ruderman, an assistant professor of economic history at the London School of Economics, who is writing a book on the transatlantic slave trade. “You can see the instructions that Morice wrote to his captains before sending them on slave voyages,” she said by email. “You can see detailed daily trading logs of how many enslaved people his captains purchased and at what prices.”

Still, the Guildhall off Moorgate, the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City since the 15th century, illustrates the difficulty in unpicking and assigning guilt to institutions. Inside is a statue of William Beckford, a two-times lord mayor and owner of thousands of acres of Jamaican plantations worked by slaves. The Guildhall was also the scene of a court case over the killing of more than 100 slaves at sea that spurred the anti-slavery movement, leading to full abolition in 1833.

Even then, Drayton said, slavery continued for decades in other countries in the Americas. “London was the close partner of the expansion of the cotton south in the United States, creating complex mortgage-backed securities which provided a paper veil for a new kind of slave-ownership,” he said.

David Barclay, one of the founders of the eponymous bank, was a “keen and committed advocate for abolition of the slave trade,” even as his bank then in Lombard Street financed plantation mortgages, causing him to suffer a “moral dilemma,” according to the UCL slave ownership project.

A sign hangs above an entrance to a branch of Barclays bank in the City of London. Photo: Bloomberg

The City’s institutions are now confronted with their own moral dilemma. Lloyd’s is among those to have pledged to invest in programmes to attract and develop black and minority ethnic talent. In 2018, 28 per cent of the City’s workforce was of non-white origin. The City of London Corporation, the financial district’s governing body, said it understands “it’s not enough to say that we are against racism but we have to work to eradicate racism in all that we do”.

Sajid Javid, the former chancellor of the exchequer, has spoken about his decision to leave the City for New York early in his career in part because of his ethnicity and class. “The UK has come a long way since then,” he told PBS. “But we still need to make sure we’re not complacent and we keep tackling racial injustice wherever we find it.”


Kehinde Andrews, a professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, says the wealth generated then is still with us now, helping to perpetuate the racial divide. “It’s not past, it’s very much the present and a continuation, and the banks are one of the key drivers,” he said. “The idea they can just apologise and have some more diversity is frankly insulting.”

It’s really hard to separate slavery from so many things that we know of in modern Britain Dominic Burris-North, tour guide

Dominic Burris-North is one of just two qualified “Blue Badge” guides who provide tours of the City focusing on its historic ties to the slave trade. The reactions, he says, are predominantly shock, horror and dismay. Burris-North has a personal connection to the dilemmas raised: he is the son of a father whose own parents came from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants invited to the UK after World War II.

“It’s really hard to separate slavery from so many things that we know of in modern Britain, from the royal family to our galleries to the British Museum to the Bank of England to former prime ministers – all of these names, all of these institutions,” he said. “As more people start to understand and hear about these things, eventually there will be a reckoning.”

White privilege: to dismantle it, we must first learn to identify it

George Floyd’s death has led the Western world to examine the privilege it has accumulated through centuries of oppression of black and other non-white people
Undoing the damage is an uncomfortable task that will take generations, but it starts by not looking away

OPINION Chandran Nair Published: 28 Jun, 2020

A woman marches during a demonstration on June 14 in Barcelona. Photo: AFP

When George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in May, it tore open the racial fault lines that have run through the United States for centuries. The impact was felt elsewhere in the Anglosphere, particularly in Britain, stirring renewed debate about the nature and scale of white privilege.

On June 18, the Church of England and the Bank of England admitted to being complicit in hundreds of years of oppression of black populations across the world. It took these institutions centuries to come out of actively practised denial, so on that front, this is a historic moment.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on the other hand, suggested it was unfair to “photoshop British history” when referring to the removal of statues of slave owners, as if they were somehow worth maintaining. This societal delusion and amnesia are ingrained in many white views of race issues today, aided by centuries of not having that world view challenged.

To have honest conversations about white privilege, there is a need for everyone (white or otherwise) to recognise what it is, acknowledge how widespread it is, and reflect on the damage it has done.

There is no running away from the large-scale impact resulting from European conquest of the world, which was predicated on the belief that White superiority must prevail in the world order.

Firstly, it must be understood that white privilege is a system that allows for white narratives to take hold globally and be actively spread. It is not restricted to the US and the systemic oppression of black people there. It is insidious, and it pervades many systems that govern how the modern world operates.

This globalisation of white privilege has allowed for the notion of superiority to be planted and enforced across the world, enabling other privileges to be born and old ones further enshrined.

