Position of the Tibetan Exile Government

[The following is the memorandum prepared by the Dalai Lama's representatives for the ninth round of dialogue-negotiation in Beijing, between the Tibetan government in exile and the Chinese central government.

The text is taken from the Tibetan woman poet, writer, and activist Woeser's blog (mainly in Chinese).]


THE MEMORANDUM ON GENUINE AUTONOMY FOR THE TIBETAN PEOPLE

I INTRODUCTION

Since the renewal of direct contact with the Central Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 2002, extensive discussions have been held between the envoys of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and representatives of the Central Government. In these discussions we have put forth clearly the aspirations of Tibetans. The essence of the Middle Way Approach is to secure genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people within the scope of the Constitution of the PRC. This is of mutual benefit and based on the long-term interest of both the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. We remain firmly committed not to seek separation or independence. We are seeking a solution to the Tibetan problem through genuine autonomy, which is compatible with the principles on autonomy in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The protection and development of the unique Tibetan identity in all its aspects serves the larger interest of humanity in general and those of the Tibetan and Chinese people in particular.

During the seventh round of talks in Beijing on 1 and 2 July 2008, the Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the Minister of the Central United Front Work Department, Mr. Du Qinglin, explicitly invited suggestions from His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the stability and development of Tibet. The Executive Vice Minister of the Central United Front Work Department, Mr. Zhu Weiqun, further said they would like to hear our views on the degree or form of autonomy we are seeking as well as on all aspects of regional autonomy within the scope of the Constitution of the PRC.

Accordingly, this memorandum puts forth our position on genuine autonomy and how the specific needs of the Tibetan nationality for autonomy and self-government can be met through application of the principles on autonomy of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, as we understand them. On this basis, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is confident that the basic needs of the Tibetan nationality can be met through genuine autonomy within the PRC.

The PRC is a multi-national state, and as in many other parts of the world, it seeks to resolve the nationality question through autonomy and the self-government of the minority nationalities. The Constitution of the PRC contains fundamental principles on autonomy and self-government whose objectives are compatible with the needs and aspirations of the Tibetans. Regional national autonomy is aimed at opposing both the oppression and the separation of nationalities by rejecting both Han Chauvinism and local nationalism. It is intended to ensure the protection of the culture and the identity of minority nationalities by powering them to become masters of their own affairs.

To a very considerable extent Tibetan needs can be met within the constitutional principles on autonomy, as we understand them. On several points, the Constitution gives significant discretionary powers to state organs in the decision-making and on the operation of the system of autonomy. These discretionary powers can be exercised to facilitate genuine autonomy for Tibetans in ways that would respond to the uniqueness of the Tibetan situation. In implementing these principles, legislation relevant to autonomy may consequently need to be reviewed or amended to respond to the specific characteristics and needs of the Tibetan nationality. Given good will on both sides, outstanding problems can be resolved within the constitutional principles on autonomy. In this way national unity and stability and harmonious relations between the Tibetan and other nationalities will be established.

II RESPECT FOR THE INTEGRITY OF THE TIBETAN NATIONALITY

Tibetans belong to one minority nationality regardless of the current administrative division. The integrity of the Tibetan nationality must be respected. That is the spirit, the intent and the principle underlying the constitutional concept of national regional autonomy as well as the principle of equality of nationalities.

There is no dispute about the fact that Tibetans share the same language, culture, spiritual tradition, core values and customs, that they belong to the same ethnic group and that they have a strong sense of common identity. Tibetans share a common history and despite periods of political or administrative divisions, Tibetans continuously remained united by their religion, culture, education, language, way of life and by their unique high plateau environment.

The Tibetan nationality lives in one contiguous area on the Tibetan plateau, which they have inhabited for millennia and to which they are therefore indigenous. For purposes of the constitutional principles of national regional autonomy Tibetans in the PRC in fact live as a single nationality all over the Tibetan plateau.

On account of the above reasons, the PRC has recognised the Tibetan nationality as one of the 55 minority nationalities.

III TIBETAN ASPIRATIONS

Tibetans have a rich and distinct history, culture and spiritual tradition all of which form valuable parts of the heritage of humanity. Not only do Tibetans wish to preserve their own heritage, which they cherish, but equally they wish to further develop their culture and spiritual life and knowledge in ways that are particularly suited to the needs and conditions of humanity in the 21st century.

As a part of the multi-national state of the PRC, Tibetans can benefit greatly from the rapid economic and scientific development the country is experiencing. While wanting to actively participate and contribute to this development, we want to ensure that this happens without the people losing their Tibetan identity, culture and core values and without putting the distinct and fragile environment of the Tibetan plateau, to which Tibetans are indigenous, at risk.

The uniqueness of the Tibetan situation has consistently been recognised within the PRC and has been reflected in the terms of the "17 Point Agreement" and in statements and policies of successive leaders of the PRC since then, and should remain the basis for defining the scope and structure of the specific autonomy to be exercised by the Tibetan nationality within the PRC. The Constitution reflects a fundamental principle of flexibility to accommodate special situations, including the special characteristics and needs of minority nationalities.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's commitment to seek a solution for the Tibetan people within the PRC is clear and unambiguous. This position is in full compliance and agreement with paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's statement in which he emphasised that except for independence all other issues could be resolved through dialogue. Whereas, we are committed, therefore, to fully respect the territorial integrity of the PRC, we expect the Central Government to recognise and fully respect the integrity of the Tibetan nationality and its right to exercise genuine autonomy within the PRC. We believe that this is the basis for resolving the differences between us and promoting unity, stability and harmony among nationalities.

For Tibetans to advance as a distinct nationality within the PRC, they need to continue to progress and develop economically, socially and politically in ways that correspond to the development of the PRC and the world as a whole while respecting and nurturing the Tibetan characteristics of such development. For this to happen, it is imperative that the right of Tibetans to govern themselves be recognised and implemented throughout the region where they live in compact communities in the PRC, in accordance with the Tibetan nationality??s own needs, priorities and characteristics.

The Tibetan people's culture and identity can only be preserved and promoted by the Tibetans themselves and not by any others. Therefore, Tibetans should be capable of self-help, self-development and self-government, and an optimal balance needs to be found between this and the necessary and welcome guidance and assistance for Tibet from the Central Government and other provinces and regions of the PRC.

IV BASIC NEEDS OF TIBETANS

Subject Matters of Self-government

1) Language

Language is the most important attribute of the Tibetan people's identity. Tibetan is the primary means of communication, the language in which their literature, their spiritual texts and historical as well as scientific works are written. The Tibetan language is not only at the same high level as that of Sanskrit in terms of grammar, but is also the only one that has the capability of translating from Sanskrit without an iota of error. Therefore, Tibetan language has not only the richest and best-translated literatures, many scholars even contend that it has also the richest and largest number of literary compositions. The Constitution of the PRC, in Article 4, guarantees the freedom of all nationalities "to use and develop their own spoken and written languages ...".

