All good things come to an end, and that is true today for myself and China Rises. This blog is taking a rest. At some point in the near future, a new McClatchy correspondent will arrive in China and likely take over this blog – certainly with a different perspective than my own.

It’s been nearly three years since I started the China Rises blog, and my family is on its sixth year in China. English-language blogs on the Middle Kingdom have exploded in that time, and there’s a huge variety to read.

I thank those who’ve found China Rises interesting. I can see from the IP locations that people from all corners of the world have taken an interest.

In my day job, writing news stories for McClatchy, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to travel nearly everywhere in China. As I look at the map, I see I’ve been to every province and autonomous region except Guizhou. For beauty, little surpasses Guangxi with its fabulous karst limestone outcroppings. I loved the rugged beauty of inner Fujian province, where my grandparents lived for five years. I also have very much liked the outlying borders of China: the forested areas near Tumen (where North Korea, China and Russia meet), the anything goes feel of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, Manzhouli on the border with Russia. The Wolong panda preserve in Sichuan was a lot of fun to see.

I regret not making it to the Dunhuang caves in Gansu Province, and to Heaven Lake up in the mountains near Urumqi in far west Xinjiang.

Some of the greatest fun were the cultural and social stories. When I inquired of the Sichuan Culinary Society for the spiciest food in the province, the chief promptly invited me to a feast of the best known and hottest Sichuan dishes. When I was in Ningxia autonomous region, I heard that local Hui Muslims were in high demand as Arab translators elsewhere in the country. That was interesting.

A personal highlight was making it up to Everest base camp. That made up for the numerous trips to Henan province, which seemed to invariably end up with my detention by local officials.

One time I certainly deserved to be detained. Writing about China’s military, I and an early assistant blundered down a highway from Dalian toward what we understood to be a naval museum. We missed signs that said it was off limits to foreigners. When we pulled up to the museum, several men came running for us – detained! Fine: About $100 for “illegal tourism.”

China has certainly left its mark on me. But it’s our two daughters who are most altered. Both consider Beijing home. We’ve lived here longer than anywhere else in their lives. The youngest one speaks like a native Chinese.

I’ll be engaged in a writing project here for a few more months about which I won’t go into details, then moving to a neighboring country for a few additional months before picking up a McClatchy job at a site yet to be determined. Thanks for reading.

It doesn’t take long in China to run into someone who toils in the gray areas of the economy – which are neither legal nor illegal.

The man in the photo, Zhou Xiaodong, is one such person. He’s a tattoo artist. Perhaps I should say artiste because Zhou is definitely at the upper end of the tattoo world. He travels overseas to teach and apprentice. Foreigners travel to China just to get his designs inked on their skin.

His Munaiyi (Mummy) studio is on Beijing’s Xindong Lu in a modern high-rise building with panoramic vistas of the city. There, you find those reclining dental chairs to make it comfortable to get the tattoo. On the walls are posters of tattooed Maori warriors, international forums on tattooing and plenty of Zhou’s own art work.

I just did a story on tattoos in China, which you can see here. There are perhaps hundreds of tattoo parlors in Beijing now.

Zhou spent eight or nine months studying in Japan, and has been doing tattoos for more than a decade. His website is impressive. But here’s what he said when I asked him about the legality of what he’s doing:

“It’s a pitiful thing. I don’t have an identity even though I’ve been doing it for so long. I don’t think it’s possible for me to get a license but it’s impossible for the government to forbid it.”

Zhou, like many Chinese entrepreneurs, keeps one eye looking over his shoulder.

No matter the nationality, it’s always pitiable when foreigners get taken advantage of in a major way while traveling abroad.
 
Here’s one case involving Chinese in the U.S.: Some 130 Chinese student pilots were stranded for weeks in Florida when the flight training school they attended closed up shop even though the Chinese had paid upward of $70,000 each to attend the school.

Look at the English language video on this Chinese website to see a news dispatch from a local network affiliate in Tampa about the students.

Best as I can tell, the students were sponsored by Chinese airlines to go abroad and receive pilot training. For background, read my story here about the shortage of pilots in China.

They ended up at the CAPT (commercial airline pilot training) school in Bunnell, Florida, which is north of Daytona Beach. The school shuttered its doors a few weeks ago, leaving the students in a really pathetic situation of having no money, being evicted from their apartments, unable to buy a vehicle because their visas didn’t permit it, and fearful that their dreams of becoming pilots would go up in smoke.

