China And Its Inventions: Anna Chen On The Radio 2014

Anna Chen – 4 November 2024, China and its inventions

YOUTUBE, Pt 1, Episode 15: Anna Chen presents Chinese Can’t Innovate Says Boris Johnson, ResonanceFM 2014

China Takes The Space Exploration Baton And Flies With It

In the week that Shenzhou-19 transports three fresh taikonauts to the Tiangong Space Station and the Shenzhou-18 crew return safely to the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia, China’s space marvel remains largely ignored by the media.

True, we don’t get to see that much of the International Space Station, either. But whether this is due to embarrassment that two astronauts have been stuck there for months thanks to Boeing, or the crumbling state of the space station, or plain old ennui, we can only guess.

It should be noted that the fading glory of NASA’s space programme is fondly remembered by many of us who were transfixed by the early missions proudly broadcast by the richest country on planet Earth.

What adds to China’s accomplishments is that, as a developing nation also having to take costs into account, it’s taken the baton and is rocketing with it. This seems as good a time as any to revisit what they’ve been up against and how far they’ve come.

Shenzhou-18 lands in the Gobi Desert, 3 November 2024, carrying 3 taikonauts from the Tiangong Space Station. 35 year old Li Cong is Shenzhou-18 lands in the Gobi Desert 3 November 2024, carrying 3 taikonauts from the Tiangong Space Station. 35 year old taikonaut Li Cong is shortlisted for future moon missions.

Entering The High-Tech Era

The first decade and a half of the 21st century was an information vacuum in the UK when it came to China matters. We were aware that the nation brought in from the cold by Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Mao Zedong in the 1970s was chuntering along nicely, making the affordable goods that allowed us to live beyond our means. Inflation was at an all time low of near zero and we were busy buying lots of stuff.

I’d managed to write and present a raft of programmes with a wide range of unexplored themes for the BBC. In 2010 I broke through the Great Wall of Silence and made “China, Britain and the Nunzilla Conundrum” for BBC Radio 4, pointing out that China was about to leave its suicide factories making our tat far behind as it propelled itself into a new phase of its modern era. Not only was Chinese industry on course for making high-end tech, but lots of it utilising their vast economies of scale in production. Few believed it.

In discussing the rising superpower, you were constantly faced with the age-old obstacles of invisibility and degrading depictions as untermenschen, and character-assassinating demonisation if they got too uppity. Devoid of a balanced approach to a potential equal, the West took a schizoid view; wanting their cheap goods and massive investment but hating them for our dependence.

Some politicians and commentators coped with the decline by reviving degrading tropes about Chinese that I’d hoped were gone for good. Bubbling away in the background, the whole gamut was run from theft, dirt and cruelty to subhumanity, And yet it was these comic book villains who saved the world from the crippling US Great Financial Crash of 2008.

Attitudes remind me of the 1870s America economic downturn when the Chinese became the scapegoat for America’s ills, leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

In 2014, fed up with the constant bleating denigrating China, our global growth engine, I devoted Episode 15 of my Resonance FM radio series to China’s phenomenal abilities.

Up until Britain forced narcotics onto China in the 19th century Opium Wars, China had been the most technically advanced country on the planet. They invented the seed drill 2,000 years before Jethro Tull did in 18th century England. Metal stirrups allowed Ghenghis Kahn to conquer half the Eurasia landmass up to Europe. They had astronomy, and invented the first plastic in lacquer, the compass, paper money and gunpowder.

Here’s your chance to catch up with an early discussion about China’s innovations, recorded at Resonance 104.4 FM in London as part of my pioneering Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge series.

RADIO MINI SERIES Parts 1-5, Episode 15, 15 April 2014: China’s Innovations On YouTube And TikTok
RADIO MINI-SERIES Part 1 (above): “Chinese are incapable of original thought,” said the London mayor in 2005. Now look what they’ve achieved. Anna Chen presents Part 1 of the Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge ResonanceFM104.4 radio series, Episode 15: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations and the Opium Wars. The 2008 Beijing Olympics debuts China’s technological advances in a stunning opening ceremony and shows the world how far it has come. Live broadcast London, 15 April 2014.

Part 2: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations from the seed drill to the metal stirrup and the first plastic.

YOUTUBE Ep15 Pt2 China’s Scientific & Cultural Innovations – Anna Chen 2014

RADIO MINI-SERIES: Anna Chen asks How did Europe get to dominate the world after China’s spectacular early technological success for nearly two millennia?