We should be conscious of how white privilege intimidates, stifles or abuses others; and conversely, how it is actively cultivated and camouflaged for all its inherent benefits. We should examine where it makes non-whites want to imitate white people and even live like them, or how it offers a “free pass” to white people globally, often through conferred social status. And underpinning all of this, how white privilege maintains and reproduces economic power over all others.

An honest – yet respectful – examination of its ubiquity is the only way to fight contemporary white racism in all its permutations, and come to terms with the historical events that have created and spread white privilege. This goes to the heart of the global debate on race and power.

People at a rally in Missouri to protest the death of George Floyd. Photo: AP
Secondly, white people seeking to recognise their own privilege should do so in a way that does not let emotion cloud their understanding, through denying the existence of white privilege, or by seeking refuge in old arguments that racism is a global issue – and therefore racism perpetuated by white people isn’t worth singling out – to smokescreen the industrial scale of white racism over the last four centuries. Nor should we be resorting to racist insults in return.

The fact is that white privilege is unique because of its scale and global persistence. We need to be attuned to knowing where it lurks and thrives, while also understanding how often it is unrecognisable or deeply coded into long-established systems that many of us have accepted as norms.

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To do this, the first step is to acknowledge historical wrongdoings by coming to an agreed history of oppression and the consequent privileges that white people have accrued, which still persist and continue to be cultivated.

The next step is dealing with the impact of what was done across the world in the name of white supremacy. Facing these truths and undoing the damage is a monumental task that will take generations – an example is the process in South Africa. The US will need to do the same, from a national apology to deciding on reparations, and identifying and honouring all the victims of racist killings.

A poster seen at a protest in California on June 24, 2020. Photo: AFP

So how does white privilege manifest? How should we rethink its persistent and pervasive influence? To assist in this process, I have gathered some examples that demonstrate just how ubiquitous the perpetuation and preservation of white power is.

It is a starting point to encourage productive and honest discussions. Some may elicit discomfort, but it is high time that we do the work of dismantling white privilege and this means facing uncomfortable truths.

GEOPOLITICS

In the arena of geopolitics and multilateralism, the non-white global majority is wholly under-represented, from the United Nations Security Council to the G8.

The heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are an American and a European, respectively. Two of the world’s most important multilateral institutions practise a form of apartheid. White exceptionalism ensures that the West directs the rules of the so-called rules-based world order because it fears changes to its world order.

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At the moment, the dislike of China by the West and its media, which borders on xenophobia, is an example, and India will be next if it grows in power. Obsession with the spread of the West’s version of democracy is an instrument in this process. The Middle East has paid the highest price in recent years. The US in particular has been the driving force of this, and has been at war 225 of the 243 years since its inception, largely to spread and enforce Western democratic ideals.

The use of sanctions against opponents of the West, led by the US and, until recently, invariably supported by Europeans, is an example of trampling on international law and ignoring the deaths of hundreds of thousands, none of whom are white.

Western brands such as Starbucks are idealised as business heroes. Photo: SCMP

BUSINESS

In the business world, the promotion of ideas about globalisation, free markets, role of finance, are all done in accordance with the Western rule book.

A key vehicle for the spread of this ideology has been the leading Western business schools, and their march across regions like Asia has been relentless. They invariably idealise the superheroes of the Western business world, from Amazon to Apple and Starbucks.

The gatekeepers of the rules of governance of international business, despite systematically failing in their roles, are a cartel of four: Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young and KPMG, all of which are Western-owned.

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The same dominance is to be seen in the business consulting world through a handful of mainly US firms – McKinsey, BCG, Bain – as they churn out the same old ideas.

For IPOs and M&A, no global deal can be led by any legal firm except the largest ones from the US or Britain.

Leading investment banks worldwide are all Western, and some in the US have egregious histories of funding slave plantation expansion and even providing insurance for slave owners.

When it comes to ratings agencies, S&P Global Ratings, Moody’s, and Fitch Group are all Western, with no accord for a non-Western ratings organisation to join their ranks.

The West closing its doors to Huawei is an example of keeping the tech world in the control of Western powers.

The global ranking of universities and business schools is set by Western establishments. File photo: AFP

EDUCATION AND MINDS

Education is an area where examples abound. The prestige accorded to Western Ivy League universities, including the lavish donations to these institutions, even by Asians is a case in point.

