Reading Blog: November 2022

A power struggle in China, and a dive into grain science.

I also read the first part of a book about the Birobidzhan autonomous region in Russia but got stuck — one GoodReads reviewer describes it as “meandering” and another “a certain point was reached… [where it became] a kind of biography of David Bergelson” so I’m not sure if/when to write about that book.

A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in China (Pin Ho and Wenguang Huang, 2013)

The scandal that cleared the way for Xi Jinping.
Beyond the scandal, the authors pitch this as an entry point to see a fierce rivalry behind choreographed Chinese politics (in a single-party government, “all fighting is infighting”). Much of the reporting is by Pin Ho, an independent publisher. For him, this case was also about how Chinese officials sell narratives and rumors in foreign press, while officially eschewing them. He describes the events through his efforts in verifying rumors and responding to sources. Wenguang Huang is credited for a visit to Chongqing to collect location details and interviews.

As best the authors can tell, Gu Kailai (wife of Bo Xilai, then-mayor and party chief of Chongqing) murdered Neil Heywood (a British fixer). Police chief Wang Lijun helped set up the poisoning, and was supposed to provide the cover-up. Wang had received many honors, had his career embellished into a TV show, and chased down personal threats to Gu in the past. He’d worked with Bo Xilai on targeted ‘anti-corruption’ campaigns, jailing or executing businessmen who fell on the wrong side of the political game. But at this point he was fearful of investigations at his previous jobs and the crumbling alliance with Bo. He attempted blackmailing the couple over the murder, but only got insulted and demoted. Wang had realistic fears that their next step would be to have him killed or sent to an insane asylum.
The public became aware of something amiss when Wang defected to a US consulate in Chengdu, made accusations, got rejected for asylum, then reappeared in custody in Beijing.

The authors don’t go all-in, but give time to commentators who describe the events as a type of coup. During the defection, Bo Xilai sent hundreds of loyal police to face off against Chengdu police at the consulate. President Hu Jintao had to intervene and ensure Wang’s safe passage to Beijing. The loss of Bo also put a spotlight on his allies and their politicking against the ascension of Xi Jinping — many mentioned in the book have since received prison sentences for corruption.
There are deeper, unverifiable conspiracies: did Bo Xilai direct Heywood’s murder for spying or over financial secrets? Was he responsible for a China Northern Airlines crash? Did Wang Lijun initiate the murder plot for blackmail material? Did other Politburo members delay and tailor the charges to avoid exposing their own corruption?
It’s hard to choose when after a PRC leader disappears, every positive story could be propaganda and every wild conspiracy could be true.

One of my recurring questions about China was, how do we know who the presumptive next leaders are? This book helped me understand:

• Press: as mayor, Bo became known for headline-grabbing urbanism, international trade deals, and patriotic songs. This made it clear that he was looking to get noticed by higher-ups.
• Family background and timing: Xi, Bo, and other leaders of this generation had revolutionary parents and fell into a particular age range during the Cultural Revolution. They were forced to move to rural areas, and their fathers were persecuted, but reinstated to powerful positions after Mao’s death.
• Career trajectory: the authors point out Wang, Bo, and Xi all had postings in remote counties, instead of seeking the center of power. It’s suggested that they got humble grassroots credentials here, but it could also be that they stayed out of rivalries in Beijing. Their later positions in Chongqing and Shanghai have a history of future power.
• Politburo: for national power, it was important to get into national office, then the ~25 seat Politburo, and then the Standing Committee before retirement age. Adding to the pressure of the moment, after being kicked around between cities and the Ministry of Commerce, 2012 was Bo Xilai’s final chance.

The Globalization of Wheat: A Critical History of the Green Revolution (Marci Baranski, 2022)

Baranski started out in agriculture as a believer in golden rice, Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution, and other applications of seed technology. In this journey through Indian agricultural research and the history of Green Revolution programs, she now sympathizes with critics on several lines:

• The emphasis on fertilizer and large-scale farming methods ignores harm to smallholders (who farm the majority of global calories) and dryland farming in general.
• Disputing whether the Green Revolution improved yields as it claimed — looking at other changes in farming and policies in India reveals improved irrigation and a linear replacement of other crops with wheat, not an exponential bounty.
• Malnutrition is not simply solved by producing more wheat. Higher yields and lower food prices helped grow a modern economy, but farmers were left behind. In many cases wheat is not as fully nutritious compared to millet and pulses (chickpeas, lentils).
• Central to this book and new to me: questioning wide adaptation, Borlaug’s goal to find and promote a crop which could be planted reliably all over the world. This was why the researchers prioritized wheat over their more temperamental maize and more diversely distributed rice. An adaptation mindset leads to a belief that yields will be stable in each region’s climate extremes, and under-investment and less marketing of local variants.
  ‘Adaptation’ doesn’t match the observations and genetics which ties the Green Revolution alleles (Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b) primarily to disease resistance, day length (photoperiod insensitivity), and its particular family (semi-dwarf wheat).

The Green Revolution got canonized in international development partially because of how fearful policymakers (esp. in the US) had been of communism and the ‘population bomb’ theory rather than a benefit to farmers directly. Today’s Green Revolution policies, practices, and institutions need to adapt to the current situation / reality.

The Rockefeller Foundation and Borlaug pushed their wheat variety forward by testing in ideal fertilizer conditions. In my reading, the results did demonstrate parity with existing wheat varieties, and additional benefits with fertilizer, and success across regions, in a way that went against prevailing thought in the 1950s/1960s.
The Foundation rejected an alternative to keep Indian seeds and distribute fertilizer in lower but more equitable amounts. The promises of technology, foreign ‘experts’, and public research centers in each state produced a sort of prestige agricultural tech network which persists today.

Maybe the counter-movement would be supporting local crops and landraces. The author’s recent work on climate mitigation supports investing in smallholders’ preferred crops in rain-fed or dryland agriculture.
Also — one section highlights C306, described in actual scientific papers as a “drought tolerant high chapati quality Indian wheat”. So next time you make some chapatis…

Updates to previous reads

• The New Yorker shared the 2021 short film In Flow of Words, interviewing translators from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (the court was dissolved in 2017).

• USDA APHIS recently updated their page on scrapie eradication, which doesn’t fix the issues on their main scrapie page, but search engines now prefer this page.
• In October, Kenya legalized GMO food production and imports for the first time in 10 years.
  Twitter user Kathambi K. pointed out Bill Gates saying “every piece of bread I’ve ever eaten is high-productivity wheat, GMO wheat”. Based on a reference to “billions of years of… using these products,” he is meandering toward equating domesticating crops to GMO research; but IDK, not the most eloquent answer.
• At the end of October, I stumbled on farm Twitter in crisis over SBOC (soybeans of other color; this is an industry term). As best I can tell, government grade standards expect < 1% of your soybeans to be discolored. Farms saw 3–6% this season.

The main thread is that it’s prevalent in one herbicide-resistant brand of soybeans, and grain elevators initially rejected or paid lower rates for these loads, but are now accepting them. Color shouldn’t affect soybean oil or animal feed markets, so it’s really government grades and export standards which need to adjust.
Strangely enough, someone forecast this in April?