foreignpolicy--2020-02-10--Xi Jinping May Lose Control of the Coronavirus Story

Xi Jinping May Lose Control of the Coronavirus Story The outbreak of coronavirus has infected tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of millions of others throughout China fearing for their lives as doctors , nurses , and ordinary citizens make heroic efforts to fight the disease .
Much of this suffering might have been prevented altogether if government officials in Wuhan and Beijing had acted quickly instead of hiding the scope of the problem .
Yet despite public anger over the government ’ s response to the outbreak , the coronavirus crisis is unlikely to force the Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its style of governance .
Instead , Xi and the party have doubled down on two strategies that have helped the CCP stay in power for decades : deflecting blame to local officials and addressing a crisis with a massive mobilization of government resources .
To be clear , the outbreak has laid bare some of the most dysfunctional parts of the Communist Party ’ s political system , in ways that most people rarely glimpse .
On issues such as food safety and official corruption , the party ’ s system of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hide bad news in order to get ahead .
The human cost of this can sometimes be hidden .
Not so with the coronavirus .
Today , the most vivid symbol of the shortcomings of the CCP ’ s system of information control is a doctor named Li Wenliang .
When Li attempted to alert other doctors in Wuhan to the spread of coronavirus , he was summoned by the police and made to sign a statement admitting to spreading illegal rumors .
Li was eventually exonerated , but , tragically , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he eventually died .
In response to the unfolding public health crisis , Beijing has fallen back on old habits .
The central government has mobilized resources and people on a staggering scale in a way that has roots in Mao Zedong ’ s “ mass line ” method of governance .
It has built an enormous hospital from scratch .
It has quarantined entire cities .
It has also called on citizens to monitor one another for signs of the disease .
Whether or not these are ethical or effective measures , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As the Chinese state has done for centuries , the government has also deflected blame to local officials .
Beijing initially allowed domestic media outlets like Caixin to report on how inaction by the local officials in Wuhan allowed the virus to spread .
For a time , it even permitted citizens on social media to level harsh criticism at local officials .
While the CCP ’ s handling of the outbreak may erode its popularity , any reckoning will not happen while the country is in the grip of a public health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends , family , and students in China , I hope above all the doctors , nurses , and public health professionals working to slow the spread of the disease quickly succeed .
Li Wenliang ’ s death plunged all of China into deep sorrow .
A storm of outrage has gathered around the ruling regime for its mistreatment of Li and other people who dare to speak the truth and for its iron-fisted suppression of information for the sake of stability , which contributed to the global scale of this crisis in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what we can learn from this tragedy , and what we should do so that Li will not have died in vain .
The first painful realization is that the self-acclaimed superior Chinese system has failed the public trust yet again , miserably .
Government officials from the municipal to the highest levels were ignorant and arrogant , placing their self-interest and loyalty to their superiors above their responsibility to the people they ought to serve .
The policy that stability and loyalty to the party and its leader outweigh everything corrupts China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second lesson is that when truth is forbidden and lies flourish , citizens pay the ultimate price .
Chinese people have suffered repeatedly from incredible lies—falsified information on harvests led to tens of millions of deaths during the Great Leap Famine from 1959 to 1961 .
It is a cancer on Chinese society that lies are so readily acceptable .
Moral degeneration permeates everything , including politics , the environment for workers , finance , business , and academia , even in the hard sciences .
Presidents and deans of China ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scores of high-profile papers with fabricated data and went without reprimand of any kind , even after the misconduct was exposed and confirmed .
Perhaps the most important revelation is that freedom of expression is the first cornerstone of a modern society .
Heirs to 2,000 years of authoritarian rule , Chinese people have been told that individual rights , including freedom of expression , are merely Western concepts espoused by a few heads-in-the-clouds elites and not suitable for China .
Even though the Articles 35 and 41 of the Chinese Constitution read @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , violation of basic rights is a daily norm .
People have been persuaded or forced to trade rights for fast economic development , based on the rubric of what is called “ performance legitimacy.
” But now , the general public is suffering an agonizing tragedy because critical information was suppressed and because Li and his colleagues were silenced .
People learn through blood and lost lives that freedom is never free and that rights have to be fought for .
The outbreak will eventually be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uncertain how many will lose their lives before it ends .
The regime ’ s propaganda machine has been ruthless .
It will continue to toot its horns and twist facts until it can claim that a great battle has been won by China ’ s authoritarian system and its supreme leader ’ s wisdom , further resounding proof of its justified legitimacy and superiority .
It will mercilessly crush any dissent .
Today , citizens across China are taking to social media , posting the anthem from the musical Les Misérables .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , singing the song of angry men ?
” the posts demand .
For the sake of China and the Chinese people , I hope that everyone is really listening .
China Has Broken Every Rule of Civil Emergencies There are some basic guidelines that authorities should follow in cases of civil emergency : communicate quickly and frankly with the public , ensure you establish and maintain trust , and continue to keep the public informed .
Following those rules allows a government to remain a trusted authority with which its citizens will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese government at every level has broken all of these rules in the coronavirus emergency .
It favored censorship over action in the critical first month , thus allowing the virus to take firm hold in Hubei , around the country , and now around the world .
The subsequent draconian measures , while costly by every measure , are largely a high-profile exercise in shutting the stable door ; the rhetoric of “ People ’ s War ” and a nation united in epic battle is ringing increasingly hollow , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ villain in the tragic story of the heroic , and now martyred , Li Wenliang .
Authoritarian governments can be widely tolerated by their citizens as long as the alternative seems worse and they deliver at least some of what they promise to a substantial proportion of the population .
In the case of the CCP , those promises include security , stability , and steadily rising prosperity .
That compact is believable only as far as the administration is perceived to be both relatively honest and effective .
As things stand , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them the credibility of the government at every level : The Wuhan government appears to have suppressed news of the spreading epidemic and evidence of human-to-human transmission in order to proceed with the provincial People ’ s Congress and an annual public New Year feast for 40,000 families .
Online scandals include the diversion of scarce supplies of face masks and protective clothing away front-line medical staff to party officials ; the pop-up hospital , intended to showcase a marvelously efficient flagship response , has been described online as a prison , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the death of Li .
His story will continue to be seen as the authentic narrative of this health emergency .
The epidemic is far from over , and its secondary effects , including the economic and diplomatic impacts , will continue to develop .
Having locked down substantial parts of the country , Beijing now faces the dilemma of deciding at what point to take the risk of declaring victory and beginning to get the economy going again .
In the short term , we can expect a ramping up of propaganda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sufficient stature to appease the public ’ s rage .
It will not be easy .
The month of March , in the stately calendar of China ’ s symbolic politics , should celebrate the ritual of the lianghui—the annual convening in Beijing of two key national political bodies .
That seems unlikely as things stand , and even if it goes ahead , some hasty rewriting of the speeches will be required .
Will anyone be prepared to listen ?
Xi Is Still in Command Jude Blanchette , Freeman Chair in China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ International Studies .
Setting aside for a moment the human tragedy of the coronavirus , as well as the heroism of the front-line medical workers , the political and bureaucratic mishandling of this fast-moving crisis raises the question : How far can the Xi Jinping administration continue to stretch the system before it snaps ?
Since early 2013 , Xi has overseen a relentless campaign to remake China ’ s party-state to better position it to face domestic and international challenges , as well as to eventually realize a vision of a rich @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The hallmarks of this effort are so well known they have become cliches : the centralization of power , the marginalization of the State Council , the fear and uncertainty now rippling throughout the bureaucracy , the tendency of cadres toward inaction or second-guessing .
We ’ ve seen specific instances of these pathologies across a wide swath of policy silos before , but not until the coronavirus had we seen the entire picture come into focus .
Public health emergencies challenge all governments and strain the resources and capabilities of even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s top-down , opaque , and repressive system makes matters even more complicated , for individuals must layer political and ideological considerations on top of practical ones .
This is a systemwide failure and a thunderous repudiation of Xi ’ s system of governance .
Ergo , goes the conventional wisdom , by making himself the “ CEO of everything , ” Xi will be stuck footing the bill .
As a heuristic , this makes some sense , but I find this narrative unconvincing .
U.S. President Harry Truman ’ s quip @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was not a universal dictum of leadership but rather a rare instance of a leader accepting responsibility .
The normal mode of behavior is to pass the buck , to blame lieutenants , to harangue lower-level officials , to request the resignation of cabinet members , and to blame external factors , be they hostile foreign forces or a slowing global economy .
Xi has leaned on many of these before and will likely do so moving forward .
But even if the finger is squarely pointed at Xi , so what ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from power , either by force or suasion .
Left out of such speculation , however , is just how this will occur .
We know a mechanism exists—that the Central Committee could hold a plenary session and vote for a leadership change .
We also know that leadership coups are not uncommon in authoritarian systems .
Indeed , Xi himself has warned of “ political plot activities ” to “ wreck and split the party.
” But the bar for unseating an entrenched leader—to say nothing of one as dug-in as Xi—is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of covertly building a consensus to topple Xi are immense .
Not impossible , but overwhelming .
Xi still dominates the political system , recent failures notwithstanding .
Barring an extraordinary deterioration of China ’ s economic or political stability , a “ post-Xi ” era is not imminent .
He will very likely continue to dominate the country for some time .
But what does it mean to dominate a party and a government that appear unable to confront , diagnose , and effectively overcome complex domestic and international challenges ?
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , but for the world .
The System Is Brittle But Not Broken Andrew J. Nathan , Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University .
The Chinese I meet are doubtless a biased sample , but they do include many ordinary students , some establishment intellectuals , and even some lower-level officials .
And they are angry .