Oxford and Cambridge, even in this day and age, have continued global pre-eminence, especially in former colonies. The global ranking of universities and business schools is dominated by Western establishments, and is perpetuated by Western publications with their eagerly awaited annual ranking.

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Models of Western education across all development stages are practised as the “pinnacle” of education across Asia and Africa.

Selective teachings of history are a particular irony. Fiction, philosophy and other lessons from Western, mostly male, authors have a special place in the literary canon, and are exported and venerated the world over – Dante, Homer, Kant, Shakespeare, Tolkien, and so on – while other literary greats or philosophers from non-white countries are majorly unknown.

The week to June 13 was the first time in British history that a black British author topped the UK book charts.

Books by Western authors such as JRR Tolkein have a special place in the literary canon. File photo: AP

MEDIA

The Western media plays an important role in this scheme of things. From outlets such as the BBC and CNN to The Guardian, Financial Times and The New York Times, Western media shapes the information that global middle classes and elites consume.

English is the lingua franca of the modern world, meaning English-sourced narratives are predominant. This is changing as other nations join the international media fold, resulting in one of the biggest ideological reckonings of our times as media discourse between the West and the Rest ekes it out on a multitude of platforms.

In addition, which books get published and put on global bestseller lists is largely decided by the Western publishing world. Few books on politics, economics, development or environment written in non-English languages are ever translated for a global audience.

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Western publishing agents favour Western authors and certain narratives. Only
select Asian or African writers who pander to the taste of Western audiences and their politics make it in – including stories about the monsoons, romantic views on Africa, white saviours, or awful indictments of the countries they hail from.

In the global media, commentary is dominated by Western writers and aligned to associated ideologies. Current fads include China-bashing, the dangers of a new world order, even climate – but seen through the narrow lens of the Western experience.

Leading global media outlets are blind to white privilege narratives and thus perpetuate it by the decisions they make daily in the narratives they choose to broadcast.

Peking opera is centuries older than Western opera. File photo: Reuters

CULTURE AND ENTERTAINMENT

Culture and entertainment has been one of the most powerful tools in promoting White superiority.

Hollywood leads the charge through movies, ranging from the promotion of Tarzan, John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe to the movies that vilified black people, Geronimo, the Yellow Peril, and portrayed freedom fighters from white colonisers as terrorists.

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Western pop music was another powerful tool with its global spread, making the Beatles and the Rolling Stones global icons – not Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley – while music from non-Western countries is callously labelled “world music”.

Western classical music is revered as a cultural pinnacle, while non-Western classical music is sidelined or not broadcast. Ballet is the ultimate historical dance form, not Kathakali from India or Shen Yun from China. The global prominence of Western opera, and not Peking opera – which is centuries older – paints the same picture.

US rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry. File photo: AFP

SPORT

Sport is not spared and is rife with racism. Ownership, management and coaching of the NBA, NFL, leading football clubs, and other major sports around the world are dominated by white people.

In certain sports such as basketball, black players act as modern-day gladiators and entertainers in arenas that cater to mainly white businesses and audiences, with sporting successes attributed to race and genetics, not individual hard work and intelligence.

Racism in European football has been co-opted into a liberal cause restricted to the sporting world, without confronting the deeper structural issues within society that enable this manifestation of racism in the first place.

I remember
https://t.co/KIRWpMHd62
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)
June 4, 2020

SAVING THE PLANET

When it comes to saving the planet, so-called global solutions are seen through the lens of the Western political economy and economists, the belief that no sacrifice – including a change in lifestyle – is needed to reconcile free market failings with environmental destruction and the rights of the global majority.

The belief that solutions to climate change and other global environmental challenges can only come from the research centres, leaders, activists and spokespersons from the West is widespread.

Teenage activist Greta Thunberg is now an icon – it is hard to think that a young African or Asian person would be cultivated into a global figure in a similar manner.

Non-Western experts and voices are ignored or silenced, despite climate change disproportionately impacting socioeconomically less-advantaged populations, most of whom live in non-white countries.

US fashion model Halima Aden, a refugee from Kenya, broke boundaries in 2017 as the first hijab-wearing model to grace magazine covers and walk in high-profile runway shows. Photo: Reuters


FASHION

The rarefied world of high fashion is an important influencer. Leading fashion houses are all Western and promote white fashion styles.

A white sense of female beauty has permeated the non-Western world – slim, sexualised and fair (including skin-whitening products and complexes).