In order for Tibetans to use and develop their own language, Tibetan must be respected as the main spoken and written language. Similarly, the principal language of the Tibetan autonomous areas needs to be Tibetan.

This principle is broadly recognised in the Constitution in Article 121, which states, "[T]he organs of self-government of the national autonomous areas employ the spoken and written language or language in common use in the locality." Article 10 of the Law on Regional National Autonomy (LRNA) provides that these organs "shall guarantee the freedom of the nationalities in these areas to use and develop their own spoken and written languages...."

Consistent with the principle of recognition of Tibetan as the main language in Tibetan areas, the LRNA (Article 36) also allows the autonomous government authorities to decide on "the language used in instruction and enrolment procedures" with regard to education. This implies recognition of the principle that the principal medium of education be Tibetan.

2) Culture

The concept of national regional autonomy is primarily for the purpose of preservation of the culture of minority nationalities. Consequently, the constitution of PRC contains references to cultural preservation in Articles 22, 47 and 119 as also in Article 38 of the LRNA. To Tibetans, Tibetan culture is closely connected to our religion, tradition, language and identity, which are facing threats at various levels. Since Tibetans live within the multinational state of the PRC, this distinct Tibetan cultural heritage needs protection through appropriate constitutional provisions.

3) Religion

Religion is fundamental to Tibetans and Buddhism is closely linked to their identity. We recognise the importance of separation of church and state, but this should not affect the freedom and practice of believers. It is impossible for Tibetans to imagine personal or community freedom without the freedom of belief, conscience and religion. The Constitution recognises the importance of religion and protects the right to profess it. Article 36 guarantees all citizens the right to the freedom of religious belief. No one can compel another to believe in or not to believe in any religion. Discrimination on the basis of religion is forbidden.

An interpretation of the constitutional principle in light of international standard would also cover the freedom of the manner of belief or worship. The freedom covers the right of monasteries to be organised and run according to Buddhist monastic tradition, to engage in teachings and studies, and to enroll any number of monks and nuns or age group in accordance with these rules. The normal practice to hold public teachings and the empowerment of large gatherings is covered by this freedom and the state should not interfere in religious practices and traditions, such as the relationship between a teacher and his disciple, management of monastic institutions, and the recognition of reincarnations.

4) Education

The desire of Tibetans to develop and administer their own education system in cooperation and in coordination with the central government's ministry of education is supported by the principles contained in the Constitution with regard to education. So is the aspiration to engage in and contribute to the development of science and technology. We note the increasing recognition in international scientific development of the contribution which Buddhist psychology, metaphysics, cosmology and the understanding of the mind is making to modern science.

Whereas, under Article 19 of the Constitution the state takes on the overall responsibility to provide education for its citizens, Article 119 recognises the principle that "[T]he organs of self-government of the national autonomous areas independently administer educational .... affairs in their respective areas..." This principle is also reflected in Article 36 of the LRNA.

Since the degree of autonomy in decision-making is unclear, the point to be emphasised is that the Tibetan need to exercise genuine autonomy with regard to its own nationality's education and this is supported by the principles of the constitution on autonomy.

As for the aspiration to engage in and contribute to the development of scientific knowledge and technology, the Constitution (Article 119) and the LRNA (Article 39) clearly recognise the right of autonomous areas to develop scientific knowledge and technology.

5) Environment Protection

Tibet is the prime source of Asia's great rivers. It also has the earth's loftiest mountains as well as the world's most extensive and highest plateau, rich in mineral resources, ancient forests, and many deep valleys untouched by human disturbances.

This environmental protection practice was enhanced by the Tibetan people's traditional respect for all forms of life, which prohibits the harming of all sentient beings, whether human or animal. Tibet used to be an unspoiled wilderness sanctuary in a unique natural environment.

Today, Tibet's traditional environment is suffering irreparable damage. The effects of this are especially notable on the grasslands, the croplands, the forests, the water resources and the wildlife.

In view of this, according to Articles 45 and 66 of the LNRA, the Tibetan people should be given the right over the environment and allow them to follow their traditional conservation practices.

6) Utilisation of Natural Resources

With respect to the protection and management of the natural environment and the utilisation of natural resources the Constitution and the LRNA only acknowledge a limited role for the organs of self-government of the autonomous areas (see LRNA Articles 27, 28, 45, 66, and Article 118 of the Constitution, which pledges that the state "shall give due consideration to the interests of [the national autonomous areas]]." The LRNA recognises the importance for the autonomous areas to protect and develop forests and grasslands (Article 27) and to "give priority to the rational exploitation and utilization of the natural resources that the local authorities are entitled to develop," but only within the limits of state plans and legal stipulations. In fact, the central role of the State in these matters is reflected in the Constitution (Article 9).

The principles of autonomy enunciated in the Constitution cannot, in our view, truly lead to Tibetans becoming masters of their own destiny if they are not sufficiently involved in decision-making on utilisation of natural resources such as mineral resources, waters, forests, mountains, grasslands, etc.

The ownership of land is the foundation on which the development of natural resources, taxes and revenues of an economy are based. Therefore, it is essential that only the nationality of the autonomous region shall have the legal authority to transfer or lease land, except land owned by the state. In the same manner, the autonomous region must have the independent authority to formulate and implement developmental plans concurrent to the state plans.

7) Economic Development and Trade

Economic Development in Tibet is welcome and much needed. The Tibetan people remain one of the most economically backward regions within the PRC.

The Constitution recognises the principle that the autonomous authorities have an important role to play in the economic development of their areas in view of local characteristics and needs (Article 118 of the Constitution, also reflected in LRNA Article 25). The Constitution also recognises the principle of autonomy in the administration and management of finances (Article 117, and LRNA Article 32). At the same time, the Constitution also recognises the importance of providing State funding and assistance to the autonomous areas to accelerate development (Article 122, LRNA Article 22).

Similarly, Article 31 of the LRNA recognises the competence of autonomous areas, especially those such as Tibet, adjoining foreign countries, to conduct border trade as well as trade with foreign countries. The recognition of these principles is important to the Tibetan nationality given the region's proximity to foreign countries with which the people have cultural, religious, ethnic and economic affinities.

The assistance rendered by the Central Government and the provinces has temporary benefits, but in the long run if the Tibetan people are not self-reliant and become dependent on others it has greater harm. Therefore, an important objective of autonomy is to make the Tibetan people economically self-reliant.

