Patrick Saint-Paul - The Rat People: A Journey through Beijing’s Forbidden Underground

THE RAT PEOPLE

THE RAT PEOPLE

A Journey through Beijings Forbidden Underground

PATRICK SAINT-PAUL

Translated by DAVID HOMEL

THE RAT PEOPLE

Translation copyright 2020 by David Homel

Introduction copyright 2020 by Patrick Saint-Paul

Originally published in France under the title Le Peuple des Rats: Dans les sous-sols interdits de la Chine by Patrick Saint-Paul 2016 ditions Grasset

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanicalwithout the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

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The translation of this book has been completed in partnership with the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in Canada / en partenariat avec le service culturel de lAmbassade de France au Canada.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program), for its publishing activities.

Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the xwmkwm (Musqueam), Sw x w7mesh (Squamish), and slilwta (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories where our office is located. We pay respect to their histories, traditions, and continuous living cultures and commit to accountability, respectful relations, and friendship.

Front cover design by Oliver McPartlin

Back cover and text design by Jazmin Welch

Copy edited by Shirarose Wilensky

Proofread by Alison Strobel

Printed and bound in Canada

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Title: The rat people : a journey through Beijings forbidden underground / Patrick Saint-Paul ; translated by David Homel.

Other titles: Peuple des rats. English

Names: Saint-Paul, Patrick, author. | Homel, David, translator.

Description: Translation of: Le peuple des rats : dans les sous-sols interdits de la Chine. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200151622 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200151703 |

ISBN 9781551528038 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551528045 (HTML)

Subjects: LCSH: Working poorChinaBeijingBiography. | LCSH: Working classChinaBeijingSocial conditions. | LCSH: Working classHousingChinaBeijing. | LCSH: Underground areasChinaBeijing. | LCSH: Rural-urban migrationChinaBeijing. | LCSH: Migrant laborChinaBeijingBiography.

Classification: LCC HD8740.B45 S2513 2020 | DDC 305.5/690951156dc23

But the minute there were people around, out came all the words Id stored up inside, like rats fleeing a nest.

MO YAN, Shifu, Youll Do Anything for a Laugh

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T odays China has definitely buried the low-profile and peaceful rise philosophy adopted by the prudent Deng Xiaoping in the early 1990s. Xi Jinping, who will presumably rule over the Peoples Republic until the end of his days, has replaced his predecessors approach with a dogma of self-assertive power and the restoration of the nations greatness after the humiliations inflicted by the West in the nineteenth century. Xis dreams of grandeur have swept away Dengs famous motto Tao Guang Yang Huikeep a low profile and bide your time. The West was slow to recognize the Chinese steamroller and understand the consequences of Beijings strategic aggressiveness.

The most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping wants China to be the worlds most powerful nation by 2050. Beijing has increased its military budget, now second to that of the United States, by ten percent every year, a clear message as to its strategic intentions. Pushed forward by Xi, Chinas will to establish regional control will bring its share of conflicts. His imperialist appetites include Hong Kong and Taiwan, and his objective is to become absolute master of the South China Sea, which has created deep concerns for his neighbors. For Xi, the new silk roads are tools of domination that will help advance his counter-model to Western democracy. Through his massive investments in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and central Asia, as well as the Eastern European countries, Greece, and Italy, he intends for China to not only take control of strategic assets but also throw its political weight around.

The European countries did not open their eyes to the dangers of rising Chinese power until long after the Americans did. Absorbed by their domestic crises, concerned with the chaos in the Middle East, they paid no mind to Chinas quiet advancement. They were blinded by the spectacular mirage of Chinas GNP and preferred to see it as an El Dorado for their industrial conglomerates. As an empire of smoke and mirrors, China played to their need for illusion. In reality, the Middle Kingdom gives only crumbs to foreign investors in exchange for their technologies, an absolute condition if they want to set up shop there. Over the years, China has become a strategic competitor and a systemic rival.

In Brussels, capital of the European Union, leaders are now fearful that China will attempt to divide and destabilize the EU, by creating a Trojan horse with their billions of dollars of investment, and then impose its own interests. Over the last five years, Chinas investments in sensitive sectors of Europes economy have skyrocketed; for example, new technologies like Chinese company Huaweis 5G network bring risks of espionage. The concern becomes even greater while the West looks on, unable to react, as China imposes its counter-model free from democracy. For too long, Western countries believed that the move toward democracy would necessarily follow in the footsteps of economic development. That has not been the case.

The repression of the Tiananmen Square protests destroyed all hopes that Chinas Communist regime might open up. The Fifth Modernization, which would have been democracy, is not about to happen. The dangerous democratic spirit of spring 1989 created an obsession with control in a regime that believes opening up is tantamount to doubt. Xi will not be the Chinese Gorbachev. He learned his lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and does not want to share the fate of its rulers. He believes the slightest crack, the smallest doubt, could be devastating in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. To increase the regimes life span, the Peoples Republic forged its own path: a mix of economic liberalism and political authoritarianism. The concentration of power, the elimination of political rivals under the guise of fighting corruption, the stifling of dissident voices, and the use of cutting-edge technologies for social control are the tools of this new absolutism. And its all cemented together by the rebirth of ideology, a combination of crypto-Maoism and Confucian tradition.

To confront the Chinese steamroller, US president Donald Trumps counteroffensive resulted in the Thucydides Trap, which occurs when a rising power threatens the established power, making war inevitable, as was the case with Athens and Sparta. The resulting trade war has brought about a dangerous dynamic. Xi Jinping wants to make China so rich and powerful that other countries will have no choice but to bend to its will and show it due respect. Trump, who promised to make America great again, is on a collision course with Xi by rejecting the rule of technology transfer China imposes on companies that want to penetrate its market and by imposing tariffs on Chinese exports. The Trump administration has identified Chinas Achilles heelthe Middle Kingdom believed it could isolate itself in certain sectors, while benefiting from globalization in others and receiving all the advantages of its status as a developing economy.