It looks as if James Cameron`s Avatar movie - which is seen by many in the West as predictibly shallow, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, pro-enviro and racially politically correct - has struck a home-owners` rights chord that is resonating in China, and may reinforce popular demands in China for the protection of private property rights against governments and politically well-connected developers.
These are "rebellious undertones", claims the WSJ in January 11 editorial. This editorial, as well as coverage in WSJ`s China Real Time Report (January 8) and by Xinhua/China.org.cn (January 13), are worth a look.
Here are a few excerpts (emphasis added):
WSJ in January 11 editorial
This is standard politically correct fare for a Western audience,
conveying a message of racial sensitivity and environmental awareness.
In China, however, it has more rebellious undertones.
That's because Chinese local
governments in cahoots with developers have become infamous for
forcibly seeking to evict residents from their homes with little
compensation and often without their consent. The holdouts are known as
"nail households," since their homes are sometimes left stranded in the
middle of busy construction sites. More often, however, they are driven
away by paid thugs. Private property is one of the most sensitive
issues in the country today, and "Avatar" has given the resisters a
shot in the arm.
WSJ`s China Real Time Report (January 8):
While the plot contains obvious allusions to colonialist
resource-grabbing, Li [Li Chengpeng, an apparently well-known blogger and sports reporter] instead sees “Avatar” as an allegory for the
exploitation of regular people by Chinese real estate companies.
In his post, titled “Avatar: An Epic Nail House Textbook,” Li draws
a comparison between the tree where the Na’vi live and the homes of
people who resist eviction—known in China as “nail houses” because of
the way they stick up out of would-be construction sites (see articles,
with video, on the subject here and here).
Like the Na’vi, China’s nail house residents are often asked to
abandon their homes for little or nothing in return. Chinese real
estate developers, like the company in the film, are typically
quasi-governmental organizations, backed by the rhetoric of progress
and armies of hired thugs that can be brought in when negotiations fall
through.
“The developer sees the tree as an illegal building, its residents
as rabble rousers who don’t support municipal development and aren’t
willing to sacrifice for the greater good,” Li writes.
The post has been viewed more than 200,000 times and attracted
nearly 2500 comments, the vast majority supportive, since he put it up
Monday.
Others have jumped on the idea, including The Beijing News, which called the film “a nail house parable,” and twenty-something literary star Han Han, who defended
the film against charges its plot is weak: “For audiences from other
places, barbaric eviction is something they simply can’t imagine–it’s
the sort of thing that could only happen in outer space and China.”
So what lessons does the film hold for people in China facing
eviction? “Communication is worthless,” Li writes. “You can only fight
fire with fire.”
Xinhua/China.org.cn (January 13)
While most of the global audience are enjoying the dazzling 3-D experience of the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, some Chinese see it from a very different angle: a successful battle against forced eviction. ...
But in China, the story has aroused a
sympathetic response among many spectators, as they see in the film a
familiar social conflict -- forced demolitions by real estate
developers and urban administrative inspectors.
"They are very much alike. For
instance, the conflict in the film also starts with land," a posting by
"A Cup of Green Tea" said in an on-line forum operated by the
www.xinhuanet.com.
"When real estate developers want a
piece of land, the local residents must move away; if they decline to
leave, then real estate developers will resort to violent ways," the
posting said.
Forced demolitions have always led to
opposition and resistance from local residents in China and have given
rise to the term "nail house" in China, in reference to a nail refusing
to be hammered down.
In southwest China's city of
Chongqing, a couple battled for three years from 2004 to 2007 to stop
developers from razing their home. Their neighbors left one after
another, leaving their two-story brick building standing like a tower
surrounded by a 17-meter deep construction site. Their fight finally
came to an end in April 2007 with a negotiated agreement that
nevertheless saw the demolition of their house.
In June 2008, Pan Rong and her husband
stood on the roof of their house in Shanghai and threw Molotov
cocktails at the approaching bulldozer. Pan's efforts to protect her
home failed at last when the bulldozer destroyed the walls, forcing the
couple out.
In November last year, a 47-year-old
woman, Tang Fuzhen, in the southwestern city of Chengdu, set herself on
fire to protest the forced demolition of her house and died later.
In both cases, the local governments insisted that the forced demolitions were lawful and accorded with regulations.
"I am wondering whether Cameron had secretly lived in China before coming up with such an idea of writing the story of Avatar, but with a promising ending in the film," said renowned football reporter, Li Chengpeng, in a blog article on www.sina.com.
"In a word, I think the film is a successful eulogy of the fight of 'nail houses' against forced demolitions," he said.
The Chinese central government is increasingly aware of the negative impact of and public discontent toward forced demolitions.
China passed its landmark property law in 2007, highlighting the protection of private property.
On Dec. 7 last year, five professors
from Peking University claimed in an open letter to the National
People's Congress, the country's top legislature, the Regulation on
Urban Housing Demolition Administration was unconstitutional and
violated the property law.
The existing demolition regulation
took effect in 2001, allowing forced demolition. The government has
finished a draft revision to the regulation.
The draft revision, with its content
still unknown, put more restrictions on the government's administrative
power in demolition procedures, and was aimed at easing growing
tensions caused by forced demolitions, legal experts said.
"To audiences of other countries,
forced demolitions are probably beyond their imagination," said young
writer Han Han, well known for his always controversial remarks, in one
of his blog articles on www.sina.com.
"So I think Avatar is a great movie. I give it a full mark of 10, also taking into consideration the 3-D and IMAX," he said. ...
However, "A Cup of Green Tea" voiced a
note of warning: "I strongly advise real estate developers and urban
administrative inspectors see the movie and learn from it."
This relatively surprising reception of the Avatar movie in China is obviously something to be welcomed by all those who favor markets and freedom - as well by evil greenies (and Japanese and others downwind/downstream) who want cleaner air and water - since it is clear that enforceable and transferrable property rights is one of the key mechanisms by which developing societies move along the "Kuznets environmental curve" from pollution to a cleaner environment.
Let`s also hope that the Chinese also start to recognize that their consumer demand is (like that of Western consumers) fuelling Avatar-like destruction elsewhere around the world, and choose to act as responsible consumers, by insisting that indigenous rights elsewhere by protected.