8) Public health

The Constitution enunciates the responsibility of the State to provide health and medical services (Article 21). Article 119 recognises that this is an area of responsibility of the autonomous areas. The LRNA (Article 40) also recognises the right of organs of self-government of the autonomous areas to "make independent decisions on plans for developing local medical and health services and for advancing both modern and the traditional medicine of the nationalities."

The existing health system fails to adequately cover the needs of the rural Tibetan population. According to the principles of the above-mentioned laws, the regional autonomous organs need to have the competencies and resources to cover the health need of the entire Tibetan population. They also need the competencies to promote the traditional Tibetan medical and astro system strictly according to traditional practice.

9) Public Security

In matters of public security it is important that the majority of security personnel consists of members of the local nationality who understand and respect local customs and traditions.

What is lacking in Tibetan areas is absence of decision-making authority in the hands of local Tibetan officials.

An important aspect of autonomy and self-government is the responsibility for the internal public order and security of the autonomous areas. The Constitution (Article 120) and LRNA (Article 24) recognise the importance of local involvement and authorise autonomous areas to organise their security within "the military system of the State and practical needs and with the approval of the State Council."

10) Regulation on population migration

The fundamental objective of national regional autonomy and self-government is the preservation of the identity, culture, language and so forth of the minority nationality and to ensure that it is the master of its own affairs. When applied to a particular territory in which the minority nationality lives in a concentrated community or communities, the very principle and purpose of national regional autonomy is disregarded if large scale migration and settlement of the majority Han nationality and other nationalities is encouraged and allowed. Major demographic changes that result from such migration will have the effect of assimilating rather than integrating the Tibetan nationality into the Han nationality and gradually extinguishing the distinct culture and identity of the Tibetan nationality. Also, the influx of large numbers of Han and other nationalities into Tibetan areas will fundamentally change the conditions necessary for the exercise of regional autonomy since the constitutional criteria for the exercise of autonomy, namely that the minority nationality "live in compact communities" in a particular territory is changed and undermined by the population movements and transfers. If such migrations and settlements continue uncontrolled, Tibetans will no longer live in a compact community or communities and will consequently no longer be entitled, under the Constitution, to national regional autonomy. This would effectively violate the very principles of the Constitution in its approach to the nationalities issue.

There is precedent in the PRC for restriction on the movement or residence of citizens. There is only a very limited recognition of the right of autonomous areas to work out measures to control "the transient population" in those areas. To us it would be vital that the autonomous organs of self-government have the authority to regulate the residence, settlement and employment or economic activities of persons who wish to move to Tibetan areas from other parts of the PRC in order to ensure respect for and the realisation of the objectives of the principle of autonomy.

It is not our intention to expel the non-Tibetans who have permanently settled in Tibet and have lived there and grown up there for a considerable time. Our concern is the induced massive movement of primarily Han but also some other nationalities into many areas of Tibet, upsetting existing communities, marginalising the Tibetan population there and threatening the fragile natural environment.

11) Cultural, educational and religious exchanges with other countries

Besides the importance of exchanges and cooperation between the Tibetan nationality and other nationalities, provinces, and regions of the PRC in the subject matters of autonomy, such as culture, art, education, science, public health, sports, religion, environment, economy and so forth, the power of autonomous areas to conduct such exchanges with foreign countries in these areas is also recognised in the LRNA (Article 42).

V APPLICATION OF A SINGLE ADMINISTRATION FOR THE TIBETAN NATIONALITY IN THE PRC

In order for the Tibetan nationality to develop and flourish with its distinct identity, culture and spiritual tradition through the exercise of self-government on the above mentioned basic Tibetan needs, the entire community, comprising all the areas currently designated by the PRC as Tibetan autonomous areas, should be under one single administrative entity. The current administrative divisions, by which Tibetan communities are ruled and administered under different provinces and regions of the PRC, foments fragmentation, promotes unequal development, and weakens the ability of the Tibetan nationality to protect and promote its common cultural, spiritual and ethnic identity. Rather than respecting the integrity of the nationality, this policy promotes its fragmentation and disregards the spirit of autonomy. Whereas the other major minority nationalities such as the Uighurs and Mongols govern themselves almost entirely within their respective single autonomous regions, Tibetans remain as if they were several minority nationalities instead of one.

Bringing all the Tibetans currently living in designated Tibetan autonomous areas within a single autonomous administrative unit is entirely in accordance with the constitutional principle contained in Article 4, also reflected in the LRNA (Article 2), that "regional autonomy is practiced in areas where people of minority nationalities live in concentrated communities." The LRNA describes regional national autonomy as the "basic policy adopted by the Communist Party of China for the solution of the national question in China" and explains its meaning and intent in its Preface:

the minority nationalities, under unified state leadership, practice regional autonomy in areas where they live in concentrated communities and set up organs of self-government for the exercise of the power of autonomy. Regional national autonomy embodies the state's full respect for and guarantee of the right of the minority nationalities to administer their internal affairs and its adherence to the principle of equality, unity and common prosperity of all nationalities.

It is clear that the Tibetan nationality within the PRC will be able to exercise its right to govern itself and administer its internal affairs effectively only once it can do so through an organ of self-government that has jurisdiction over the Tibetan nationality as a whole.

The LRNA recognises the principle that boundaries of national autonomous areas may need to be modified. The need for the application of the fundamental principles of the Constitution on regional autonomy through respect of the integrity of the Tibetan nationality is not only totally legitimate, but the administrative changes that may be required to achieve this in no way violate constitutional principles. There are several precedents where this has been actually done.

VI THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE AUTONOMY

The extent to which the right to self-government and self-administration can be exercised on the preceding subject matters largely determines the genuine character of Tibetan autonomy. The task at hand is therefore to look into the manner in which autonomy can be regulated and exercised for it to effectively respond to the unique situation and basic needs of the Tibetan nationality.

The exercise of genuine autonomy would include the right of Tibetans to create their own regional government and government institutions and processes that are best suited to their needs and characteristics. It would require that the People's Congress of the autonomous region have the power to legislate on all matters within the competencies of the region (that is the subject matters referred to above) and that other organs of the autonomous government have the power to execute and administer decisions autonomously. Autonomy also entails representation and meaningful participation in national decision-making in the Central Government. Processes for effective consultation and close cooperation or joint decision-making between the Central Government and the regional government on areas of common interest also need to be in place for the autonomy to be effective.

A crucial element of genuine autonomy is the guarantee the Constitution or other laws provide that powers and responsibilities allocated to the autonomous region cannot be unilaterally abrogated or changed. This means that neither the Central Government nor the autonomous region's government should be able, without the consent of the other, to change the basic features of the autonomy.