They seem to be angrier than at the time of the Wenchuan earthquake , or the melamine milk scandal , or when Xi Jinping amended the constitution to abolish term limits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They say the insulting information control , heavy-handed restriction of personal liberty , and disregard for people ’ s welfare are not just located in one province but span all regions and do not affect only one group of citizens but everyone—and the blame for what is happening goes not to corrupt local officials or shady businesspeople , but to the system itself and its highest leaders .
What I hear from my Chinese friends is much like what I read in the excellent reporting in the New York Times .
Xi has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in such a way that it is now dysfunctionally hyper-responsive to central directives but paralyzed in their absence .
Xi ’ s version of the Chinese party-state stands revealed as a Frankenstein ’ s monster that flails about in response to its master ’ s commands , wrecking everything that it hits .
Li Wenliang , one of the first physicians to notice the disease , privately warned some colleagues , was reprimanded by the police , and died of the disease .
He was no dissident but an ordinary medical professional , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If the police can issue a “ warning ” to him for “ untruthful speech , ” it can happen to anyone .
No one feels safe—whether from the disease or from the police .
One visiting academic who maintains a politically correct public stance in all political matters told me , “ Our system is not authoritarian ” —and I expected to hear the fairly common claim that it possesses robust elements of democratic consultation and responsiveness—but instead he continued , “ it ’ s really totalitarian.
” Years of survey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support for the Chinese regime and other Asian authoritarian regimes , due partly to traditional attitudes of deference to authority and partly to these regimes ’ ability to deliver political order and economic growth .
But the Wuhan virus crisis reveals public support in China to be—although relatively high— more shallowly rooted than public support in most democracies .
In democracies , citizens are critical even when the system performs well , but they remain mostly committed to its survival even when it performs badly .
I share their confusion .
The Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not at the breaking point .
The public is disgusted , but it is afraid of change .
Chinese who were previously supportive of their government or at least tolerated it are now saying that the system can not last .
But when I ask them when and how it will change , they waffle : not right away ; maybe soon ; maybe in 20 years .
The regime is too strong ; there is no alternative leadership ; change would mean chaos ; hope must lie within the party itself .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ system is brittle , but it is not at the breaking point .
The public is disgusted , but it is afraid of change .
The political culture is growing more liberal as modernization rushes ahead , but habits of deference remain strong .
This is not the last crisis .
My guess is that the regime will be gone eventually—but not for a while yet .
And like my Chinese friends , I am uneasy about what comes after .
Is the Mandate of Heaven Lost ?
Orville Schell , Arthur Ross @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The biggest consequence of the coronavirus for Xi Jinping is something far more inchoate and difficult to assay than health effects , economic impact , or consequences for China ’ s global outreach efforts : namely , the “ Mandate of Heaven.
” This was the idea , first expressed 3,000 and taking mutable forms throughout Chinese history , that governance depended on the extension of cosmic favor on just and able rulers .
In the Confucian scheme of things , what was most critical for gaining and keeping this heavenly mandate was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moral propriety .
By ruling justly and performing the proper ritual ceremonies , an imperial leader propitiated heaven ’ s demands , thereby bringing heaven and earth into balance and society into a state of harmony .
However , if an emperor violated proper Confucian proscriptions for good governance and threw heaven and earth out of balance , the former was believed to signal its displeasure by means of cosmic disruptions such as earthquakes , floods , meteors , droughts , and epidemics .
And such omens were associated by historians with peasant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against a corrupt ruling order .
In the eyes of China ’ s historians , once the mandate had been broken , the replacement of one ruling imperial family by another was inevitable .
When the time had come , as the Book of Changes put it , for “ dragons to take flight and a new son of heaven to appear , ” a dynastic cycle completed itself .
Just as stability was viewed as a sign that the Mandate of Heaven held , the chaos that inevitably followed the collapse and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further evidence of cosmic disfavor .
Such beliefs remain embedded in popular sentiment within China today , despite the body blow done to traditional Chinese culture by the Maoist revolution .
And for many people , part of that belief system may include , consciously or otherwise , a latter-day version of the mandate .
The Tangshan earthquake in 1976 was said—largely in retrospect—to herald the end of the so-called Mao Dynasty , while many thought the protest movement of 1989 signaled the end of Deng Xiaoping ’ s reign .
( They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social media becomes a bubbling lava pit of disparagement accusing the Chinese Communist Party of misrule , a feeling of loss of moral authority is gripping Chinese society that is hard to measure but may prove even harder to counteract .
Rui Zhong , Program Associate for the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center Li ’ s death comes as a brutal blow to Chinese citizens , particularly in Hubei , who have struggled through weeks of resource shortages , misinformation , and delayed policy choices .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ angry at the handling of Li and his fellow doctors who had attempted to warn others that the virus was being transmitted by human-to-human contact .
Even for people acclimated to the silencing of journalists , civil society figures , and other publicly vocal critics , arresting a doctor for trying to inform the public about an impending health crisis crossed a line .
What that means at the top is not clear .
Analysts of the Chinese leadership have often focused on one key relationship : that of Chairman Xi Jinping to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ premier has handled certain technical aspects of governance , but Xi ’ s administration has seen Li relegated to taking on tasks that would be more politically risky for Xi .
In 2015 , for instance , Li took the reins of public relations work in the aftermath of a stock market shock that impacted millions of trading accounts .
Amid the coronavirus crisis , Li was dispatched to Hubei to tour facilities , reassure local politicians , and affirm that China would battle through the disease .
Xi ’ s physically distancing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make sure the policies at fault in the outbreak would be associated more with the Wuhan and Hubei governments than with his leadership .
The more attention heaped upon the specific actions of local officials , the less attention to mistakes or neglect on the top leadership ’ s part .
This is an old tactic , allowing for a small , localized stream of criticism to siphon off discontent before it overflows .
Disciplinary measures are already being leveled at the local authorities , in a bid to draw a line of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whether or not that line is acceptable to the general public remains to be seen .
While ordinary Chinese citizens cast no ballots and can not criticize officials above those lines , that bitterness can still find ways to express itself .
Secrecy Is the First Line of Party Defense Xi Jinping has spoken ( via party theorists ) of the CCP “ Mandate of Heaven ” as a convergence of Marxism and Confucianism .
The role of government competence in the interaction is critical : Rain falls from heaven ; floods are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embank the rivers .
Xi ’ s claims have rested on the theory that CCP state competence ( valorized by foreigners as “ meritocracy ” ) protects the population from the worst effects of natural disasters or mitigates the effects of inherited dangers from pollution , poverty , and ignorance far better than a democratic government could .
Secrecy is essential to this hypothesized competence .
The existence of a contagious disease , the means of transmission , or the scope of infection all threaten claims of state efficacy .
But if secrecy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the ability to quarantine blame .
Government in China was skillful at this long before the People ’ s Republic came along .
When disasters hit , the Mandate of Heaven can remain intact , so long as culpability or—worse—doubts about competence never reach high enough to discredit the ruler .
Epidemics are a special kind of disaster , in which secrecy itself is the vector of transmission .
Nevertheless , as an authoritarian government , Xi ’ s one-party state has few options apart from secrecy as a first line of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first line of public criticism .
Opinion in China , to the extent it can be reliably known , took immediate offense that the spread of novel coronavirus to Japan and Thailand was known before the government would admit that it had spread to any Chinese city outside Wuhan .
People tossed cats and dogs out of windows , improvised prisons for their neighbors , and speculated about foreign sabotage , while the real means of transmission went undisclosed .
Many in the Chinese public have commented that the government seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ SARS , HIV/AIDS , H1N1 , H7N9 , and now coronavirus ( with filoviruses waiting in the wings , as it were ) .
But this is clearly not true .
The government has raised its technology of blame-deflection to champion levels .
After taking the brunt of public criticism for SARS ( and , in a quieter way , HIV/AIDS ) in 2003 , the government generated a cluster of public hygiene agencies and spokespeople .
Public officials silenced doctors , assured the public of safety , and showed up at disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that if it all cratered , they would draw public wrath away from CCP leadership .
As the governor of Hubei announced , “ Stressing politics is always No .
1.
” They have not , however , explained why , as of today , patients in China are more than twice as likely to die of the disease as those anywhere else .
This is the first time that the global magnitude of a China-generated epidemic may test CCP blame-blunting against world opinion .
But whatever the pressure , Xi may not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or gear down the culpability neutralization machine .
Both are essential to his method of governance .

Daniel Mattingly, Chenjian Li, Isabel Hilton, Jude Blanchette, Andrew Nathan, Orville Schell, Rui Zhong and Pamela Kyle Crossley

The coronavirus outbreak that exploded three weeks ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has prompted the most severe government actions in three decades. Cities are closed down, transport links broken, and tens of millions of people effectively quarantined. The death of the whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang, one of several health care workers who attempted to draw attention to the virus at the start of the year, has prompted online rage, while economic growth forecasts have been slashed. At a time when the Chinese Communist Party and the leadership claim supremacy over every aspect of Chinese life, when President Xi Jinping has been styled as the “ chairman of everything ,” can they avoid blame for the regime’s failure to contain the virus? And how much will it matter to Xi’s future? —The Editors
This article was originally published in ChinaFile.
The coronavirus outbreak that exploded three weeks ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has prompted the most severe government actions in three decades. Cities are closed down, transport links broken, and tens of millions of people effectively quarantined. The death of the whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang, one of several health care workers who attempted to draw attention to the virus at the start of the year, has prompted online rage, while economic growth forecasts have been slashed. At a time when the Chinese Communist Party and the leadership claim supremacy over every aspect of Chinese life, when President Xi Jinping has been styled as the “chairman of everything , ” can they avoid blame for the regime’s failure to contain the virus? And how much will it matter to Xi’s future? —The Editors Anger Won’t Change the Party’s Rule
Daniel Mattingly, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University
The outbreak of coronavirus has infected tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of millions of others throughout China fearing for their lives as doctors, nurses, and ordinary citizens make heroic efforts to fight the disease. Much of this suffering might have been prevented altogether if government officials in Wuhan and Beijing had acted quickly instead of hiding the scope of the problem.