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The hijab is perceived as oppressive, while a bikini is viewed as freedom. Then there is the erosion of traditional attire – replacing the Indian sari or the Burmese longyi with a Chanel outfit or Hugo Boss fabrics, both in the home and the workplace.

Cultures of fashion are belittled or appropriated. For example, indigenous clothing is looked down upon until it is co-opted by fashion houses. Gucci created a jumper that mimicked blackface last year. Commes Des Garcons made blonde cornrow wigs for white models this year.

The statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill is seen defaced at a rally in London outside the US Embassy on June 7. Photo: AFP

HISTORY

And finally there is the writing and teaching of history. In Western retelling of wars, there are often no non-Western heroes. In World War II, millions from Africa and Asia were denied their basic freedoms and died fighting for the West in a war that was waged to determine which Western country would continue to exploit them.

There is also the brushing aside of the crimes of the West – Churchill and his involvement in the genocide of 4 million Bengalis in 1943 is an example.

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Equally, no US history book regales you with how many native Americans were killed by white settlers, but US historians have precise numbers for atrocities committed by other nations.

There has been no apology for dropping a nuclear bomb on the people of Japan or for the three million killed in the Vietnam war and the carpet bombing of Laos.

Women in Vietnam still have Agent Orange in their breast milk and birth deformities run into the tens of thousands. Or even historical recognition of the crimes against humanity committed in the European conquest of the lands of native Americans, the First Nation Peoples of CANADA, Australia, or the Māori of New Zealand.

Protesters participate in a Black Lives Matter rally in Brisbane on June 6. Photo: EPA-EFE

Citing these examples is not to say that other races, nations or cultures have not engaged in racism, slavery, crimes against humanity or oppression of other civilisations.
Most have and some still do – just as the US does with its prison system today, there is the Indian caste system, racism against black people across  Asia, and the infringement of the rights of girls and women in numerous parts of the non-Western world.

But there is no running away from the large-scale impact resulting from European conquest of the world, which was predicated on the belief that white superiority must prevail in the world order.

It has ultimately shaped a world that – even today – is marked by global white privilege.

Black Lives Matter protests held across Asia

These interventions have also resulted in intra-national fragility and conflicts that persist today – for example, the conflicts in Myanmar, Kashmir, DR Congo and Palestine, to name a few.

We live in a moment when the #BlackLivesMatter movement provides a rare opportunity to expose and rectify practices which have, for far too long, been conveniently ignored in the interests of preserving and protecting white privilege.

Thus, if as a reader you find yourself thinking, “But Western intervention has helped create the globalised world we see today, with opportunities for prosperity in all countries”, or conclude that the points in the list above are simply manifestations of things that white people are “just better at”, then you are falling into the same trap that catches white supremacists.

This is where the hard work must be done: to dismantle the deeply ingrained mindsets that many of us possess. It’s not comfortable, it’s not easy, but now is the time to start.

It starts by not looking away.

Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow. He is the author of The Sustainable State . He lived and worked in southern Africa during the years of the liberation struggle.

From cultural prop to circus freak: the first Chinese woman in US

Afong Moy was brought to the US in 1834 to help sell Chinese goods to an eager American middle class, writes historian Nancy E. Davis

She met president Andrew Jackson and served as a cultural bridge, but ended up in a circus sideshow being mocked for her differences

Martin Witte Published:  3 Sep, 2019

An engraving of Afong Moy. Referred to as “the first Chinese woman to arrive in America”, Moy served as a cultural bridge between China and the United States, including in private and among elites, but was eventually relegated to little more than a sensationalised caricature resulting from racial and ethnic tensions.

The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America, by Nancy E. Davis. Published by Oxford University Press. 4 stars.

It requires an inventive streak to write extensively about a person whose known biography only fills a few pages. This is the long shot taken in The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America, by historian Nancy E. Davis, who refers to her as “the first Chinese woman to arrive in America”.

Davis’s ambition pays off. She augments scant available material about Moy, who was brought to the United States as a “cultural prop” to help sell Chinese goods, by painting in the negative space around her. While keeping Moy in sight, Davis branches off to detail, among other topics, the foundation of US-China trade and cultural ties, the beginnings of China’s manufacturing industry, and the transformation of 19th-century American society.

Moy arrived in New York in October 1834 at about 16 years of age. She has a documented history in the country spanning 17 years, the middle half of which were spent in relative obscurity in a poorhouse in New Jersey.

An advertisement for an “exhibition” of Afong Moy.