The parameters and specifics of such genuine autonomy for Tibet that respond to the unique needs and conditions of the Tibetan people and region should be set out in some detail in regulations on the exercise of autonomy, as provided for in Article 116 of the Constitution (enacted in LRNA Article 19) or, if it is found to be more appropriate, in a separate set of laws or regulations adopted for that purpose. The Constitution, including Article 31, provides the flexibility to adopt special laws to respond to unique situations such as the Tibetan one, while respecting the established social, economic and political system of the country.

The Constitution in Section VI provides for organs of self-government of national autonomous regions and acknowledges their power to legislate. Thus Article 116 (enacted in Article 19 of the LRNA) refers to their power to enact "separate regulations in light of the political, economic and cultural characteristics of the nationality or nationalities in the areas concerned." Similarly, the Constitution recognises the power of autonomous administration in a number of areas (Article 117-120) as well as the power of autonomous governments to apply flexibility in implementing the laws and policies of the Central Government and higher state organs to suit the conditions of the autonomous area concerned (Article 115).

The above-mentioned legal provisions do contain significant limitations to the decision-making authority of the autonomous organs of government. But the Constitution nevertheless recognises the principle that organs of self-government make laws and policy decisions that address local needs and that these may be different from those adopted elsewhere, including by the Central Government.

Although the needs of the Tibetans are broadly consistent with the principles on autonomy contained in the Constitution, as we have shown, their realisation is impeded because of the existence of a number of problems, which makes the implementation of those principles today difficult or ineffective.

Implementation of genuine autonomy, for example, requires clear divisions of powers and responsibilities between the Central Government and the government of the autonomous region with respect to subject matter competency. Currently there is no such clarity and the scope of legislative powers of autonomous regions is both uncertain and severely restricted. Thus, whereas the Constitution intends to recognise the special need for autonomous regions to legislate on many matters that affect them, the requirements of Article 116 for prior approval at the highest level of the Central Government - by the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC) - inhibit the implementation of this principle of autonomy. In reality, it is only autonomous regional congresses that expressly require such approval, while the congresses of ordinary (not autonomous) provinces of the PRC do not need prior permission and merely report the passage of regulations to the Standing Committee of the NPC "for the record" (Article 100).

The exercise of autonomy is further subject to a considerable number of laws and regulations, according to Article 115 of the Constitution. Certain laws effectively restrict the autonomy of the autonomous region, while others are not always consistent with one another. The result is that the exact scope of the autonomy is unclear and is not fixed, since it is unilaterally changed with the enactment of laws and regulations are higher levels of the state, and even by changes in policy. There is also no adequate process for consultation or for settling differences that arise between the organs of the Central Government and of the regional government with respect to the scope and exercise of autonomy. In practice, the resulting uncertainty limits the initiative of regional authorities and impedes the exercise of genuine autonomy by Tibetans today.

We do not at this stage wish to enter into details regarding these and other impediments to the exercise of genuine autonomy today by Tibetans, but mention them by way of example so that these may be addressed in the appropriate manner in our dialogue in the future. We will continue to study the Constitution and other relevant legal provisions and, when appropriate, will be pleased to provide further analysis of these issues, as we understand them.

VII THE WAY FORWARD

As stated at the beginning of this memorandum, our intention is to explore how the needs of the Tibetan nationality can be met within the framework of PRC since we believe these needs are consistent with the principles of the Constitution on autonomy. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama stated on a number of occasions, we have no hidden agenda. We have no intention at all of using any agreement on genuine autonomy as stepping stone for separation from the PRC.

The objective of the Tibetan Government in Exile is to represent the interests of the Tibetan people and to speak on their behalf. Therefore, it will no longer be needed and will be dissolved once an agreement is reached between us. In fact, His Holiness has reiterated his decision not to accept any political office in Tibet at any time in the future. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, nevertheless, plans to use all his personal influence to ensure such an agreement would have the legitimacy necessary to obtain the support of the Tibetan people.

Given these strong commitments, we propose that the next step in this process be the agreement to start serious discussions on the points raised in this memorandum. For this purpose we propose that we discuss and agree on a mutually agreeable mechanism or mechanisms and a timetable to do so effectively.

Source:【西藏论坛】http://tibetalk.com/bbs/index.php?all=313

Is Political Dissent Possible in China Today? (Part 3 of 3)

[Written for the Italian journal MicroMega's special issue on the Beijing Olympics, June 11, 2008; with minor modifications, Oct 8, 2008]


V. The Spirit of Political Dissent in Defiance

Ever since June 1989, the world has identified human courage and dignity in China with the “Tank Man” who stands alone in front of a long row of tanks to stop them with his defiant will. More than nineteen years later, another generation has grown up. Without easy access to information about the Tian’anmen pro-democracy movement and its tragic ending, has China’s younger generation forgotten that spirit completely, to show the world the achievement of the government’s effort to depoliticize the society? What does political situation mean to millions of ordinary people engaged in socio-political movements elsewhere in the world?

Ahead of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tian’anmen massacre in 2004, Shi Tao, a young poet and journalist born in 1968, sent an e-mail message using his yahoo account to a New York-based pro-democracy online journal. In it he passed information about the government’s preparation for potential political disturbances at the anniversary, which he had learned from a meeting where no note-taking was allowed. At the same time, he produced a series of touching poems full of painful memories and burning passion. In at least two poems, he predicted his confrontation with plainclothes police and his own arrest. It eventually arrived. Shi Tao was sentenced to ten-year imprisonment for “subversion,” with evidence supplied by Yahoo to the Chinese police.

If Shi Tao acted explicitly on behalf of his comrades at Tian’anmen Square fifteen years earlier, some others took up causes of political dissent more recently. Like Wu Lihong, the peasant environmental activist by Lake Tai in Jiangsu province, many of them started as volunteers in social welfare charity work, but eventually fell out with local authorities and then with the political system as a whole.

Chen Guangcheng, born in 1971, was from a village near Linyi City in Shandong Province. He lost his sight in his childhood but nonetheless managed to train himself as a legal consultant and an activist for local villagers since the late nineties. He was prompted into determined action in early 2005 after learning about the thousands of cases of brutality against peasant women by local authorities forcefully carrying out the one-child policy. By late summer, the National Family Planning and Population Commission took up the issue and publicly recognized Chen’s effort. However, the commission does not have any real power over local governments, even though its policies were frequently taken as excuse by local officials to bully peasants or extort extra incomes. At the same time when the commission said Linyi officials related to the issue had been punished, Chen was put under house arrest by local police.