Yet despite public anger over the government’s response to the outbreak, the coronavirus crisis is unlikely to force the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to rethink its style of governance. Instead, Xi and the party have doubled down on two strategies that have helped the CCP stay in power for decades: deflecting blame to local officials and addressing a crisis with a massive mobilization of government resources.
To be clear, the outbreak has laid bare some of the most dysfunctional parts of the Communist Party’s political system, in ways that most people rarely glimpse. On issues such as food safety and official corruption, the party’s system of political promotion encourages ambitious local officials to hide bad news in order to get ahead. The human cost of this can sometimes be hidden. Not so with the coronavirus.
Today, the most vivid symbol of the shortcomings of the CCP’s system of information control is a doctor named Li Wenliang. When Li attempted to alert other doctors in Wuhan to the spread of coronavirus, he was summoned by the police and made to sign a statement admitting to spreading illegal rumors. Li was eventually exonerated, but, tragically, he had contracted the virus himself, and he eventually died.
In response to the unfolding public health crisis, Beijing has fallen back on old habits. The central government has mobilized resources and people on a staggering scale in a way that has roots in Mao Zedong’s “mass line” method of governance. It has built an enormous hospital from scratch. It has quarantined entire cities. It has also called on citizens to monitor one another for signs of the disease. Whether or not these are ethical or effective measures, they may be effective political theater.
As the Chinese state has done for centuries, the government has also deflected blame to local officials. Beijing initially allowed domestic media outlets like Caixin to report on how inaction by the local officials in Wuhan allowed the virus to spread. For a time, it even permitted citizens on social media to level harsh criticism at local officials.
While the CCP’s handling of the outbreak may erode its popularity, any reckoning will not happen while the country is in the grip of a public health crisis. In the meantime, for friends, family, and students in China, I hope above all the doctors, nurses, and public health professionals working to slow the spread of the disease quickly succeed.
When Lies Flourish, People Die
Chenjian Li, Professor of Life Sciences, Peking University
Li Wenliang’s death plunged all of China into deep sorrow. A storm of outrage has gathered around the ruling regime for its mistreatment of Li and other people who dare to speak the truth and for its iron-fisted suppression of information for the sake of stability, which contributed to the global scale of this crisis in a major way. People are asking what we can learn from this tragedy, and what we should do so that Li will not have died in vain.
The first painful realization is that the self-acclaimed superior Chinese system has failed the public trust yet again, miserably. Government officials from the municipal to the highest levels were ignorant and arrogant, placing their self-interest and loyalty to their superiors above their responsibility to the people they ought to serve. The policy that stability and loyalty to the party and its leader outweigh everything corrupts China’s whole bureaucratic system.
The second lesson is that when truth is forbidden and lies flourish, citizens pay the ultimate price. Chinese people have suffered repeatedly from incredible lies—falsified information on harvests led to tens of millions of deaths during the Great Leap Famine from 1959 to 1961. It is a cancer on Chinese society that lies are so readily acceptable. Moral degeneration permeates everything, including politics, the environment for workers, finance, business, and academia, even in the hard sciences. Presidents and deans of China’s most prestigious universities and medical schools published scores of high-profile papers with fabricated data and went without reprimand of any kind, even after the misconduct was exposed and confirmed.
Perhaps the most important revelation is that freedom of expression is the first cornerstone of a modern society. Heirs to 2,000 years of authoritarian rule, Chinese people have been told that individual rights, including freedom of expression, are merely Western concepts espoused by a few heads-in-the-clouds elites and not suitable for China. Even though the Articles 35 and 41 of the Chinese Constitution read almost like the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, violation of basic rights is a daily norm. People have been persuaded or forced to trade rights for fast economic development, based on the rubric of what is called “performance legitimacy.” But now, the general public is suffering an agonizing tragedy because critical information was suppressed and because Li and his colleagues were silenced. People learn through blood and lost lives that freedom is never free and that rights have to be fought for.
The outbreak will eventually be brought under control, although it is uncertain how many will lose their lives before it ends. The regime’s propaganda machine has been ruthless. It will continue to toot its horns and twist facts until it can claim that a great battle has been won by China’s authoritarian system and its supreme leader’s wisdom, further resounding proof of its justified legitimacy and superiority. It will mercilessly crush any dissent.
Today, citizens across China are taking to social media, posting the anthem from the musical Les Misérables. “Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?” the posts demand. For the sake of China and the Chinese people, I hope that everyone is really listening.
China Has Broken Every Rule of Civil Emergencies
Isabel Hilton, journalist
There are some basic guidelines that authorities should follow in cases of civil emergency: communicate quickly and frankly with the public, ensure you establish and maintain trust, and continue to keep the public informed. Following those rules allows a government to remain a trusted authority with which its citizens will be more inclined to cooperate.
The Chinese government at every level has broken all of these rules in the coronavirus emergency. It favored censorship over action in the critical first month, thus allowing the virus to take firm hold in Hubei, around the country, and now around the world. The subsequent draconian measures, while costly by every measure, are largely a high-profile exercise in shutting the stable door; the rhetoric of “People’s War” and a nation united in epic battle is ringing increasingly hollow, and the Communist Party is now cast as the villain in the tragic story of the heroic, and now martyred, Li Wenliang.
Authoritarian governments can be widely tolerated by their citizens as long as the alternative seems worse and they deliver at least some of what they promise to a substantial proportion of the population. In the case of the CCP, those promises include security, stability, and steadily rising prosperity. That compact is believable only as far as the administration is perceived to be both relatively honest and effective.
As things stand, both claims are in tatters and with them the credibility of the government at every level: The Wuhan government appears to have suppressed news of the spreading epidemic and evidence of human-to-human transmission in order to proceed with the provincial People’s Congress and an annual public New Year feast for 40,000 families. Online scandals include the diversion of scarce supplies of face masks and protective clothing away front-line medical staff to party officials; the pop-up hospital, intended to showcase a marvelously efficient flagship response, has been described online as a prison, and its triumphal opening was completely overshadowed by the death of Li. His story will continue to be seen as the authentic narrative of this health emergency.
The epidemic is far from over, and its secondary effects, including the economic and diplomatic impacts, will continue to develop. Having locked down substantial parts of the country, Beijing now faces the dilemma of deciding at what point to take the risk of declaring victory and beginning to get the economy going again. In the short term, we can expect a ramping up of propaganda and an intense search for scapegoats of sufficient stature to appease the public’s rage. It will not be easy.
The month of March, in the stately calendar of China’s symbolic politics, should celebrate the ritual of the lianghui—the annual convening in Beijing of two key national political bodies. That seems unlikely as things stand, and even if it goes ahead, some hasty rewriting of the speeches will be required. Will anyone be prepared to listen?
Xi Is Still in Command
Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Setting aside for a moment the human tragedy of the coronavirus, as well as the heroism of the front-line medical workers, the political and bureaucratic mishandling of this fast-moving crisis raises the question: How far can the Xi Jinping administration continue to stretch the system before it snaps?
Since early 2013, Xi has overseen a relentless campaign to remake China’s party-state to better position it to face domestic and international challenges, as well as to eventually realize a vision of a rich, powerful, and rejuvenated Chinese nation. The hallmarks of this effort are so well known they have become cliches: the centralization of power, the marginalization of the State Council, the fear and uncertainty now rippling throughout the bureaucracy, the tendency of cadres toward inaction or second-guessing. We’ve seen specific instances of these pathologies across a wide swath of policy silos before, but not until the coronavirus had we seen the entire picture come into focus. Public health emergencies challenge all governments and strain the resources and capabilities of even the most advanced economies. Beijing’s top-down, opaque, and repressive system makes matters even more complicated, for individuals must layer political and ideological considerations on top of practical ones.
This is a systemwide failure and a thunderous repudiation of Xi’s system of governance. Ergo, goes the conventional wisdom, by making himself the “CEO of everything,” Xi will be stuck footing the bill. As a heuristic, this makes some sense, but I find this narrative unconvincing. U.S. President Harry Truman’s quip that “the buck stops here” was not a universal dictum of leadership but rather a rare instance of a leader accepting responsibility. The normal mode of behavior is to pass the buck, to blame lieutenants, to harangue lower-level officials, to request the resignation of cabinet members, and to blame external factors, be they hostile foreign forces or a slowing global economy. Xi has leaned on many of these before and will likely do so moving forward.
But even if the finger is squarely pointed at Xi, so what? Some hint that he might be removed from power, either by force or suasion. Left out of such speculation, however, is just how this will occur. We know a mechanism exists—that the Central Committee could hold a plenary session and vote for a leadership change. We also know that leadership coups are not uncommon in authoritarian systems. Indeed, Xi himself has warned of “political plot activities” to “wreck and split the party.” But the bar for unseating an entrenched leader—to say nothing of one as dug-in as Xi—is extraordinarily high, and the logistical difficulties of covertly building a consensus to topple Xi are immense. Not impossible, but overwhelming.
Xi still dominates the political system, recent failures notwithstanding. Barring an extraordinary deterioration of China’s economic or political stability, a “post-Xi” era is not imminent. He will very likely continue to dominate the country for some time. But what does it mean to dominate a party and a government that appear unable to confront, diagnose, and effectively overcome complex domestic and international challenges? That’s not just a problem for China, but for the world.