A reader of this blog in Florida notified me of the situation. Here’s a part of his email to me:

The kids were told they had to move out of their apartments, were left with no food, no school, and no passports and school credentials.  The situation has abated a bit - the kids were sent to another two flight training schools, one in New Smyrna Beach and the second in Sanford.  Things got a bit testy initially but now seem to have cooled down a little.
 
Since no one locally seemed interested enough to help these kids, I was on the phone to the China consulate in Houston, the Florida Attorney General's Office in Tallahassee, and the US Department of State.  Not sure if it helped but the next day it was announced that the kids would be sent to the two other flight schools. Fox and ABC did local stories on it.

I founda blog from Flagler County, Florida, with this posting:

More than 140 Chinese students, who had hoped to become pilots, are trapped in a Palm Coast, Florida apartment complex without income, electricity, food or transportation. They have fallen victims of a flight school that shut down and filed bankruptcy. The school location is Palm Coast, Florida.

The students were sponsored by Chinese airlines to learn to become pilots at the school. The CAPT Program (Commercial Airline Pilot Training Program) was paid several thousands of dollars per student to provide them training, housing and a food allowance.
Having been left sauve qui peut , the apartment rent is due and there is no money for food. The students have been in the US for over a year. Their visa status prevents them from getting jobs. Their school manual stipulates that they cannot use local transportation as well.
Appeals to the school's director have gone unanswered. Their only resource has been to go to the media to see if anyone will come forward to assist them. This should be considered a warning to anyone thinking of paying money to go to the US for study. Never pay everything up front.
Meanwhile, the program website still advertises for students. It would seem logical that the program attempt to relocate the students elsewhere, along with all the promised benefits, in light of their school closing. However, the fate of the students remains "up in the air."

Another woman there posted the following:

I found the article interesting as we have many Asian men who walk past my house many times a day walking to Publix, Target, etc..... I had wondered what was up, and I believe this is the answer. They seem to live in the apts on Rt 100 west of Belle Terre....

Chinese media haven’t picked up much on it. But one site at aviationlaw.com.cn noted the irony that the students had been entrusted with planes costing upward of $300,000 but prevented from buying automobiles or motorcycles.

Another Chinese news outlet said the students were promised 250 flying hours at the school. Many of them had signed contracts with domestic airlines pledging to return to China and work for them once they had commercial licenses.

The Chinese-language Global Times quoted one student surnamed Wang from Nanjing Aviation University saying: “I came to the U.S. with the dream of becoming a pilot. But I have not gotten a license yet. My family is worried about me very much and wants me to come back home. However, if I go home now, I cannot be a pilot.”

There’s been a lot of noise in the last few days about how China and France have repaired very tattered relations. In a joint statement, France said it “fully understands” the sensitivity of the Tibet issue to China and vowed no support to “any kind of ‘Tibet independence.’”

China was quite pleased by this.

But while that wildfire was doused, others still burn. And it’s not all about Tibet.

There’s also the matter of Xinjiang, the largely Muslim region in China’s sparsely populated far west. As Muslims, ethnic Uyghurs who populate Xinjiang can’t seem to generate the kind of global interest that Tibetan Buddhists do. China accuses most Tibetan and Uyghur leaders alike of being separatists and “splittists” who try to splinter China.

Yet there’s a lot of sympathy for Uyghurs in some corners of Washington. In December, I arranged an interview with the best known Uyghur leader, Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in exile there. To my surprise, I found her office about a block from the White House. Here’s the story I wrote. Beijing has called Kadeer, who served many years in Chinese prison on charges of harming state security, a “separatist monster.”

Now comes what I find to be even more surprising news. When the World Uyghur Congress, which Kadeer leads, convenes its major meeting in Washington in May, it will do so actually inside the U.S. Capitol. Here’s the pertinent part of the press release I received:

"President Rebiya Kadeer of The World Uyghur Congress announced today the opening ceremony of its Third General Assembly will be in the United States Capitol Building, Congressional Meeting Room South on May 21st, 2009 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Members of the U.S. Congress and Senate, dignitaries, prominent human rights defenders, and leaders of the Tibetan and Chinese communities will address Uyghur congressional delegates from around the world, as well as their supporters. The opening of this Assembly at the U.S. Capitol has profound historical significance to the peaceful struggle of the Uyghur people for their freedom, democracy, and human rights."

You can bet that’s causing some indigestion at the new Chinese Embassy in Washington.

You may have seen the headlines already. Presidents Obama and Hu met in London during the G-20 summit and agreed to continue a regular high-level dialogue that was begun under former President Bush. The "new" dialogue will only be once a year, rather than twice a year, but will involve both the Timothy Geithner and Hillary Clinton, the Treasury secretary and secretary of state respectively.