Complicating the situation were foreign journalists. Beijing just started to give greater freedom to foreign journalists to go around the country. They learned about Chen’s activism and the Time magazine already published an interview with him in the summer. Next year, Chen was named one of the 100 most influential persons of the world in 2006, together with the filmmaker Ang Lee and China’s Premier Wen Jiabao. Beijing was obviously not pleased with the publicity. In the following months, Chen was tried for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic” and was sentenced to more than four years in prison. His three lawyers were beaten by local thugs, detained by police and prevented to attend the trial. When decision was to be announced on his final appeal in January 2007, members of a German television station were also physically abused in Chen’s village. Summer 2007, Chen was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in Manila, the Philippines, for emergent leadership. His wife was prevented from going to the award ceremony and put into house-arrest herself, together with a baby son not yet three-year-old.

While Chen was struggling, he and his wife were supported and cared after whenever they traveled to Beijing by a young couple, Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyan. Born in 1973, Hu Jia had been an AIDS activist for years when he met Zeng. Ten years younger than Hu, Zeng at beginning was skeptical of the many tales Hu was telling her. She also had hesitation, uncertain if Hu should get himself into all those troubles with the authorities. Essentially, she was transformed into a determined activist by the experience of grieve anxiety, when Hu Jia “disappeared” for 41 days in early 2006 while police showed the ugly face of the state power. Here we see clearly that, with all internal contradictions, the Chinese education system is still capable of producing truly idealistic, courageous young people.

The years since they got married have not been an easy time for the young lady. Hu Jia was placed under house-arrestment for almost a whole year in 2006-2007. Both of them kept active networking with other activists and frequent writing on the Internet. While Hu was unable to leave home, Zeng attended training programs run by the Focus group in Thailand and the World Social Forum India in late 2006. Next year, she herself was named one of the 100 influential people of the world by the Time magazine. Bad omen. By the end of 2007, not long after she gave birth to their daughter, Hu Jia was taken away. He has since been sentenced to three-and-a-half-years into prison. Zeng herself has been under house-arrest for months by now, together with her infant daughter, helped mainly by her mother. When Zeng’s mother left Beijing earlier this year, police stepped up their surveillance and harassment. Neighbors and her baby’s nanny were all visited by police at home, checked with information of all their family members, and warned against letting their own babies to play with Zeng’s.

If anything, what shared by the case of Shi Tao, Chen Guangcheng, Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan are the followings. First, they might start with charity works, but they all held clear political visions and explicitly raised political demands. Second, in raising sensitive political issues, they focused their attention on the disadvantaged social groups. Third, their cases, particularly Chen Guangcheng and the Hu-Zeng couple, infuriated the Chinese government and its security forces the most by their connections to the outside world, be it foreign media or foreign activists. It has become inherent to the CCP’s political culture that official hierarchy is more important than anything else. For the CCP, bringing in foreign factors for the purpose of adding on political pressure is the greater crime than challenging authorities locally. For it breaks the rules of its own game. Thus, the punishment received not only by Chen and Hu, but also their wives and their young babies. Beijing shows its real color in these cases, when it deliberately courted world capitals and easily dismissed international solidarity of today’s grassroots socialist movement, such as those represented by the World Social Forum India and by the Magsaysay award in the Philippines.

Here we may recall the environmental cases in the cities of Xiamen and Shanghai, mentioned earlier, when citizens’ “collective walks” took place, as if there was no political intention, no organizer, and not one single individual to be taken responsible. The question and challenge to social movement worldwide would be this: Do we believe in political dissent? Do we accept substitution of valuing political dissent by prioritizing cooperation with political establishment? Do we believe that, under whichever kind of situation, improvement of living standard is always more important than promoting political consciousness? Chinese people hold unrealized political potentials with great energy that has not been relished yet. We might see a very different China once the people can openly, freely pick up political topics concerning the world as well as concerning their own lives.

-- Los Angeles, June 11, 2008


[1] Wang Hui, Qu zhengzhi hua de zhengzhi: Duan 20 shiji de zhongjie yu 90 niandai (Depoliticizing politics: The end of the short twentieth century and the nineties), Beijing, 2008, p. 7, 14, 15, 55-56.

[2] E.g., see ibid, pp. 15-20. Wang Hui’s discussion on theoretical debates in 1979-1983 (ibid, pp. 21-22) raises more questions that are beyond the scope of this paper. For views differing from Wang Hui’s, for instance, see Cui Weiping, "Weishenme meiyou chunfeng chuifu dadi" (Why there was no wind of spring over the land), http://www.xschina.org/show.php?id=11741 , last visited on October 8, 2008; Sixiang (Reflextion), no. 6 (August 2007), Taipei, Linking Publishing.

[3] http://www.reviewing.cn/fact/2008/0606/article_520.html (in Chinese), last visited on June 10, 2008.

[4] http://ccdv.people.com.cn/GB/66982/5876850.html (in Chinese), last visited on June 10, 2008; and New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/world/asia/06pollute.html?ref=asia

Is Political Dissent Possible in China Today? (Part 2 of 3)

[Written for the Italian journal MicroMega's special issue on the Beijing Olympics, June 11, 2008; with minor modifications, Oct 7, 2008]


III. Changing Social-Political Landscape

The fact that Wu Lihong was honored in Beijing as one of the 2005 top ten national environmentalists itself indicates important social-political changes taking place in China. As the country moved from its previous practice of “socialist planned economy” to a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics,” the central government under financial pressure in the early 1990s got rid, first of all, of its social welfare obligations, in education and public healthcare in particular. Not surprisingly, with rising living standard and the emergence of middle class and urban new riches, issues concerning the society’s general well-being were the first to gather voluntary participation and gain government tolerance. In other words, social diversification, brought about by three decades of reform, has made it possible for a “society” to practically prioritize its interest over the interest of the “nation,” whereas the “state” is relatively neutralized and the Party itself is forced to take a back seat in this kind of contest for legitimacy discourse.

The best example of such structural alternation will have to be the almost spontaneous, nationwide mobilization in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, mentioned at the beginning of this essay. But the changes started much earlier, as can be seen in the 1999 prize-winning film, Not One Less, by Zhang Yimou. The credit roll at the end of the film includes explicit call for donations to support basic education in China’s poor rural areas. Shifting the burden of social welfare from the state to the shoulder of the society or even to that of foreign philanthropic organizations had not been a difficult transformation for the CCP government to adapt.