The System Is Brittle But Not Broken
Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.
The Chinese I meet are doubtless a biased sample, but they do include many ordinary students, some establishment intellectuals, and even some lower-level officials. And they are angry. They seem to be angrier than at the time of the Wenchuan earthquake, or the melamine milk scandal, or when Xi Jinping amended the constitution to abolish term limits.
What is different this time? They say the insulting information control, heavy-handed restriction of personal liberty, and disregard for people’s welfare are not just located in one province but span all regions and do not affect only one group of citizens but everyone—and the blame for what is happening goes not to corrupt local officials or shady businesspeople, but to the system itself and its highest leaders.
What I hear from my Chinese friends is much like what I read in the excellent reporting in the New York Times. Xi has pulled a previously lax administrative system together in such a way that it is now dysfunctionally hyper-responsive to central directives but paralyzed in their absence. Xi’s version of the Chinese party-state stands revealed as a Frankenstein’s monster that flails about in response to its master’s commands, wrecking everything that it hits.
Li Wenliang, one of the first physicians to notice the disease, privately warned some colleagues, was reprimanded by the police, and died of the disease. He was no dissident but an ordinary medical professional, just interested in protecting colleagues and family. If the police can issue a “warning” to him for “untruthful speech,” it can happen to anyone. No one feels safe—whether from the disease or from the police. One visiting academic who maintains a politically correct public stance in all political matters told me, “Our system is not authoritarian”—and I expected to hear the fairly common claim that it possesses robust elements of democratic consultation and responsiveness—but instead he continued, “it’s really totalitarian.”
Years of survey research have shown high levels of political support for the Chinese regime and other Asian authoritarian regimes, due partly to traditional attitudes of deference to authority and partly to these regimes’ ability to deliver political order and economic growth. But the Wuhan virus crisis reveals public support in China to be—although relatively high— more shallowly rooted than public support in most democracies. In democracies, citizens are critical even when the system performs well, but they remain mostly committed to its survival even when it performs badly.
I share their confusion. The Chinese system is brittle, but it is not at the breaking point. The public is disgusted, but it is afraid of change.
Chinese who were previously supportive of their government or at least tolerated it are now saying that the system cannot last. But when I ask them when and how it will change, they waffle: not right away; maybe soon; maybe in 20 years. The regime is too strong; there is no alternative leadership; change would mean chaos; hope must lie within the party itself.
I share their confusion. The Chinese system is brittle, but it is not at the breaking point. The public is disgusted, but it is afraid of change. The political culture is growing more liberal as modernization rushes ahead, but habits of deference remain strong. This is not the last crisis. My guess is that the regime will be gone eventually—but not for a while yet. And like my Chinese friends, I am uneasy about what comes after.
Is the Mandate of Heaven Lost?
Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations
The biggest consequence of the coronavirus for Xi Jinping is something far more inchoate and difficult to assay than health effects, economic impact, or consequences for China’s global outreach efforts: namely, the “Mandate of Heaven.” This was the idea, first expressed 3,000 and taking mutable forms throughout Chinese history, that governance depended on the extension of cosmic favor on just and able rulers. In the Confucian scheme of things, what was most critical for gaining and keeping this heavenly mandate was for a ruler to demonstrate virtue and moral propriety. By ruling justly and performing the proper ritual ceremonies, an imperial leader propitiated heaven’s demands, thereby bringing heaven and earth into balance and society into a state of harmony.
However, if an emperor violated proper Confucian proscriptions for good governance and threw heaven and earth out of balance, the former was believed to signal its displeasure by means of cosmic disruptions such as earthquakes, floods, meteors, droughts, and epidemics. And such omens were associated by historians with peasant rebellions and other kinds of righteous uprisings against a corrupt ruling order. In the eyes of China’s historians, once the mandate had been broken, the replacement of one ruling imperial family by another was inevitable. When the time had come, as the Book of Changes put it, for “dragons to take flight and a new son of heaven to appear,” a dynastic cycle completed itself. Just as stability was viewed as a sign that the Mandate of Heaven held, the chaos that inevitably followed the collapse and end of a dynasty was viewed as further evidence of cosmic disfavor.
Such beliefs remain embedded in popular sentiment within China today, despite the body blow done to traditional Chinese culture by the Maoist revolution. And for many people, part of that belief system may include, consciously or otherwise, a latter-day version of the mandate. The Tangshan earthquake in 1976 was said—largely in retrospect—to herald the end of the so-called Mao Dynasty, while many thought the protest movement of 1989 signaled the end of Deng Xiaoping’s reign. (They were wrong.) Now, as social media becomes a bubbling lava pit of disparagement accusing the Chinese Communist Party of misrule, a feeling of loss of moral authority is gripping Chinese society that is hard to measure but may prove even harder to counteract.
Time to Scapegoat Local Officials
Rui Zhong, Program Associate for the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center
Li’s death comes as a brutal blow to Chinese citizens, particularly in Hubei, who have struggled through weeks of resource shortages, misinformation, and delayed policy choices. Even before, the public was already angry at the handling of Li and his fellow doctors who had attempted to warn others that the virus was being transmitted by human-to-human contact. Even for people acclimated to the silencing of journalists, civil society figures, and other publicly vocal critics, arresting a doctor for trying to inform the public about an impending health crisis crossed a line.
What that means at the top is not clear. Analysts of the Chinese leadership have often focused on one key relationship: that of Chairman Xi Jinping to Premier Li Keqiang. Traditionally, the premier has handled certain technical aspects of governance, but Xi’s administration has seen Li relegated to taking on tasks that would be more politically risky for Xi. In 2015, for instance, Li took the reins of public relations work in the aftermath of a stock market shock that impacted millions of trading accounts.
Amid the coronavirus crisis, Li was dispatched to Hubei to tour facilities, reassure local politicians, and affirm that China would battle through the disease. Xi’s physically distancing himself from the crisis was intended to make sure the policies at fault in the outbreak would be associated more with the Wuhan and Hubei governments than with his leadership. The more attention heaped upon the specific actions of local officials, the less attention to mistakes or neglect on the top leadership’s part. This is an old tactic, allowing for a small, localized stream of criticism to siphon off discontent before it overflows.
Disciplinary measures are already being leveled at the local authorities, in a bid to draw a line of fault that shields the central leadership. Whether or not that line is acceptable to the general public remains to be seen. While ordinary Chinese citizens cast no ballots and cannot criticize officials above those lines, that bitterness can still find ways to express itself.
Secrecy Is the First Line of Party Defense
Pamela Kyle Crossley, Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth College,
Xi Jinping has spoken (via party theorists) of the CCP “Mandate of Heaven” as a convergence of Marxism and Confucianism. The role of government competence in the interaction is critical: Rain falls from heaven; floods are caused by human failure to dredge and embank the rivers. Xi’s claims have rested on the theory that CCP state competence (valorized by foreigners as “meritocracy”) protects the population from the worst effects of natural disasters or mitigates the effects of inherited dangers from pollution, poverty, and ignorance far better than a democratic government could.
Secrecy is essential to this hypothesized competence. The existence of a contagious disease, the means of transmission, or the scope of infection all threaten claims of state efficacy. But if secrecy fails, it has a faithful sidekick in the ability to quarantine blame. Government in China was skillful at this long before the People’s Republic came along. When disasters hit, the Mandate of Heaven can remain intact, so long as culpability or—worse—doubts about competence never reach high enough to discredit the ruler.
Epidemics are a special kind of disaster, in which secrecy itself is the vector of transmission. Nevertheless, as an authoritarian government, Xi’s one-party state has few options apart from secrecy as a first line of defense. It is by now also the first line of public criticism. Opinion in China, to the extent it can be reliably known, took immediate offense that the spread of novel coronavirus to Japan and Thailand was known before the government would admit that it had spread to any Chinese city outside Wuhan. People tossed cats and dogs out of windows, improvised prisons for their neighbors, and speculated about foreign sabotage, while the real means of transmission went undisclosed.
Many in the Chinese public have commented that the government seems to have learned nothing from its experiences with SARS, HIV/AIDS, H1N1, H7N9, and now coronavirus (with filoviruses waiting in the wings, as it were). But this is clearly not true. The government has raised its technology of blame-deflection to champion levels. After taking the brunt of public criticism for SARS (and, in a quieter way, HIV/AIDS) in 2003, the government generated a cluster of public hygiene agencies and spokespeople. Public officials silenced doctors, assured the public of safety, and showed up at disease venues in important-looking hazmat suits, knowing that if it all cratered, they would draw public wrath away from CCP leadership. As the governor of Hubei announced, “Stressing politics is always No. 1.” They have not, however, explained why, as of today, patients in China are more than twice as likely to die of the disease as those anywhere else.
This is the first time that the global magnitude of a China-generated epidemic may test CCP blame-blunting against world opinion. But whatever the pressure, Xi may not be able to lower the secrecy shroud or gear down the culpability neutralization machine. Both are essential to his method of governance.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-11--Trump Pressures Palestinians and Allies Over Peace Plan

The White House thwarted a Palestinian drive for a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump ’ s much-criticized peace plan as illegal , and it appeared to threaten to withhold Palestinian aid as part of a diplomatic pressure campaign .
The collapse of the Palestinian diplomatic initiative at the U.N. came shortly before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appeared Tuesday before the Security Council to denounce the Trump plan , which he warned would undermine peace in the region and break up a future Palestinian state into a collection of enclaves that resemble of block of swiss cheese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This account reveals behind-the-scenes diplomatic wrangling at the U.N. and in Washington and draws on interviews from a dozen diplomats and other officials familiar with the matter .
