Friday, June 01, 2018

Evicting people from slums in China

I am just back from vacation (and jet lag is hitting me again, twice in two weeks) so presumably the world hasn't ended, so I am okay.

But trying to catch up on the news, I am reading AlJ, who seems to be posting news outside of the latest Trumpie boy kerfuffles, i.e. stuff that might be important to some folks.

I had posted before about the Great Firewall of China (that limits their internet). But they also ban films: the most famous example was Avantar, (although the 3d version which played in a few theatres was allowed)....because, as the UK Guardian notes:

Parallels have reportedly been drawn between the plight of the Na'vi, who face the threat of eviction from their woodland home, and those in China vulnerable to displacement by predatory property developers.

but a more recent Chinese movie hit, the "Rambo" clone "Wolf Warrior 2", also starts with a similar plot to explain why he was thrown out of their military. as Wikipedia notes:

After the events of Wolf Warrior, Leng Feng and members of his special-ops team bring his comrade's remains back to his home town and his comrade's family for his funeral, only to see it on the verge of being torn down completely. A real estate company is pulling down his house and that of his comrade's family during the funeral.

so 90 minutes of pro Chinese rah rah patriotism, but starting with a five minute open criticism of government corruption. When I saw that, I wondered how that one got through censorship (or maybe it was only left in the foreign versions of the film).

well, anyway, AlJ today has an article on Bejing's evictions of the undesirable.


The Chinese authorities call them the "low-end population" - thousands of rural migrant workers who flee the poverty of rural China for better-paid jobs in metropolises like Beijing. They help build, clean and feed the capital. But they no longer fit the dazzling image President Xi Jinping wants for Beijing.
Translation: Instead of illegal immigrants from other countries, they are internal migrants living illegally in the cities doing jobs the locals don't want to do.

... Beijing is fine-tuning its five-year plan: to reduce the city's population by 15 percent by 2020, and they are pursuing this goal with unrelenting ruthlessness. 
To help transform this megacity, the capital has launched a campaign to get rid of its poorest residents. ntire neighbourhoods are being bulldozed, with residents often only given a few days to pack up their belongings and find new homes.

Urban renewal has often destroyed "slums" with planned housing... and as a side effect, destroyed the ties of family and friends in the neighborhoods that outsiders don't notice. Much of the inner city type renewal has had such casualties, but got little publicity. And, of course, when the yuppies take over it is seen as a good thing (except for locals, who oppose such "gentrification", i.e. replacing minority families with white yuppies)..

A lot of American movies have the themes of evil greedy developers taking land or homes from the innocent, but of course usually the victims are affluent folks in pristine rural farms etc.

I am ambivalent about this: Because when our coal mines shut down, people had no jobs and either migrated or went on welfare, but it was outsiders, not locals, who opposed resorts etc developing the land, something that would have made jobs available to locals.

But most of the American movies about the issue are so full of cliches and cardboard characters it is hard to take them seriously... and although we see the plot on TV/films one rarely sees this in real life.

However, the legal battle of eminent domain is the very real plot of the upcoming film Little Pink House.

Where do I stand on this issue? Well, both sides have their points.

And often here in the Philippines or other poor countries, "slum renewal" is done by starting a fire and burning down the illegal dwellings of the migrants who came into the towns looking for work.

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