This is not to say that the State and the Party sat through these changes idly. From the start and up to this moment, they have been watching vigilantly. However, instead of mobilizing societal energy for the general good, their preoccupation has been predominantly against social organizations with political potentials. A careful look at the most-wanted lists issued immediately following the Tian’anmen crackdown will tell you that, in addition to influential intellectuals, most names there were previously unheard of at all, who became the top enemies of the state precisely for their direct involvement in organizing autonomous associations among students, workers and ordinary citizens. Similarly, Jiang Zemin, CCP’s former Secretary-general (1989-2002), launched severe persecution against the Fa-lun-gong sector after the religious group staged a surprise demonstration just outside Zhongnanhai, the housing compound of the CCP’s top leaders in central Beijing. Fa-lun-gong’s mobilization ability shown in the demonstration made it impossible for the CCP to give the crackdown a second thought.

The oppressive logic of the Party did not stop at mass organizations staging actual big demonstrations. Yang Zili, a young physics graduate from the prestigious Peking University, was sentenced to eight years for “subversion” in 2003, for the crime of writing critical political commentaries on his website and for organizing a small study group. Three of his comrades were imprisoned at the same time. Ironically, the name they chose for their little group was “New Youth,” exactly the same as the name of the iconoclastic journal run by the CCP’s founding general-secretary, Chen Duxiu, more than 80 years ago. The Party certainly knows its own history perfectly well - free political association could easily lead to mass mobilization and social movement, posing real threats to its hold of the state power. A few years earlier, the CCP views it as a must to crash on the dissidents who sought to establish a China Democracy Party in 1997; now, Beijing also sees it as necessary to punish young intellectuals like Yang Zili.

Not surprisingly, giving permission to NGOs to provide charity service to the society became delicately challenging at all levels. Similarly challenging are new communication technologies, such as the Internet, the mobile phone, and text-messaging. Together with the changing social-political landscape, described earlier, the society is opening up considerably for initiatives. Of all the issues, environmental protection seems to be the most powerful magnet, bounding together otherwise atomized city dwellers to fight against vested interests of developers, business owners, and government officials. When a big chemical plant with Taiwanese money was to start construction at the southeast coast city Xiamen and the municipal authorities announced tough rules against non-official mass rallies, the citizens text-messaged each other for “collective walk” in front of the city hall for three consecutive days last year. Under growing public anger, the project was eventually moved to a less populated rural setting (without further hearing on pollution threat to the rural community). Similar tactic was then adapted by Shanghai residents, in their fight against an unpopular infrastructure project with high-volume noise pollution possibilities. News about these events spread fast and wide on the Internet. “Collective walk,” thus, has since become a politically charged word for actions of civil disobedience.

As a matter of fact, environmental groups are mushrooming in Chinese cities, and so are volunteer associations of charity groups on various themes: rural education, basic healthcare, AIDS, homosexuality, natural disaster relief, and so forth. Many contributed at the earliest instance to the earthquake rescue and relief in May this year. Intellectuals and scholars working on rural problems have set up special training programs in selected countryside locations, recruiting college students to work together with poor peasants during school vacations. These new developments have loosened the nerves of the authorities so much that the Organization Department of the CCP’s central committee has launched a new program, starting from this year, to recruit 100,000 college graduates in five years to serve as local cadres at village level. It has no doubt helped to raise social awareness among college students.

Heightened social awareness among college students in recent years is also thanks to new trends in academic humanities and social sciences, hugely influenced by their American counterparts that emphasize cultural studies in themes and field-work in methodology. Urban wealth, commercial interest, tourism development, as well as increasing cultural exchanges, awakened general curiosity about China itself, its history, its geography, its many regional diversities in dialects, customs, cuisines, climates and cultural relics. One particular aspect of vibrant social life, benefited by cultural exchanges with outside world, is religious activities. Large number of college students now is Christian converts. Officially registered Christian churches claim more than 30 million members, but scholars’ estimations are about two or three times of that number. Increasing inter-communications with other East Asian countries have made equally important contributions to reviving interest in religion. Temples of Daoism, Buddhism, and other folk religions, built brand new or repaired from old ruins – possibly inflicted during the Cultural Revolution that vowed to sweep the world clean of all religions – in as many cities as villages, are receiving crowded visitors at traditional holidays, which often pose risk of stampede and required extra police force for safeguarding. According to the estimation based on two Shanghai professors’ research, China today has more than 300 million people who hold religious faith of one kind or another.

IV. The Tibetans

If the society is really so diversified, lively, and with high degree of social awareness, one might ask, why the Han Chinese reacted so strongly, uniformly, aggressively and rather chauvinistically (see below) towards the Lhasa riots in Tibet earlier this year? To understand this, we need to keep in mind a couple of points. First, growing social awareness, encouraged by economic development and tolerated by the authorities, is not exactly the same as political consciousness. Likewise, charitable work cannot supplant political demands from below. Distinctions such as these may be subtle, but they are never completely submerged into each other. It is the job of the cultural police to watch out that these boundaries are not to be crossed, on the Internet or on the streets. People need to feel good about themselves, a sense which charitable work could safely provide. Political questions, on the other hand, might easily make people uncomfortable just like the state could be challenged, probably unnecessarily. Talking about the rich-poor gap is ubiquitous by the Chinese nowadays, which is partly the bases for growing interest in charity work. Yet, talks about political rights for the poor are completely another matter. In this sense, the Chinese society has been indeed depoliticized to a considerable extent.

Second, similar to policy debates at the top, vibrant cultural life at the society level usually carries a trace of nationalistic rhetoric. As a young intellectual commented, the Chinese today believe that China is a “normal country” just like any other one, with its own distinctive cultural characteristics. We can do what other people are doing, but we prefer doing it our own way, be it charity work or Buddhism worshipping. Behind this thinking, anxiety over recognition by the “international community” is clearly visible. The fixed sight is on the West (or lesser partners of the abstract “West”), and the “China” or “Chinese culture” is to be defined by a collective “Chinese” that is, generally speaking, Han Chinese only.

Historically, the PRC did entertain the idea of Soviet-style ethnic republics, but for a very short period only. The same is true about ethnic equality in general. Before 1958, the PRC was actually very enthusiastic about identifying and developing minority nationalities within its territorial boundaries. Ethnographical teams were sent out and totally 55 ethnic “nationalities” were identified. At least 14 written scripts were created for 12 ethnic groups that did never developed one for themselves before, and many other scripts were reformed, regrouped, and experimented within the concerned population. These actions were generally halted by 1958 and further impeded by the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, for the sake of “speeding up and running directly into communism” that would no longer acknowledge ethnic differences anyway. Economic recession, understandably, went much worse in minority ethnic areas than in Han regions, due to severe cultural and linguistic damage. There was indeed a short period of beneficial ethnic policy in 1977-1985, which, unfortunately, slowed down to almost complete stop in the nineties, due to the central government’s developmental position that focused on economic growth and almost nothing else. By official statistics in 2005, ethnic minority was 8.41% of China’s total population, but 45% of the total poverty population nationwide. Of officially identified “poverty counties” across the country, minority ethnic autonomous counties, once again, took up 45% of the total.