The contentious debate at the U.N. comes a day after the Trump administration unveiled an annual budget proposal that would zero out U.S. aid for the West Bank and Gaza and withhold Palestinian security aid as leverage to garner support from Palestinians and opponents in Congress for the Middle East peace plan .
The budget includes $ 200 million in a “ Diplomatic Progress Fund @ @ @ @ @ @ @ security aid—which a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Israel have supported for decades—but will likely mandate Palestinian acceptance of the peace plan first .
The White House unveiled its peace plan , long delayed and nearly three years in the making , at politically precarious times for Trump and Israeli and Palestinian leaders .
It came five weeks before key elections in Israel and on the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was officially indicted on charges of fraud , bribery , and breach of trust .
Trump , facing his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bruising impeachment battle intact but politically damaged alongside Netanyahu , who has endorsed the plan .
Abbas has rallied Arab countries to denounce the plan , but the aging leader ’ s popularity both at home and abroad is waning , leaving open-ended questions about which of the political leaders , if any , could prevail in their vision to advance or block Middle East peace .
The Trump plan would leave a future Palestine “ without any control on our land , air , and sea , ” Abbas told the 15-nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bring peace or stability to the region , and therefore we will not accept this plan.
” Abbas warned that frustration with the U.S. plan threatened to spark violence in the region , saying “ the situation could implode at any moment ” —though he insisted that the Palestinians would not resort to violence or terrorism .
Instead , Abbas called for an international peace conference to replace the United States as the chief guarantor of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks , contending that the United States “ can not be the sole mediator.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a willingness to begin discussions about such a meeting .
Abbas also suggested that the Trump plan reflected a repudiation of assurances he received back in 2017 , when he discussed Palestinian aspirations directly with Trump .
The exchange , he said , was followed by the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington , the declaration of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital , and the cutting off of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians .
“ I don ’ t know who gave him this unacceptable advice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not like that .
The President Trump that I have met is not like that .
And this was very surprising , ” Abbas said .
Israel ’ s U.N. ambassador , Danny Danon , dismissed the need for an international conference , insisting that the only route to peace was through direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians .
The U.S. proposal , he insisted , provided a reasonable starting point for such talks .
Danon accused Abbas of using the stage of the U.N. Security Council to avoid the hard decision to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ President Abbas is not serious about negotiations , ” he said .
“ Instead , he did as he always does .
He came here to distract from his unwillingness to negotiate.
” “ Let ’ s not beat around the bush , ” he added .
“ Progress towards peace will not be made so long as President Abbas remains in his position .
This is the reality.
” But Abbas received an unexpected vote of confidence from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , who held a joint press conference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ headquarters .
Olmert has said he came close to clinching a peace deal with Abbas in 2008 that would cede nearly the entire West Bank to Abbas , among other land swap proposals .
The plan never came to fruition .
“ He is a man of peace , he is opposed to terror , and therefore he is the only partner we can deal with , ” Olmert said .
At the same time , Olmert expressed hope that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders would start negotiations on the basis of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Palestinian side … would not ignore that there is a commitment to a two-state solution in the plan of President Trump , ” he said .
But Olmert ’ s appearance with Abbas served to infuriate Israeli officials .
“ On the same day that Abu Mazen [ Abbas ] failed in his attempt to condemn the U.S. and Israel in the Security Council here at the U.N. , Mr. Olmert is endorsing Abu Mazen , ” Danon said in a statement released after the press conference .
“ He is endorsing diplomatic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The Palestinian decision to withdraw its resolution from consideration followed more than a week of diplomatic efforts by Palestinian , Tunisian , and Indonesian diplomats to secure support for a resolution declaring Trump ’ s Middle East initiative as illegal before Abbas ’ s arrival .
The council ’ s lone Arab government , Tunisia , along with Indonesia , led the negotiations on the draft—dated Feb. 4 and described as a “ non paper ” —that “ strongly regrets that the plan presented on 28 January 2020 by the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endorsed terms of reference for the achievement of a just , comprehensive , and lasting solution ” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
But before the draft could be tabled , Tunisia ’ s new president , Kais Saied , abruptly recalled and fired his U.N. ambassador , Moncef Baati .
The ambassador ’ s dismissal came after Trump ’ s Middle East advisor and son-in-law , Jared Kushner , phoned the Tunisian government to protest the country ’ s role in the negotiations , warning it could harm Tunisia ’ s relations with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senior diplomatic sources .
A fourth diplomatic source said Kushner had raised concerns directly to the president .
Over the weekend , Tunisia and Indonesia circulated a watered-down Feb. 8 Palestinian draft , which simply noted that the U.S. plan “ departs from the internationally endorsed terms of reference and parameters for the achievement of a just , comprehensive , and lasting solution to this conflict.
” But the United States maneuvered to have the resolution ’ s passage stopped on Monday morning , citing concerns that it was implicitly critical of Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ site Axios previously reported on the U.S. action .
U.S. officials , meanwhile , mounted a strenuous diplomatic effort over the weekend to dissuade council members from backing the Palestinian text .
Some of the toughest pressure fell on small countries , such as Estonia , which was urged to break ranks with the council ’ s other European Union members—Belgium , France , and Germany—which were expected to vote in favor of the resolution , according to diplomatic sources .
The Palestinians ultimately decided to withdraw the draft from consideration for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Palestinian decision reflected the diminishing support for their initiative over the weekend and concern that a vote could expose supporters to political retaliation from the United States .
It remained unclear whether the Palestinians would resume their push for a Security Council resolution criticizing the White House plan , take its case before the U.N. General Assembly , or drop the matter altogether .
During Tuesday ’ s Security Council meeting , Kelly Craft , the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations , defended the United States from charges that it was seeking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the world .
Trump ’ s initiative was not a “ take it or leave it ” plan but an “ opening offer , ” Craft said .
“ President Abbas , I heard you .
I heard you speak of hope , ” she added .
“ We are not here to merely promise hope .
Anyone can promise hope .
We are here to deliver on hope .
… The United States believes that this plan is realistic and implementable.
” Meanwhile , the United States is urging its closest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel , even after the Arab League backed Abbas in unanimously rejecting the peace plan despite U.S. efforts to prevent such a resolution from moving forward .
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly working to broker a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Netanyahu during an upcoming visit to the Middle East .
A senior State Department official declined to comment on the reports in a briefing with reporters but said : “ The issue of Israel ’ s reintegration in the region is something that the administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.N. Security Council debate also provided further evidence that Britain was shifting further away from its traditional European partners and closer to Trump since its exit from the EU .
Britain ’ s U.N. ambassador , Karen Pierce , said London remains committed to a Palestinian state , formed roughly on Israel ’ s pre-1967 borders with its Arab neighbors , and the establishment of a shared capital with Israel in Jerusalem .
But Pierce also urged Palestinian leaders , along with their Israeli counterparts , to give the Trump plan “ due @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first step in direct negotiations .
“ All of us here today understand that the proposal put forward by the United States may feel very different to what has been discussed before , ” she told the council .
“ Time will be needed to digest them.
” There were signs that despite its diplomatic pressure campaign , the White House is struggling to win wider support for its Middle East strategy .
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres stopped short of challenging the Trump plan , but he said the U.N. is bound by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. accord discards , including the need to negotiate peace on the basis of Israel ’ s pre-1967 borders with its Arab neighbors .
The U.N. envoy to the peace process , Nickolay Mladenov , warned that Israel ’ s recent announcement to expand settlements in occupied West Bank territory threatened to worsen an already volatile region .
“ The possible annexation of territory in the West Bank or similar move would have a devastating impact on the prospects for a two-state solution .
It would close the door to negotiations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and severely undermine opportunities for normalization and regional peace , ” he said .

The White House thwarted a Palestinian drive for a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-criticized peace plan as illegal, and it appeared to threaten to withhold Palestinian aid as part of a diplomatic pressure campaign.
The White House thwarted a Palestinian drive for a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-criticized peace plan as illegal, and it appeared to threaten to withhold Palestinian aid as part of a diplomatic pressure campaign.
The collapse of the Palestinian diplomatic initiative at the U.N. came shortly before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appeared Tuesday before the Security Council to denounce the Trump plan, which he warned would undermine peace in the region and break up a future Palestinian state into a collection of enclaves that resemble of block of swiss cheese more than a viable new state. This account reveals behind-the-scenes diplomatic wrangling at the U.N. and in Washington and draws on interviews from a dozen diplomats and other officials familiar with the matter.
The contentious debate at the U.N. comes a day after the Trump administration unveiled an annual budget proposal that would zero out U.S. aid for the West Bank and Gaza and withhold Palestinian security aid as leverage to garner support from Palestinians and opponents in Congress for the Middle East peace plan. The budget includes $200 million in a “Diplomatic Progress Fund” that could be used for Palestinian security aid—which a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Israel have supported for decades—but will likely mandate Palestinian acceptance of the peace plan first.
The White House unveiled its peace plan, long delayed and nearly three years in the making, at politically precarious times for Trump and Israeli and Palestinian leaders. It came five weeks before key elections in Israel and on the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was officially indicted on charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. Trump, facing his own reelection challenge, emerged from a bruising impeachment battle intact but politically damaged alongside Netanyahu, who has endorsed the plan. Abbas has rallied Arab countries to denounce the plan, but the aging leader’s popularity both at home and abroad is waning, leaving open-ended questions about which of the political leaders, if any, could prevail in their vision to advance or block Middle East peace.
The Trump plan would leave a future Palestine “without any control on our land, air, and sea,” Abbas told the 15-nation council. “This plan will not bring peace or stability to the region, and therefore we will not accept this plan.”