Davis divides Moy’s public life into two acts. First, she was an exotic “presenter” of Chinese-made goods. Later, after an absence from a leering public – fallout from the economic panic of 1837 made her an expendable luxury – she became a sideshow attraction from the late 1840s, mainly under the devices of American showman PT Barnum.

There are no known photographs of Moy, no reliable idea about how she felt about her experiences in America, and no record of her at all after 1850.

The merchants who brought her over from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (it seems that “money likely changed hands”) played up her “exoticism” – her bound feet, clothing and accessories – to promote the “authenticity” of Chinese imports.

She was taken on a 1,600-kilometre (1,000-mile) tour from New York to New Orleans, with a stop in Cuba, posing on stages alongside Chinese wares for sale. Moy was viewed by thousands of people, most of whom paid a small fee to lay their eyes on a Chinese woman for the first time.

Davis frequently references a lithograph printed to advertise Moy’s earliest “demonstrations”. The image most often associated with Moy (it is unknown whether it is an actual likeness) depicts her in Chinese dress and surrounded by vases, chairs, textiles and other products. The items displayed – like many Chinese goods manufactured today for foreign markets – were mass-produced, often knocked-off from European designs, and marked up in price for an American middle class eager to reap the rewards of expanding trade with China.

A newspaper clipping about Afong Moy.


While no solid impressions survive on how Moy herself felt about being objectified, there are hints. Davis writes that most disconcerting for her may have been “the attention paid to her by strange men in close proximity”, since women in China generally stayed out of public view. One business publication reported that “when some of them significantly ogled her through their quizzing glasses, we thought we saw on her brow, a frown of indignant rebuke”.

Not everyone was game to gawk at Moy. Some felt repulsed by what they regarded as a crass commercial venture that deprived her of dignity. An editorial in a New York City newspaper read: “We have not been to see Miss Afong Moy, the Chinese lady, nor do we intend to perform that ceremony to convert a lady into an exhibition. [It is] by no means to our taste.”

Later, Moy was able to communicate directly with audiences in English. She also sang, possibly the first performances in the United States of folk songs from her home province.

Cover of Nancy E. Davis’s The Chinese Lady.


She also emerged as something of a trendsetter – fashion plates depicted her “most becoming” hairstyle, stroked back from the forehead and knotted at the top of the head. It became a popular look widely adopted, especially by French women in New Orleans.

Moy’s last known chapter, unfortunately, relegated her to little more than a sensationalised caricature. From 1847, she was part of a circus sideshow, with PT Barnum pairing her with General Tom Thumb – his leading stage attraction – and joining her up with such figures as the Wonderful Monkey Man and the 430-pound (195-kilogram) Ohio Mammoth Girl. Her “differences” were mocked, and her personality was ridiculed.

A pamphlet advertising her oddity remarked that her “habits, everyday occupations and pursuits” were “opposite to all the received notions of every other civilised nation on the face of the earth”, and portrayed her as “vain, conceited, prideful and shallow”.

Animus towards outsiders was beginning to grow, and “a disdainful and derisive attitude toward the Chinese” had become standard. By 1850, Moy disappeared from Barnum’s spectacles, and she would be lost without further trace.

PT Barnum (left) and General Tom Thumb (stage name of Charles Sherwood Stratton) in a portrait circa 1850. Barnum founded Barnum & Bailey Circus, and for many years Tom Thumb was a popular dwarf performer in the circus.

Racial and ethnic tensions in Moy’s era resonate, depressingly, with American conditions today. The country she saw was gripped by nativism, as a fair chunk of Americans were wary of cultural and linguistic influences from overseas and advocated for tighter immigration and enfranchisement laws.

Davis emphasises that Moy, with her singular uniqueness, served as a cultural bridge between China and the United States, including in private and among elites. She met with President Andrew Jackson in February 1835, becoming, in the author’s words, the “first concrete example of China to a sitting American president”.

Portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president.

Davis’s book is a form of redress for a familiar injustice: the lives of the exploited, no matter how remarkable, rarely get remembered, much less told. Davis expresses hope that others can find out more about Moy, particularly from when history seemingly lost track of her, which would bring the “Chinese Lady” into greater relief.

If this happens, it would cast open wider a window into the treatment of women and racial minorities at tumultuous times in American history. And we might better grasp how attitudes and choices – about race, gender, culture and economics – shaped that society, and in turn help us assess the direction the country is going in today.

Asian Review of Books
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Significant, other: the first Chinese woman in America