On the other hand, though ethnic minorities are less than ten percent of China’s total population, they occupy 64% of the PRC’s entire territory. A large proportion of the 64% is historically Tibetan inhabited areas. Tibet is also along a very long stretch of China’s 22,000 kilometers of inland border with other countries. These are the hard facts of the “Tibetan Question” today.

Has Tibetan areas been experiencing “cultural genocide” as the Dalai Lama claims? “Yes” and “no.” “Yes,” because official documents issued by the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) government are nowadays mostly written in Chinese, often without Tibetan translation at all; Most governmental meetings are conducted in Mandarin Chinese instead of Tibetan; Recruitment examinations for civil servant positions are mostly conducted in Chinese instead of Tibetan; Elementary schools for Tibetan children in Lhasa have adapted to using Chinese as first language and Tibetan as the second. The main reason for such phenomena is the PRC’s top official appointment practice. The CCP simply couldn’t trust any Tibetans to be at the top of the TAR leadership. Its Party Secretary, the real boss of the region, has been taken up by Han Chinese one after another for decades. They were often transferred in short notice from other regions and did never feel the pressure to learn the native language.

In addition, with Beijing’s unceasing assault on the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism – a faith followed in varied forms by the majority of Tibetan population – is agonizing with its fragmented identity. With his charisma and international standing, whatever happens to him in the future, the fourteenth Dalai Lama is bound to become another legend in Tibetan cultural memory, just in the same way as one of his predecessors, the sixth Dalai Lama, a romantic poet fondly remembered in Tibetan folklores. Beijing’s pragmatic-thinking top leaders apparently have not registered this possibility. It is generally believed that the Chinese government is patiently waiting for the day when a reincarnation procedure will have to be enacted under its control inside China, in order to choose a successor of the current Dalai Lama. With this thinking firmly in their mind, whenever social unrests taking place in Tibetan areas, the authorities would jump upon all Tibetans, forcing them one by one to make public denouncement against the current Dalai Lama. Amazingly, or maybe not by accident, the method is exactly the same applied to all of the Chinese in the PRC during the Cultural Revolution. By so doing, instead of turning the Dalai Lama into its own political assets, Beijing has created a formidable windmill for itself to busy fighting against eternally. The political reeducation sessions forced upon every Tibetan inside China have been the most humiliating experience to the young, educated Tibetans living in Han Chinese cities in particular. Many of them actually have some spoken Tibetan only, unable to fully express themselves in the written language, let alone to keep that language’s beauty in some living, rejuvenating forms for future generations. This deeper sense of national humiliation has been simply reinforced by Beijing’s crude and cruel tactics against their fellow Tibetans remaining on the Roof of the World.

On the other hand, with more than 80% Tibetan population still living as farmers and going to rural schools or Buddhist monasteries that teach Tibetan as first language, there is no immanent danger of Tibetan culture disappearing from the world. On the contrary, with commercialization and loosened political control in East Tibet in particular, there have been more Tibetan periodicals in China’s Tibetan areas than ever before, much more lively than Tibetan print culture in the exile communities in northern India. Growing tourism, encouraged by Beijing with preferable policies and extra investment, has brought many Tibetan youth into closer contact with their traditions than, say, thirty years ago. They are creating lively cultural life in Tibetan cities and towns not just for tourists, but also for themselves. Like their Han counterpart, what in need is formal political recognition and protection of their rights. Unlike their Han Chinese counterpart, the younger generation of Tibetans keenly feel the need, longing for greater freedom to develop their national identity. For them, the Dalai Lama is mainly in this sense to be an important political symbol. Also in this sense, we may say, Beijing has been playing foolishly for unable to fully grasp the depth of the Tibetan Question.

Is Political Dissent Possible in China Today? (Part 1 of 3)

[Written for the Italian journal MicroMega's special issue on the Beijing Olympics, June 11, 2008; with minor modifications, Oct 6, 2008]

News stories from China often provide, to say the least, conflicting pictures about social political life in the country. For example, a series of incidents since early March this year has seen startling changing faces of the Chinese public. Authoritarian manipulations notwithstanding, political passion in the country has been undoubtedly running at its highest point since the 1989 Tian’anmen protests. In particular, the urban masses demonstrated enthusiastic support to the government’s heavy-handed suppression of Tibetan protests in March, to the world torch relay of the Beijing Olympic Games (to be held in August) in April, and to the victims of the May 12 earthquake – massively devastating – in Sichuan province. Thousands of volunteers rushed to the damaged areas to offer help. Meanwhile, an almost unprecedented press freedom followed at the heel of the earthquake, not only covering heroic rescue missions but also exposing man-made tragedies, such as thousands of children buried by the instant collapse of under-standard school buildings. The government’s quick responses to the school building controversy were only partly due to pressures from the parents. To be sure, public outcry played a much grater role in this case.

Does it mean political participation has become the norm of public life or political dissent against the government is publicly tolerable in today’s China? The answer will, perhaps, have to be “No” or at least “Not yet,” with some twist concerning China’s recent history.

I. Depoliticized Politics of the Party

Wang Hui of Tsinghua University in Beijing believes that, corresponding to China’s economic integration into capitalist globalization worldwide, the politics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been depoliticized, turning the PRC’s previous party-state into today’s state-party. In this way, the CCP has lost its political vitality, if not yet completely its mandate as well, becoming highly dependent on the state’s power and its apparatus. Now the Party is deeply entrenched in developmentalism in both ideology and practice. The transformation, Wang Hui implies, is a betrayal of the Party’s earlier, more revolutionary tradition that saw vigorous debates – either theoretical or policy-oriented – engendering real mass politics. On the other hand, depoliticizing tendency is inherent to all modern political parties. To counter the tendency and retain the revolution’s political vigor, Mao relied on mass mobilization, such as launching the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The cause behind many human tragedies taking place at the time, Wang Hui argues, was exactly due to the Party’s depoliticizing tendency, manifesting itself most of all in the form of power struggles between political factions within the top leadership. [1]

Such an interpretation recognizes the historical significance of the Chinese revolution in general and its politicizing impact on the working class in particular, which has informed most cases of worker protest since the 1990s. But, the interpretation also clearly points to the fact that politics in Mao’s PRC was always the monopoly of the CCP, at least always nominally guided by the Party or by Mao himself personally. Mass political participation was promoted and rebellion against bureaucratization of the socialist state was indeed encouraged at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Experiencing the sudden collapse of established social hierarchy, the young and the active ones were prompted to “heterodoxy” thinking avidly, often in underground fashions. This has been another stimulating legacy of those years, often directly informing today’s social activism.