Abbas warned that frustration with the U.S. plan threatened to spark violence in the region, saying “the situation could implode at any moment”—though he insisted that the Palestinians would not resort to violence or terrorism.
Instead, Abbas called for an international peace conference to replace the United States as the chief guarantor of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, contending that the United States “cannot be the sole mediator.” France—which proposed such a conference years ago—signaled a willingness to begin discussions about such a meeting.
Abbas also suggested that the Trump plan reflected a repudiation of assurances he received back in 2017, when he discussed Palestinian aspirations directly with Trump. The exchange, he said, was followed by the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, the declaration of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, and the cutting off of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians.
“I don’t know who gave him this unacceptable advice. I know that Mr. Trump is not like that. The President Trump that I have met is not like that. And this was very surprising,” Abbas said.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, dismissed the need for an international conference, insisting that the only route to peace was through direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The U.S. proposal, he insisted, provided a reasonable starting point for such talks. Danon accused Abbas of using the stage of the U.N. Security Council to avoid the hard decision to participate in direct talks with Israel.
“President Abbas is not serious about negotiations,” he said. “Instead, he did as he always does. He came here to distract from his unwillingness to negotiate.”
“Let’s not beat around the bush,” he added. “Progress towards peace will not be made so long as President Abbas remains in his position. This is the reality.”
But Abbas received an unexpected vote of confidence from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who held a joint press conference with the Palestinian leader outside of U.N. headquarters. Olmert has said he came close to clinching a peace deal with Abbas in 2008 that would cede nearly the entire West Bank to Abbas, among other land swap proposals. The plan never came to fruition.
“He is a man of peace, he is opposed to terror, and therefore he is the only partner we can deal with,” Olmert said.
At the same time, Olmert expressed hope that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders would start negotiations on the basis of the Trump plan. “I hope the Palestinian side … would not ignore that there is a commitment to a two-state solution in the plan of President Trump,” he said.
But Olmert’s appearance with Abbas served to infuriate Israeli officials. “On the same day that Abu Mazen [Abbas] failed in his attempt to condemn the U.S. and Israel in the Security Council here at the U.N., Mr. Olmert is endorsing Abu Mazen,” Danon said in a statement released after the press conference. “He is endorsing diplomatic terrorism against Israel. It is shameful.”
The Palestinian decision to withdraw its resolution from consideration followed more than a week of diplomatic efforts by Palestinian, Tunisian, and Indonesian diplomats to secure support for a resolution declaring Trump’s Middle East initiative as illegal before Abbas’s arrival.
The council’s lone Arab government, Tunisia, along with Indonesia, led the negotiations on the draft—dated Feb. 4 and described as a “non paper”—that “strongly regrets that the plan presented on 28 January 2020 by the United States and Israel breaches international law and internationally endorsed terms of reference for the achievement of a just, comprehensive, and lasting solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But before the draft could be tabled, Tunisia’s new president, Kais Saied, abruptly recalled and fired his U.N. ambassador, Moncef Baati. The ambassador’s dismissal came after Trump’s Middle East advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, phoned the Tunisian government to protest the country’s role in the negotiations, warning it could harm Tunisia’s relations with the United States, according to three senior diplomatic sources. A fourth diplomatic source said Kushner had raised concerns directly to the president.
Over the weekend, Tunisia and Indonesia circulated a watered-down Feb. 8 Palestinian draft, which simply noted that the U.S. plan “departs from the internationally endorsed terms of reference and parameters for the achievement of a just, comprehensive, and lasting solution to this conflict.” But the United States maneuvered to have the resolution’s passage stopped on Monday morning, citing concerns that it was implicitly critical of Trump’s peace efforts. The news site Axios previously reported on the U.S. action.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, mounted a strenuous diplomatic effort over the weekend to dissuade council members from backing the Palestinian text. Some of the toughest pressure fell on small countries, such as Estonia, which was urged to break ranks with the council’s other European Union members—Belgium, France, and Germany—which were expected to vote in favor of the resolution, according to diplomatic sources.
When asked for response, a State Department spokeswoman said “[w]e don’t discuss the details of diplomatic conversations.”
The Palestinians ultimately decided to withdraw the draft from consideration for the time being. Council diplomats said the Palestinian decision reflected the diminishing support for their initiative over the weekend and concern that a vote could expose supporters to political retaliation from the United States.
It remained unclear whether the Palestinians would resume their push for a Security Council resolution criticizing the White House plan, take its case before the U.N. General Assembly, or drop the matter altogether.
“By not putting forward a polarizing resolution, the United Nations Security Council demonstrated yesterday that the old way of doing things is over,” the State Department spokeswoman said. “For the first time on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Council was willing to think outside the conventional box, and not reflexively fall back on the calcified Palestinian position, which has only allowed the failed status quo to continue.”
The spokeswoman added that “[w]e are optimistic that countries are keeping an open mind with regard to” Trump’s peace plan.
During Tuesday’s Security Council meeting, Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended the United States from charges that it was seeking to foist its plan on the rest of the world. Trump’s initiative was not a “take it or leave it” plan but an “opening offer,” Craft said.
“President Abbas, I heard you. I heard you speak of hope,” she added. “We are not here to merely promise hope. Anyone can promise hope. We are here to deliver on hope. … The United States believes that this plan is realistic and implementable.”
Meanwhile, the United States is urging its closest Arab allies to thaw their relationship with Israel, even after the Arab League backed Abbas in unanimously rejecting the peace plan despite U.S. efforts to prevent such a resolution from moving forward. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly working to broker a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Netanyahu during an upcoming visit to the Middle East. A senior State Department official declined to comment on the reports in a briefing with reporters but said: “The issue of Israel’s reintegration in the region is something that the administration is focused on.”
Tuesday’s U.N. Security Council debate also provided further evidence that Britain was shifting further away from its traditional European partners and closer to Trump since its exit from the EU. Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Karen Pierce, said London remains committed to a Palestinian state, formed roughly on Israel’s pre-1967 borders with its Arab neighbors, and the establishment of a shared capital with Israel in Jerusalem. But Pierce also urged Palestinian leaders, along with their Israeli counterparts, to give the Trump plan “due consideration,” at least as a first step in direct negotiations.
“All of us here today understand that the proposal put forward by the United States may feel very different to what has been discussed before,” she told the council. “Time will be needed to digest them.”
There were signs that despite its diplomatic pressure campaign, the White House is struggling to win wider support for its Middle East strategy. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres stopped short of challenging the Trump plan, but he said the U.N. is bound by the terms of existing U.N. resolutions that the U.S. accord discards, including the need to negotiate peace on the basis of Israel’s pre-1967 borders with its Arab neighbors.
The U.N. envoy to the peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, warned that Israel’s recent announcement to expand settlements in occupied West Bank territory threatened to worsen an already volatile region. “The possible annexation of territory in the West Bank or similar move would have a devastating impact on the prospects for a two-state solution. It would close the door to negotiations, have negative repercussions across the region, and severely undermine opportunities for normalization and regional peace,” he said.
Update, Feb. 12, 2020: This article was updated to include comments from a State Department spokeswoman.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-11--How a Samsung Heiress Helped Make ‘Parasite’ a Triumph

“ When I was young and studying cinema , ” South Korean director Bong Joon-ho said in his Oscars acceptance speech for best director for his film Parasite , which also won best picture , on Sunday , “ there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart , which is , ‘ The most personal is the most creative ’ ” —a quote he attributed to Martin Scorsese .
But it wasn ’ t just Bong ’ s vision that brought Parasite to the screen ; it was the institutional power of one of the most powerful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ single woman inside it .
After the ceremony , Western onlookers wondered why a scrum was gathering around a low-key Korean woman in the audience .
That woman , Miky Lee , is the visionary behind South Korea ’ s film industry—an heir to the powerful Samsung empire and the vice chair of CJ Group , whose film subsidiary , CJ Entertainment , produced Parasite and a host of other award-winning auteur flicks from South Korea .
I tell her story in new detail in my upcoming book Samsung Rising , due out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the producers who ’ s been working behind the scenes for decades .
She ’ s built the vision , found the right people , and set up a business structure that has allowed Korean cinema to achieve what it ’ s achieved , ” an acquaintance of Lee ’ s in Hollywood told me after the awards speech .
“ In our world of Korean film , I would say , yes , we ’ ve finally found that the most personal is the most creative—and that ’ s why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1980s , the idea of South Korea becoming a cinema powerhouse seemed absurd to most people .
Sure , there was the rare excellent movie , like A Flower in Hell , directed by Shin Sang-ok and starring his wife , the actress Choi Eun-hee—a power couple so talented that North Korea kidnapped them and forced them to make propaganda films .
Nevertheless , state censorship pervaded the paranoid military regime .
The junta of the 1980s had an official policy of showing sleazy late-night cinema—full of cheap sex and gore and nationalistic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep the people happy .
Between repression and B-movies , the country ’ s foray into serious cinema didn ’ t begin until the early 1990s following the transition to democracy in 1987 .
That opened up new space for Korean producer-visionaries .
Short , spunky , and with a flair for the arts , Miky Lee , whose Korean name is Lee Mie-kyung , then in her late 20s , came from an arm of the enormously wealthy Lee family that founded Samsung Group , South Korea ’ s most iconic business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Galaxy smartphone and has its hands in seemingly everything , from apartments to fashionable clothing to South Korea ’ s largest theme park .
But overseas , as a young Korean-language instructor at Harvard University , where she was doing a master ’ s in Asian studies , Lee was saddened by the fact that students passed over her Korean-language courses for Japanese , which was cool in the 1980s , and Chinese , which was useful .
“ My lifetime obsession to promote the Korean culture started then , ” she told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s cousin , reflecting on her accomplishments , told me : “ [ Lee ’ s ] side of the family is different .