RADIO MINI-SERIES: Anna Chen asks How did Europe get to dominate the world after China’s spectacular early technological success for nearly two millennia?

Anna Chen presents The Opium Wars, Part 4 of Episode 15: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations. Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge at ResonanceFM104.4

YOUTUBE Anna Chen presents The Taiping Rebellion (Revolution or Civil War), Part 5 of Episode 15: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations.

RADIO SERIES – FULL EPISODE: Anna Chen Presents MADAM MIAOW’S CULTURE LOUNGE, Episode 15: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations – at ResonanceFM, 15 April 2014. Includes a rare, early discussion on the Opium Wars. Groundbreaking series recorded 2013-2014.

YOUTUBE FULL EPISODE 15: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations – Anna Chen Resonance FM, 2014

The Great Wall at Mutianyu: Anna and Paul in China

Another movie from the China trip last month. The Great Wall of China at Mutianyu, an hour and a bit drive north of Beijing, which is not only less touristy but has the advantage of a chair lift so you can be right in the landscape, and a toboggan run back down!!!

In between, some awesome history, breathtaking scenery, blue skies and lovely mortar work.

Sadly, I obeyed authority and put away my camera for the toboggan ride. Now regretting it. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Thanks to all at the Bookworm Literary Festival for getting us there. With Paul Anderson, Frané Lessac, Mark Greenwood and Pornima.

More videos of Anna and Paul in China:
The Kung Fu Pandas of Chengdu.
Anna and Paul in The Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City video: Anna and Paul in China

In China for the Bookworm Literary Festival and only a day left in this astonishing city of 30 million, so what to do? You can't visit Beijing and not see the old quarter, the hutongs, Tiananmen Square and, of course, the vast Ming era (15th century) Forbidden City.

It makes a welcome relief from the endless glass and steel towers of modern China. Imagine Canary Wharf. Now multiply it by dozens, going on for miles. That's what the big Chinese cities look like, even the secondary ones. Lil ol' Chengdu, nestled in the Himalayan foothills in the middle of the country, has a population of 14 million. Five more than London. Think on that.

The low-lying Forbidden City and its environs are exactly what these tourists craved. The air may be polluted but the streets are the cleanest you'll find anywhere, due in part to the government's Keynsian employment of human beings to sweep the streets with old fashioned twiggy brooms and cute little motorised carts.

We were supremely lucky, according to our friends, to enjoy a rare run of blue skies and warm spring weather for our sightseeing. The first time I'd seen Beijing was on a trip with my parents in the 1970s, where everything was Mao suits and bicycles and not a grubby thought to be had. Now everyone has pollution-gauge apps on their smartphones and shops at every familiar western outlet from Gucci to H&M.

We were as fascinated by watching ordinary Chinese at play as they were by my lovely companion, Paul Anderson. The young people like their fashion and electronic kit. The elderly marvelled at the inner sanctum of imperial life that had always been denied them, despite being built on the backs of their ancestors. They were all eager to learn about their own history and grab a little piece of it on their smartphones, as was I — watch the scrum around the throne pavilion in the video. We are indeed all more alike than different.

The fact that the Chinese have any access at all to this beautifully preserved city — now known as the Palace Museum — is fortunate, considering the looting and destruction perpetrated by both the Kuomintang and the Japanese during the first half of the previous century. When I saw it in the 1970s, the painted woodwork was faded, with many of the tiles broken and fallen, and there were few tourists. It's undergone a transformation as stunning as the Chinese economy.

We arrived earlyish at around 10.30am and the place was already thronging. The long queues through the airport-style security outside Tiananmen Gate were packed into narrow avenues protecting us from terrorist attacks such as the one a couple of years ago that killed several tourists when a jeep ploughed into the crowd and exploded in a fireball – but they got us through quickly enough.  

By 4.30pm, when the kicking-out music was played over the loudspeakers, we'd barely seen a quarter of it. You can sense the ghosts of residents past and trace the route taken by emperors borne in palanquins by eunuchs over magnificent stone carvings. Imagine the imperial writhings on the silk beds in the private quarters; hear the pillow talk, the intrigue. What must the palace politics have been like? What must it have been like to be a minion? A concubine? Trapped, never seeing the world outside these dusty red walls for an entire lifetime?