There's plenty on this in the regular English and Chinese news media. But I found it interesting to read the back and forth at a news briefing given by someone from Obama's inner circle to the White House press corps.

It's long and if this doesn't ring your bell, sorry. You can stop reading now.

 BACKGROUND READOUT TO THE TRAVEL POOL
BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS
ON PRESIDENT OBAMA'S MEETING WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT HU

Winfield House
London, United Kingdom
3:58 P.M. (Local)

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I’ll just start briefly by saying the President accepted an invitation to visit China sometime in the later half of this year. And we’ll go from there.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. Well, this was the first time they met. They had spoken on the phone for a couple times after the election and inauguration. I’d say that the high points were that they agreed on a characterization of the relationship as a positive – building a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship for the 21st century. As you know, there have been characterizations in the past; this is the one that is agreed upon here.

They announced the establishment of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which will be headed on the U.S. side by Secretary Clinton and Secretary Geithner. On the Chinese side, it will be headed by Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Counselor Dai Bingguo.

They discussed a broad range of issues. I’ll just list them at the outset and we’ll get into greater depth as you wish. They discussed bilateral relations, including military – military-to-military relations. They discussed the economy – domestic economy and the international economy. They discussed a range of international issues – notably North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan. They also discussed human rights in Tibet and Taiwan. Climate change was also mentioned. Am I missing anything? That’s, I think, the whole list. And we can get into greater depth on these as you wish.

Q Did global currency come up at all?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It was not raised.

Q The President has been talking about resetting the relationship with Russia. How does he want to approach China differently than the Bush administration? Obviously one difference is the Strategic and Economic Dialogue is different from the Strategic Economic Dialogue established in the Bush administration. Could you talk about the differences with the Bush administration in the approach, but also why did you decide to broaden out this dialogue in this way?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I’d rather just characterize President Obama’s approach to the relationship rather than getting into comparisons. I mean, you are right that the Strategic and Economic Dialogue is a new mechanism, and that is one obvious point of comparison than under President Bush. The economic dialogue was at the Cabinet level with Secretary Paulson whereas the political dialogue was at a lower level. Now that has been raised.

I would say that President Obama’s approach on China is marked by pragmatism, by a non—ideological approach, a belief that this is a critical relationship for addressing and resolving global issues, starting with the international economic and financial crisis, but also things like North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan and climate change. The President said that none of these issues are going to be resolved if the U.S. and China don’t work together. He recognized that China in the last decade has greatly increased its own strength and its own role in the world, and he looks to build a relationship with China where China works cooperatively with us to resolve these international issues.

If you go back 10 years, China was a much – go back to the beginning of the Bush administration, China was a much smaller player on these issues than it is now. So now the goal is to engage China’s – China constructively to resolve these issues.

Q Could you go into a little more depth on the North Korea subject, especially with regard to the missile launch plans?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I can say a little more about our position and what we said. In terms of the Chinese, you want to speak to the Chinese. But we’re – the President made clear we’re deeply concerned about the prospective missile launch by the North Koreans. They call it a satellite launch, but that’s a distinction, not a difference; it’s the same technology. But this is provocative to the region and contrary to U.N. Security Council resolutions. And there will be a reaction. There will be a reaction to it.

Q Can you say what the reaction is?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, we – there are U.N. Security Council resolutions, so we – I expect that we will be talking in the U.N. Security Council about how to respond.

We want to see the six-party talks continue, and North Korea has been engaged in lots of actions over the last few months that have prevented that process from continuing. We’d like to see it continue.

Q Thank you.

Q This change to the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, I think I understand what that means, but I’m trying to decide how I would explain that to my mom or, you know, my friends. Is there – can you sort of maybe be really plain in what the impact of doing something like that is, what it means?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think the goal of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue is to try to sort of build a common approach on sort of the major issues in the relationship. It’s about communication at a high level. It’s not a short-term problem-solving mechanism, like, for example, the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, which will continue, and it’s also the highlight. But that is designed to address specific concerns, specific problems in the commercial sector.

This dialogue mechanism I think is more about trying to have more in-depth discussions on both the political and economic side so we understand each other’s way of thinking better and build over the long term serious solutions to problems. When we have the meeting, we’re not going to come out of the meeting, I suspect, and say here’s how we resolved this or that issue. It’s more of a long-term process, and the strategic issues will include global issues, like – you know, we still have to work out an agenda on it, so I don’t want to get ahead of the agenda. But it will include global issues as well as regional points of tension.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me just say a few words. You know, the leaders started – the President started today by acknowledging how important our economic interactions have become, both in terms of trade and investment, and saying that they want that to be an important part of our relationship and for it to grow in a healthy way. And so the Strategic Economic Dialogue portion is a way to talk about how we can make sure that happens. And if there are subjects that have to do with our respective roles in the international financial system, then we can discuss those.