They have the sense of freedom .
They don ’ t really fit in and take orders.
” The timing was perfect .
The first generation of corporate founders of the chaebol—massive family-run conglomerates like Hyundai , SK , and Samsung—was dying off in the late 1980s and 1990s , opening the way for new leaders with new visions .
And with the arrival of democracy in 1987 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that this rising middle-class nation could not manufacture cheap cars and microwaves forever .
It would need to enter creative industries in software , content , music , and cinema to sustain its economic growth story .
“ An advisor to President Kim [ Young-sam ] explained that the profit from a single film , ‘ Jurassic Park , ’ was equivalent to that from the export of 60,000 Hyundai automobiles , ” the Los Angeles Times reported in 1996 .
By the standards of chaebol heirs , Lee started at a disadvantage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lee Byung-chul in 1987 and a family inheritance feud , his oldest , estranged son , Lee Maeng-hee—Miky Lee ’ s father—inherited the unglamorous arm of the Samsung empire , Cheil Jedang ( later renamed CJ ) , a foodstuff and confectionary maker .
His third son , Lee Kun-hee , inherited the crown jewel , Samsung Electronics , which emerged as a manufacturer of the latest semiconductor technologies , powering the PC revolution .
Wildly successful Japanese firms like Sony , awash in cash holdings , were snatching up marquee acquisitions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billion in 1989—and South Korea saw similar opportunities .
For Korea , everything changed when Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee got involved .
Once an aspiring film director who watched Ben-Hur and other classics 10 times or more , Chairman Lee appointed his niece Miky Lee to be a kind of artistic emissary to California on behalf of Samsung .
According to numerous people who worked with her , Lee ’ s mandate was to ferret out acquisitions and partnerships for the chairman—in design , the arts , film , fashion , and advertising—that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an electronics factory .
In 1994 , Lee heard from a lawyer in Los Angeles that a famous Hollywood trio—Steven Spielberg , Jeffrey Katzenberg , and David Geffen—was looking for two or three suitors for their film start-up , DreamWorks .
Convincing her uncle , Chairman Lee , that it was a smart business , Lee arranged a meeting for Samsung at Spielberg ’ s home in Pacific Palisades , California .
The talks broke down when Samsung kept bragging about its semiconductor successes all while demanding effective creative control over DreamWorks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Geffen told the New York Times in 1996 , that “ if we were only interested in making money we ’ d also build semiconductor plants.
” Former Samsung executives involved in the talks told me that Spielberg was asking for too much freedom—an unacceptable way to speak to the chairman , who was “ treated like a god ” at Samsung , dozens of them said .
As the chaebol set out on these California expansions , South Korea ’ s regimented corporate culture became a liability .
With stakes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PC maker , and New Regency ( then Regency International Pictures ) , one of the film studios behind 1990 ’ s Pretty Woman , Samsung kept hitting the same roof and sometimes had to pull out , according to numerous people involved in the deals whom I interviewed .
“ I ’ d call the Korean headquarters , and I ’ d tell my bosses , ‘ These are creative studios , and they ’ re the best in the world .
They ’ re not here to pump out cheap Hyundai @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to step back and let them do what they do best , or else you ’ re going to chase out talent .
The world is not Korea !
’ ” a former vice president involved in a major acquisition told me .
Lee was known among employees for her softer , more relaxed management style , a quality that helped her get access to the Hollywood elite .
“ She is not like Korean men , giving orders and expecting them to be followed , ” her high school English teacher told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do anything creative , you have to have a soft touch.
” After the Samsung-DreamWorks deal flopped , Spielberg ’ s trio , impressed with Lee , approached her again about getting seed capital—and in 1995 , Lee ’ s new company , CJ , agreed to acquire a $ 300 million stake in exchange for Asian distribution rights and the golden egg : Lee ’ s filmmakers would be allowed to study under DreamWorks .
A former Samsung consultant who worked with Lee said her DreamWorks deal was the catch that laid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was also a “ slap in the face to the [ Samsung ] chairman , ” swelling an ongoing family rift .
As CJ and Samsung unwound their complex cross-shareholdings , Lee left Samsung and , with her brother , focused on transforming CJ from just a cheap food-maker to a successful film studio as well .
That marked the birth of South Korea ’ s modern film industry .
But the early years were a struggle , in part due to the South Korean factory tradition being applied to cinema—too many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volumes .
Economic crisis hit in 1997 , shaking out poorly performing studios .
Samsung Entertainment , a CJ rival , was forced to shut down in 1999 after just a few years of operation .
But the competition made the industry leaner and smarter .
And CJ ’ s new film subsidiary , CJ Entertainment , guided by Lee ’ s eye for artistic success , began producing early hits like Joint Security Area in 2000 , about North and South Korean soldiers who befriend each other at the Demilitarized Zone separating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Oldboy , a dark tale about a drunkard who wakes up in a cell and , after 15 years of captivity , is suddenly released to the outside world .
The Korean wave , as it was called , was taking off , building a loyal fandom for Korean film and music from around the world .
But the ensuing decade showed the dangers of overhyping the arts under the guise of manufactured nationalism , as well as becoming overly dependent on a growing oligarchy of studios—including CJ—that cemented control over almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retail and distribution .
Dragon Wars : D-War , co-produced by CJ Entertainment and released in 2007 , was a costly project played up as Korea ’ s first truly global film .
Set in Los Angeles , with a multinational cast and crew , it told of legendary Korean dragons that came out of their slumber and waged war on humanity .
But the film was widely panned for its cheesy acting , plot holes , and over-the-top special effects .
A critic for the Boston Globe wrote that “ there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laughable fantasy knew what he or she was doing.
” An animated film , Empress Chung , released in 2005 and produced by the well-known Simpsons animator Nelson Shin , was hyped as a groundbreaking , cooperative project between North and South Korean animation studios .
But it grossed $ 140,000 on its opening weekend—a devastating loss for its $ 6.5 million budget—and then literally disappeared from the public domain after a few screenings in Europe .
No DVD was released .
Even today , it ’ s not available for streaming anywhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s CJ Entertainment embraced a hands-off model when working with prominent directors , guaranteeing them full backing for their vision , even in the face of adversity .
One breakthrough came in 2013 , when Bong Joon-ho , who would later direct Parasite , released the brilliant Snowpiercer with CJ , about the miserably poor citizens who live in the back cars of a train that circles around a dystopian world , eating cockroach meat , and who ignite a class revolution against their overlords up front .
Though a hit in South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ muted the film ’ s potential for U.S. success .
He wanted to cut 20 minutes of nuanced dialogue so the film could be understood by “ people in Iowa and Oklahoma.
” “ Harvey hated it , ” Bong told Vulture .
Snowpiercer also made enemies with the censorious South Korean government of the increasingly authoritarian President Park Geun-hye , who put CJ on a blacklist from government funding and had the company assessed for its “ growing left-leaning culture industry and recruitment efforts , ” according to a confidential intelligence report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the trial and prison sentencing of Lee ’ s brother , CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun , for tax evasion in 2015 .
( He was pardoned in 2016 . )
Lee left her home in Seoul for Laguna Beach , California , citing ill health .
“ But it was really all those troubles , including health , that chased her out for a while , ” a former CJ employee who knew her told me .
For all those troubles , Snowpiercer was the landmark movie that kicked off the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cinema blow up with global , mainstream audiences .
Korean filmmakers were wise to brush off the dull , decrepit profit motives of Weinstein—and the mass-produced movies of the past .
While Bong ’ s films , with their often horrifying images , drew on the late-night shockers of his youth , they moved far beyond them .
Korean filmmakers learned to stay true to the personal—the most creative .
They were honest about the social ills hurting Korean society , like the vast gulf between rich and poor , even as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drive that inequality .
And then they found growing , worldwide appeal .
In 2019 , the South Korean film industry raked in $ 1.61 billion—compared with $ 370 million in 2004 , back when the industry was releasing its first big hits .
That culminated in Parasite ’ s triumph .
And Miky Lee , once a small-time upstart breaking into Hollywood , later blacklisted by her own government , made her comeback .

“When I was young and studying cinema,” South Korean director Bong Joon-ho said in his Oscars acceptance speech for best director for his film Parasite, which also won best picture, on Sunday, “there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart, which is, ‘The most personal is the most creative’”—a quote he attributed to Martin Scorsese. But it wasn’t just Bong’s vision that brought Parasite to the screen; it was the institutional power of one of the most powerful Korean companies—and the personal quest of a single woman inside it.
“When I was young and studying cinema,” South Korean director Bong Joon-ho said in his Oscars acceptance speech for best director for his film Parasite, which also won best picture, on Sunday, “there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart, which is, ‘The most personal is the most creative’”—a quote he attributed to Martin Scorsese. But it wasn’t just Bong’s vision that brought Parasite to the screen; it was the institutional power of one of the most powerful Korean companies—and the personal quest of a single woman inside it.
After the ceremony, Western onlookers wondered why a scrum was gathering around a low-key Korean woman in the audience. That woman, Miky Lee, is the visionary behind South Korea’s film industry—an heir to the powerful Samsung empire and the vice chair of CJ Group, whose film subsidiary, CJ Entertainment, produced Parasite and a host of other award-winning auteur flicks from South Korea. I tell her story in new detail in my upcoming book Samsung Rising, due out this March. “She’s one of the producers who’s been working behind the scenes for decades. She’s built the vision, found the right people, and set up a business structure that has allowed Korean cinema to achieve what it’s achieved,” an acquaintance of Lee’s in Hollywood told me after the awards speech. “In our world of Korean film, I would say, yes, we’ve finally found that the most personal is the most creative—and that’s why we got this far.”
