CLIVEN BUNDY: UNLIKELY CHINESE HERO?

By Emily Feng

In the United States, the Bundy ranch episode attracted both scornful denunciation and fervent support. The story of 67 year old cattle rancher, Cliven Bundy, who refused to pay grazing fees amounting to nearly $1 million, was notable less so for its actual newsworthiness and probably more for its comic absurdity. However, the story has also had surprising appeal on Chinese social media, which has provided its own spin on the issue. It may have been Bundy’s blatant racism, militias, and big guns that may have grabbed the attention of American readers, his claims that the federal government was conspiring to demolish his farm have had special resonance for a Chinese audience.

Bundy has a twenty year-long dispute with the US Bureau of Land Management, which had asked Bundy to pay grazing fees backlogged from 1993, when he refused to renew his grazing permit on public lands regulated for the protection of - wait for it - endangered turtles. Instead, Bundy alleged that the fees were being used as a foil for an insidious federal government plot to seize his land for redevelopment. 

A Chinese article describes the situation as such: “The story is as follows: In recent years, with development in Nevada in full swing, Senator Harry Reid began eyeing the Bundy farm, intending the land for real estate development and attract capital by constructing a solar power plant. Bundy was not in agreement. Accordingly, Senator Reid pushed the government to frame Bundy on false charges.” (“故事是这样的,近年来,内华达开发如火如荼,国会参议员里德家族盯上了邦迪的农场,想开发房地产和引进中资建一家太阳能发电厂。无奈,邦迪不配合。于是,里德推动政府罗织邦迪的罪名.”)

This conjecture very little exposure in American media, but Bundy’s claim is a familiar one in China, where particularly since the Olympics, the modus operandi has been out with the old and in with the new. In Beijing, more than two thirds of its hutongs (胡同), or traditional alleyway neighborhoods, have been demolished. In fast expanding cities such as Chengdu or Chongqing, a gory red “demolish” (拆,as in 拆迁) slashed on old buildings marked for demolition is a common sight.

Thus, Bundy’s historical claim to the land - which his family has been grazing around since 1877 - draws parallels to the traditional and cultural history many say has been lost with the demolition of old structures like Beijing’s hutongs and China’s rural villages. The oft heard American narrative of “big government” would also have many sympathizers in China, where the Communist Party is infamous for pursuing collective economic development at the expense of individual rights. Bundy is quoted in Chinese media as saying “In one word, their [the US government’s] goal is for the right to control my farm.” ("一句话,他们的目标就是我的农场控制权") 

One article circulating on Weixin headlined “See how an American cowboy faces demolition,” a Chinese social media platform that resembles Twitter, commented that the Bundy story “sounds very familiar. Without a doubt, it resembles the pace of demolitions all over the world.” (这故事听起来很耳熟,的确,全世界的强拆都是一样的节奏) 

Southern Weekend, a Chinese newspaper well-known for its relatively progressive coverage of news, referenced the incident as a “土地抗争,” or “land protest,” a reference to the tens of thousands of land seizures that plagued China’s rural residents in the past decade. In such land seizures, the local government usually forcibly relocates (often rural) dwellers into new urban centers and may give them a monetary subsidy to purchase new housing. Because of the lack of a property market, the subsidy is usually substantially lower than the land’s actual worth and does not cover the added difficulties of relocation. The land is then rezoned as valuable construction land and sold to land developers for a high profit. Very few avenues for redress exist for victims of land grabs by local officials, other than petitioning the central government at Beijing’s State Bureau for Letters and Calls (though recent “reforms” have made the process even more circular). China’s petitioning system has been flooded with mostly land grab cases in recent years.

The melodramatic quality of the episode hasn’t escaped Chinese media covering the standoff either. On Weixin, news of the Bundy ranch is often advertised with the subtitle, “American cowboy faces forced demolition, this is not a movie, it surpasses a blockbuster!”(美国农民面对强拆,不是电影,胜过大片) Accompanying Weixin posts are pictures culled from American media outlets and screenshots of local television broadcasts depict sensational pictures of burly men holding AK-47s and sniper rifles. 

Yet for all its supposed parallels to land grabs and demolitions in China, some online commenters realized the impractical possibility of such a standoff happening in China itself, which diligently suppresses any kind of subversive political activity. One commenter joked, “if this happened in the great People’s Republic of China...Haha.” (这要是在某个伟大人民共和国,哈哈). Another put it more simply: “Tolerance. Respect for people. The opposite of the Chinese Communist Party.” (“宽容.对人尊重.和中共相反”)

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Emily Feng is a senior at Duke University. She is president of the Duke East Asia Nexus.

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