It must have felt eternal, as if it would continue for another five hundred years at least. But nothing lasts forever, especially if rulers grow complacent and forget the interests of the wider population. That's a lesson we're learning in the West, a lesson that knows no national boundaries.

The first movie I stuck on the telly when I returned home? The Last Emperor, natch, shot in the Forbidden City itself by Bertolucci nearly thirty years ago in 1987. Reader, I woz 'ere!

More videos of Anna and Paul in China:
The Kung Fu Pandas of Chengdu
The Great Wall at Mutianyu

A walk around the Barbara Hepworth sculpture garden in St Ives.

Another idyllic trip to St Ives making sure I get in my annual soul-food with several visits to the Barbara Hepworth gallery and sculpture garden in St Ives. A magical place.

With Paul Anderson and Denise Ingamells.

AAAARGH! PRESS LAUNCHES WITH TWO TITLES

Aaargh! Press, a new Brit alternative small press, is celebrating its birth with a party in London next month to mark the publication of its first titles, Reaching for my Gnu by Anna Chen (Kindle eBook and paperback) and The Guitar Geek Dossier by Charles Shaar Murray (Kindle eBook only for now).

Reaching for my Gnu, a collection of poems by British-Chinese poet and performer Anna Chen is available as a paperback for £9.99 and as a Kindle e-book for £1.99.

'Brilliant and dangerous ... one wild-ride roller-coaster that soars to altitudes of unfettered wit and then plunges with a startling and implacably knowing anger' MICK FARREN

'Superb' GREG PALAST

'Charming, witty and sophisticated' SUNDAY TIMES

The Guitar Geek Dossier, an author's-choice collection of columns from Guitarist by legendary music journalist Charles Shaar Murray is available as a Kindle eBook for £1.99.

'The Johnny Cash of rock journalism' PHIL CAMPBELL, MOTORHEAD

'The rock critic’s rock critic' Q MAGAZINE

'Front-line cultural warrior' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Charles is author of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix And Post-war Pop and Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century (both Canongate). His first novel, The Hellhound Sample, was published by Headpress in 2011.

The details of the launch party, which will be something to remember, will be posted here and on the official Aaaaargh! Press website very soon.

MY ASIAN PLANET calls Anna Chen "a bit of a Chinese firecracker" and says of the book, "It's saucy, devilish and delightful!"

Steampunk Opium Wars: gorgeous new photos & poems

Finally uploaded the lovely portraits taken by Sukey Parnell of the cast of The Steampunk Opium Wars debut at the National Maritime Museum in London earlier this year.

As well as Sukey's pix, the poems written by cast-members are also on these pages.

There's a serious intention in writing and performing the show. After we performed it, we were all pleased to hear audience members telling us that this was all new to them. However, I was then shocked to read Julia Lovell's The Opium War, published last year to acclaim and some pretty critique-free reviews. Reading it felt like having someone yelling "You're shit and you know you are!" in your face for hours on end.

Revisionist "historians" do this from time to time. The most shocking example is probably the move to blame Afro-Caribbeans for their wretched slavery because some black people and Arabs helped to run the slave trade in Africa. I hope The Steampunk Opium Wars is an antidote to some of the callous rewriting of this part of history.

THE STEAMPUNK OPIUM WARS: CAST PORTRAITS AND POEMS

Steampunk Opium Wars VIDEO: Lin Zexu Just Says No!

Here's the first extract from The Steampunk Opium Wars which debuted at the National Maritime Museum on Thursday.

The story so far ...

The East India Company has been growing mass-produced opium in Bengal and swamping China with the narcotic, turning an aristocratic vice into a mass addiction. The Emperor calls in Commissioner Lin Zexu to enforce the ban on opium and stop the British drug smuggling operation.

Song: "Lin Zexu Just Says No!"

With Hugo Trebels, Louise Whittle, Anna Chen, John Crow, Paul Anderson. Music from Charles Shaar Murray and Marc Jefferies. Video footage by Jeff Willis — additional material by Oliver Shykles. Lin Zexu portrait by Sukey Parnell. Show still by Jan Jefferies. Edited by Anna Chen.

Pictures here

The Steampunk Opium Wars pages:
The Steampunk Opium Wars Home Page
Afterview
The Company: who we are and how to find us.
Gallery: debut performance at the National Maritime Museum.
VIDEO: Lin Zexu Just Says No!
VIDEO: Britannia sings "Money"
What they said ...