Until the 1980s, the idea of South Korea becoming a cinema powerhouse seemed absurd to most people. Sure, there was the rare excellent movie, like A Flower in Hell, directed by Shin Sang-ok and starring his wife, the actress Choi Eun-hee—a power couple so talented that North Korea kidnapped them and forced them to make propaganda films. Nevertheless, state censorship pervaded the paranoid military regime. The junta of the 1980s had an official policy of showing sleazy late-night cinema—full of cheap sex and gore and nationalistic pride—on state TV channels as prolefeed to keep the people happy. Between repression and B-movies, the country’s foray into serious cinema didn’t begin until the early 1990s following the transition to democracy in 1987.
Executive producer Miky Lee (at the microphone) and the “Parasite” team as they accept the Best Picture award during the Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, on Feb. 9.
That opened up new space for Korean producer-visionaries. Short, spunky, and with a flair for the arts, Miky Lee, whose Korean name is Lee Mie-kyung, then in her late 20s, came from an arm of the enormously wealthy Lee family that founded Samsung Group, South Korea’s most iconic business empire. The company makes the popular Galaxy smartphone and has its hands in seemingly everything, from apartments to fashionable clothing to South Korea’s largest theme park. But overseas, as a young Korean-language instructor at Harvard University, where she was doing a master’s in Asian studies, Lee was saddened by the fact that students passed over her Korean-language courses for Japanese, which was cool in the 1980s, and Chinese, which was useful. “My lifetime obsession to promote the Korean culture started then,” she told Bloomberg Markets in 2014. Lee’s cousin, reflecting on her accomplishments, told me: “[Lee’s] side of the family is different. They have the sense of freedom. They don’t really fit in and take orders.”
The timing was perfect. The first generation of corporate founders of the chaebol—massive family-run conglomerates like Hyundai, SK, and Samsung—was dying off in the late 1980s and 1990s, opening the way for new leaders with new visions. And with the arrival of democracy in 1987, South Korea’s political leaders knew that this rising middle-class nation could not manufacture cheap cars and microwaves forever. It would need to enter creative industries in software, content, music, and cinema to sustain its economic growth story. “An advisor to President Kim [Young-sam] explained that the profit from a single film, ‘Jurassic Park,’ was equivalent to that from the export of 60,000 Hyundai automobiles,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 1996.
By the standards of chaebol heirs, Lee started at a disadvantage. After the death of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul in 1987 and a family inheritance feud, his oldest, estranged son, Lee Maeng-hee—Miky Lee’s father—inherited the unglamorous arm of the Samsung empire, Cheil Jedang (later renamed CJ), a foodstuff and confectionary maker. His third son, Lee Kun-hee, inherited the crown jewel, Samsung Electronics, which emerged as a manufacturer of the latest semiconductor technologies, powering the PC revolution.
Wildly successful Japanese firms like Sony, awash in cash holdings, were snatching up marquee acquisitions, such as Columbia Pictures for $3.4 billion in 1989—and South Korea saw similar opportunities. For Korea, everything changed when Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee got involved. Once an aspiring film director who watched Ben-Hur and other classics 10 times or more, Chairman Lee appointed his niece Miky Lee to be a kind of artistic emissary to California on behalf of Samsung. According to numerous people who worked with her, Lee’s mandate was to ferret out acquisitions and partnerships for the chairman—in design, the arts, film, fashion, and advertising—that could elevate Samsung’s creativity beyond an electronics factory.
In 1994, Lee heard from a lawyer in Los Angeles that a famous Hollywood trio—Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen—was looking for two or three suitors for their film start-up, DreamWorks. Convincing her uncle, Chairman Lee, that it was a smart business, Lee arranged a meeting for Samsung at Spielberg’s home in Pacific Palisades, California.
The talks broke down when Samsung kept bragging about its semiconductor successes all while demanding effective creative control over DreamWorks. “I kept on saying to them,” Geffen told the New York Times in 1996, that “if we were only interested in making money we’d also build semiconductor plants.” Former Samsung executives involved in the talks told me that Spielberg was asking for too much freedom—an unacceptable way to speak to the chairman, who was “treated like a god” at Samsung, dozens of them said.
As the chaebol set out on these California expansions, South Korea’s regimented corporate culture became a liability. With stakes in AST Research, then a top PC maker, and New Regency (then Regency International Pictures), one of the film studios behind 1990’s Pretty Woman, Samsung kept hitting the same roof and sometimes had to pull out, according to numerous people involved in the deals whom I interviewed. “I’d call the Korean headquarters, and I’d tell my bosses, ‘These are creative studios, and they’re the best in the world. They’re not here to pump out cheap Hyundai cars in high volume. You need to step back and let them do what they do best, or else you’re going to chase out talent. The world is not Korea!’” a former vice president involved in a major acquisition told me.
Lee was known among employees for her softer, more relaxed management style, a quality that helped her get access to the Hollywood elite. “She is not like Korean men, giving orders and expecting them to be followed,” her high school English teacher told the New York Times. “To do anything creative, you have to have a soft touch.”
After the Samsung-DreamWorks deal flopped, Spielberg’s trio, impressed with Lee, approached her again about getting seed capital—and in 1995, Lee’s new company, CJ, agreed to acquire a $300 million stake in exchange for Asian distribution rights and the golden egg: Lee’s filmmakers would be allowed to study under DreamWorks. A former Samsung consultant who worked with Lee said her DreamWorks deal was the catch that laid the groundwork for her success but that it was also a “slap in the face to the [Samsung] chairman,” swelling an ongoing family rift. As CJ and Samsung unwound their complex cross-shareholdings, Lee left Samsung and, with her brother, focused on transforming CJ from just a cheap food-maker to a successful film studio as well.
That marked the birth of South Korea’s modern film industry. But the early years were a struggle, in part due to the South Korean factory tradition being applied to cinema—too many competitors churning out low-budget films in high volumes. Economic crisis hit in 1997, shaking out poorly performing studios. Samsung Entertainment, a CJ rival, was forced to shut down in 1999 after just a few years of operation.
But the competition made the industry leaner and smarter. And CJ’s new film subsidiary, CJ Entertainment, guided by Lee’s eye for artistic success, began producing early hits like Joint Security Area in 2000, about North and South Korean soldiers who befriend each other at the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, and 2003’s Oldboy, a dark tale about a drunkard who wakes up in a cell and, after 15 years of captivity, is suddenly released to the outside world.
The Korean wave, as it was called, was taking off, building a loyal fandom for Korean film and music from around the world. But the ensuing decade showed the dangers of overhyping the arts under the guise of manufactured nationalism, as well as becoming overly dependent on a growing oligarchy of studios—including CJ—that cemented control over almost the whole process, from production to retail and distribution.
Dragon Wars: D-War, co-produced by CJ Entertainment and released in 2007, was a costly project played up as Korea’s first truly global film. Set in Los Angeles, with a multinational cast and crew, it told of legendary Korean dragons that came out of their slumber and waged war on humanity. But the film was widely panned for its cheesy acting, plot holes, and over-the-top special effects. A critic for the Boston Globe wrote that “there was no evidence that anybody involved with this laughable fantasy knew what he or she was doing.”
An animated film, Empress Chung, released in 2005 and produced by the well-known Simpsons animator Nelson Shin, was hyped as a groundbreaking, cooperative project between North and South Korean animation studios. But it grossed $140,000 on its opening weekend—a devastating loss for its $6.5 million budget—and then literally disappeared from the public domain after a few screenings in Europe. No DVD was released. Even today, it’s not available for streaming anywhere.
Amid these flops, Lee’s CJ Entertainment embraced a hands-off model when working with prominent directors, guaranteeing them full backing for their vision, even in the face of adversity. One breakthrough came in 2013, when Bong Joon-ho, who would later direct Parasite, released the brilliant Snowpiercer with CJ, about the miserably poor citizens who live in the back cars of a train that circles around a dystopian world, eating cockroach meat, and who ignite a class revolution against their overlords up front.
Though a hit in South Korea, the disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein muted the film’s potential for U.S. success. He wanted to cut 20 minutes of nuanced dialogue so the film could be understood by “people in Iowa and Oklahoma.” “Harvey hated it,” Bong told Vulture.
Snowpiercer also made enemies with the censorious South Korean government of the increasingly authoritarian President Park Geun-hye, who put CJ on a blacklist from government funding and had the company assessed for its “growing left-leaning culture industry and recruitment efforts,” according to a confidential intelligence report sent to Park. Not helping matters was the trial and prison sentencing of Lee’s brother, CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun, for tax evasion in 2015. (He was pardoned in 2016.) Lee left her home in Seoul for Laguna Beach, California, citing ill health. “But it was really all those troubles, including health, that chased her out for a while,” a former CJ employee who knew her told me.
For all those troubles, Snowpiercer was the landmark movie that kicked off the 2010s, the decade that saw Korean cinema blow up with global, mainstream audiences. Korean filmmakers were wise to brush off the dull, decrepit profit motives of Weinstein—and the mass-produced movies of the past. While Bong’s films, with their often horrifying images, drew on the late-night shockers of his youth, they moved far beyond them.
Korean filmmakers learned to stay true to the personal—the most creative. They were honest about the social ills hurting Korean society, like the vast gulf between rich and poor, even as they were funded by the corporations that helped drive that inequality. And then they found growing, worldwide appeal. In 2019, the South Korean film industry raked in $1.61 billion—compared with $370 million in 2004, back when the industry was releasing its first big hits. That culminated in Parasite’s triumph. And Miky Lee, once a small-time upstart breaking into Hollywood, later blacklisted by her own government, made her comeback.