So it’s really a forum in which, at a very high level, one can take a longer-term perspective and make sure that together we’re taking the leadership role that we want to have.

Q I guess I’m just trying to understand, because I would presume with a nation as strategically important as China – obviously the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury is going to have a pipeline with their counterparts and be in discussions, visit with them, meetings with them all the time. So why do you – what is important about this particular mechanism?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: One thing that’s important about it is you get uninterrupted time, and much longer time than you would in the course of a simple bilateral visit, where you might get a 45-minute meeting or a one-hour meeting in which you can go over an enormous array of issues.

This is – again, we haven’t worked out the exact agenda yet, but this will be presumably a day or two. So it will be much more in depth. There also will be a cross-cutting character to the discussions. There will be people from different agencies, many different agencies on both sides in the room. You need to understand, the Chinese system is quite stovepiped – different agencies have difficulty talking to each other. It’s not that easy on our side, but it’s almost impossible on the Chinese side. And this is a mechanism that’s designed to break down those barriers, get a lot of different people from different agencies in the room.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And having everyone together has an advantage for us, as well, that, you know, we can consider the different aspects of our relationship with China in a holistic way. Certainly as we can see in this crisis, economic issues affect our security interests and security issues affect our economic interests. So this is a way to have a comprehensive dialogue with them where you’re not separating necessarily the two sides – you can really take a broad look at all the things that we want to try to accomplish together.

Q So forgive me if this is a dumb question, but this is sort of – this is like – as you said, this is a one- or two-day thing that you do over, you know, repeated intervals over time?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It is expected to be annual, and the first meeting will be in Washington. We’re still working on the dates.

Q Okay. Broad range, maybe?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Broad range. I would say summer is a rough target. But we’ve still got to clear some calendars on both sides.

Q Great.

Q I just quickly want to follow up on Hans’s question about the global currency. You said that issue didn’t come up. But did the issue of currencies in general come up? That seems to be an issue that always comes up –

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, it didn’t come up. I’d be happy to go through – on the economic side they talked about the relationship, the trade and investment relationship and the importance of building on that. They talked about the G20, and both expressed a mutually expressed satisfaction that each side has been taking stimulus action. They both talked about the importance of improving the regulatory system in the world and that that was important to both countries.

They spoke about the need to strengthen the resource base of the International Monetary Fund and to see that the World Bank and multilateral development banks would have the resources to lend, as well.

So the discussion was more in the context of the G20 set of issues that are being discussed.

Q What about the imbalances between the two countries and the fact that China has this huge surplus and the United States –

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Really the focus was on the fact that we had things in common, that our economies had both slowed, that we are both in the process of implementing very significant stimulus plans. Each side explained what they were doing and the goals they had in mind, and just expressing the importance that we, together, stimulate our economies and get growth going.

Q Thank you.

Q What was the discussion surrounding Sudan? Can you also explain what they talked about in terms of human rights in Tibet and Taiwan?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the President expressed his concern about the humanitarian situation in Darfur, and the – Khartoum’s decision to expel the NGOs, so that, you know, that innocent people should not be bearing the consequences of what Khartoum is doing and that we should find ways to get the NGOs back and to get assistance to people who need it.

Q And did the President – did President Hu make any representations or agreements on that point?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: He made representations exactly on those lines, yes.

Q I’m talking about President Hu.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Oh, President Hu. I’d rather not get into what the Chinese said. I think that’s really up to the Chinese to characterize what they said.

Q And could you also talk about the human rights issue in Tibet?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Tibet was discussed. The President made clear that we’re going to not only talk about things on which we agree, but also things on which we disagree, that we care deeply about human rights and (inaudible). And he made clear our concerns about human rights in Tibet and our hope that China would make progress and (inaudible).

Q The Chinese naval mooning episode, where the two ships came awfully close last month, was that discussed at all?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Military-to-military relations were discussed and President Obama referred to the episode, yes.

Here’s a little ditty making the rounds about China’s evolution over the decades:

Mao Zedong and the first-generation leaders decided to learn from the Soviet Union – and the Soviet Union collapsed.

Deng Xiaoping and the second-generation leaders decided to learn from Japan (East Asia miracle) – and Japan has been in stagnation.

Jiang Zemin and the third-generation leaders decided to learn from the United States (market economy) – and the United States is virtually bankrupt.

Hu Jintao and the fourth-generation leaders decided to learn from ... who's next?