GAUCHE: A LEFT TAKE ON THE EURO CRISIS

GAUCHE: A LEFT TAKE ON THE EURO CRISIS: by Paul Anderson, Tribune column, 24 November 2011

Eurosceptics crowing about how they have been vindicated by the Eurozone crisis are beginning to drive me nuts. I don’t think they have been vindicated, but that’s for another column. What matters now is this:

1. Like it or not, a calm negotiated dissolution of the euro is not possible
It is true that currency unions have in the past been dismantled without catastrophic economic disruption. In recent years, Britain’s currency union with Ireland ended in 1979 when Ireland joined the European exchange rate mechanism; and Slovakia and the Czech Republic introduced separate currencies in 1993 after Czechoslovakia’s “velvet divorce”.

It is imaginable that at some time in the future the Eurozone could be broken up by mutual consent of its participants without precipitating disaster (whether that is a desirable outcome is another matter). This is, however, utterly implausible in the near future. The bond markets are in a state of panic and smell blood, and not even the smallest reduction in Eurozone membership – a Greek exit – could take place without triggering further panic that forced Italy, Portugal and Spain out too. The only plausible scenario for ending the euro as we know it in the foreseeable future is a chaotic collapse.

2. The collapse of the euro would be a disaster for Britain
Such a collapse would be ruinous for every country that was forced out. In the run-up to exit, they would experience catastrophic capital flight. Their banks would implode and credit would disappear. As businesses failed, unemployment would rocket – and people left in work would find their living standards and purchasing power slashed as a result of the devaluation that euro exit would inevitably bring.

The impact would be felt throughout the world. Germany and other countries still in the Eurozone would go into deep recession as their banks took the hit of defaults on loans to the leaver countries and as their exports to those countries slumped. Britain would take an economic hammering. The Eurozone is Britain’s biggest export market, responsible for nearly half of British export revenues, and British banks are massively exposed to Eurozone debt. The disintegration of the Eurozone, and the consequent wider economic downturn, would be a calamity for Britain.

3. The euro must be saved
It follows that it is in everyone’s interests, including Britain’s, for the euro to be rescued. The key question is how. This, of course, is what the European political class has been arguing about for months – without providing a credible answer, which in turn has exacerbated the crisis as the markets have factored in the possibility of meltdown.

The immediate priority is to end the bond market panic to allow the Eurozone debtors to borrow more at reasonable rates of interest. The problem is that this requires the Eurozone as a whole to underwrite their borrowing – which means Germany, as Europe’s biggest creditor nation, taking on responsibility for the debts of southern Europe, either directly or indirectly. Up to now, however, the Germans have refused to do so. The German economic policy establishment, horrified by the prospect of inflation above all else, considers that the priority is for the indebted countries to reduce their debts and has ruled out the European Central Bank acting as lender of last resort. German voters balk at their taxes bailing out what they see as profligate and lazy southern Europeans.

The most likely way out of this impasse is that a deal will be struck whereby the Germans relent on bankrolling the Eurozone, but only on condition that the debtor countries immediately implement draconian austerity budgets and accept tough, intrusive Eurozone-wide budget rules.

That would calm the bond markets, but at great cost:

Austerity would almost certainly strangle what little growth there is in southern Europe, with knock-on effects for everyone else.
Such a regime would place the burden of paying for the sovereign debt crisis – which, lest we forget, is the result of the global banking crisis of 2008 and the ensuing recession, not decades of state profligacy – almost entirely on the shoulders of the working class.
Handing over responsibility for overall economic policy to the Eurozone would mean that the key decisions on taxation and spending would no longer be taken by democratically elected governments – a dramatic erosion of national sovereignty.
So what should democratic socialists do? First, argue for a recasting of the role of the European Central Bank to include pursuit of growth as well as stability. Second, press for a fairer sharing of the pain of austerity by ensuring that the rich pay more, starting with a Tobin tax. And third, demand a massive increase in the powers of the European Parliament, the only Europe-wide democratic institution, to maximise accountability of the new economic policy regime.

It’s hardly a panacea, but it’s a lot better than crowing.

How Tribune would deal with the economic crisis

Paul Anderson shows us how to do it.

There's more sense in his demonstration here than anything we've been offered by politicians in the past three years since the economy imploded in 2008. Well done, that man.

Taken on our seaside trip last week to Southwold and the wonderfully weird Under the Pier Show by genius Tim Hunkin.