Above the ground, the Cultural Revolution soon had its own reversal; whereupon, in the last years of the upheaval, China’s social, economic and political orders were mashed together to the greatest extent possible, with almost the entire population organized into semi-military units of minimal social mobility, maintained largely through endless ideological campaigns. The practice lowered the level of administrative sophistication considerably, as well as sweeping away cultural, ethnic and religious differences mercilessly. The three decades of reform has seen the actual falling apart of this order. The Party’s depoliticization process since 1979 [2] is epitomized by Deng Xiaoping’s colorful expressions: “It doesn’t matter if a cat is white or black; what matters is the cat can catch mice;” “No debate” about what is socialism and what is capitalism; “Get rich is glorious;” and “Development is the irrefutable truth.” Deng might be determined to get rid of ideological debate inside the Party. However, this does not at all mean that he was ready to give up suppression of political dissent.

Political dissent was never a valued virtue for the ruling Party, within or without. Bapa Phunsto Wangye, founder of Tibetan Communist Party who helped to bring the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into Tibet in 1951, lost his own freedom for twenty years when he spoke out, as a CCP member, against the Party’s Tibetan policy in the late 1950s. As for the Cultural Revolution’s beginning years mentioned above, its sense of liberation for young students, like its appearance of chaos in the country, came always with unmistakable boundaries imposed by Mao and his allied comrades. For even then, to engage in “unorthodox,” independent thinking could mean great personal risk, from long-term imprisonment to immediate execution. Of hundreds of thousands people who perished in the decade, three individuals stand out and are remembered with great admiration by later generations. Lin Zhao (1932-1968), Yu Luoke (1942-1970), and Zhang Zhixin (1930-1975), independent of each other, all met with death squad for their daring ideas at relatively young age.

By comparison, Deng and his successors in the Reform era have been much lenient to individual political dissenters. Yet, the government on the whole is no less vigilant against any potential challenges to their power and no less ruthless and brutal in suppressing challengers, imagined or real. This lies at the root of Deng Xiaoping’s decision to move huge amount of PLA troops into Beijing to quell the pro-democracy movement on Tian’anmen Square in 1989. The Tian’anmen Mother group, led by Ding Zilin who lost her seventeen-year-old son in the wee hour of June Fourth, 1989, has been fighting not only for obtaining the truth about their beloved ones missing in the crackdown, but also for mourning the victims freely, openly, and living a normal life without constant surveillance and harassment by the National Security police force. Fear of political challenge also determined Jiang Zemin’s heavy-handed persecution against the religious group, Fa-lun-gong, since 1999. Many Fu-lun-gong practitioners suffered police harassment and brutality for years. Nonetheless, manners of political suppression are undergoing significant changes. Nowadays, except in Tibetan areas (more later), the Party’s key concern is no longer to squeeze out personal confessions or physically wipe out the “unfit,” so much so as to silence the voice and destroy the courage.

II. Depoliticizing the Society, Coercively

Wang Hui’s account of China’s depoliticizing process explicitly concerns the CCP and the Chinese state, but only vaguely implying a similar process happening to the Chinese society as well. The logic seems to suggest that a depoliticizing and depoliticized politics internal to the CCP is identifiable with politics in China as a whole. If so, this would be a serious misreading of the reality. Since the end of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the Chinese society has been continuously diversified, economically and politically. However, the society and its people did not take the depoliticizing, commercializing path without a fight.

In the Reform era, with Deng Xiaoping’s developmentalist guidance that shuns ideological debate, new slogans issued by CCP’s leaders, such as the “three represents,” “basing everything on humanity,” “relating to the people” and “building up harmonious society” are functioning figuratively than substantially in organizing social life. Policy debates are never based on these slogans but, indeed, hinged on ideological rationalizations, usually with one side emphasizing the centralized state in need to unify political and economic power, and the other promoting free market and private interests as the key to stimulate sustained economic growth. While nether side would touch on mass mobilization of the labor class any more, neo-liberal defenders are actually no less rhetorically concerned with a strong nation than their supposed left-leaning opponents. As political institutional reform has not moved much to anywhere, party cadres at all levels have been like a political commissar without reliable ideological compass except upholding “state interest,” almost completely relieved from the old pressure to cling to ideological correctness. At the same time, thanks to residue socio-political structure from the previous period, they sit like a judge or referee over the fast-changing society of diversified interests, while keeping firm grip of the greatest social, political and economic power over all other competing interests. The double-role of being the referee of one’s own performance has enabled Party officials to play with ideological discourses of the old and the new alike, all to their own advantages.

The situation has been classical for brewing official corruption and causing serious social conflict. All social groups naturally have eagerly looked for political expressions for their own interest. Rather than “automatically” depoliticized by smooth talkers of neo-liberal free-market principles, the masses were constantly mobilized into political actions by the daily social transformations in their lives. If their actions have not led to any sustained political movement with historical significance, it was mainly because rising social conflicts are often handled by the state ruthlessly at first, as if dealing with “class enemies” in the old days, before the government might gradually make policy readjustment or administrative reorientations to reduce tensions on the ground. A few well-covered examples might remind us how changes were brought about in Chinese society with political implications in the last decade.

Industrial restructure – a euphemism for privatization of state-owned or collective-owned firms – became one of the key programs in China’s reform since the mid nineties. The Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory in Liaoning Province used to be a state-owned well-performing, profitable firm with thousands of workers in the eighties, and is still well-performing, profitable as a private firm today, owned by associates of former municipal officials, with less workers and worse working conditions. Between 1993-2001, corrupt officials managed to push the factory into filing for bankruptcy, with worker’s salaries unpaid for as much as for 22 months. Most workers were against bankruptcy filing, demanding transparency in auditing and approval by the worker’s congress. When all failed, they took on the streets in early 2002. Four of their leaders were arrested, but the workers persisted. The municipal authorities deliberately accused two leading old workers for unverified membership in the outlawed China Democracy Party. Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang were sentenced for “subversion” for seven and four years, respectively. At the same time, the city diversified 20 million yuan to pay off all the rear pays to the workers within a year. In the same year following the workers protest, Premier Wen Jiabao visited the northeast Rustbelt three times, committing the central government to reviving the old industrial base there. Yet, economic demands may be met, but explicit political activism must be punished. To this date, Yao is still serving his term. [3]

One factor affecting the outcome of the Liaoyang case is the wide coverage by both domestic and foreign media of the worker’s protest, which put great pressure on Beijing to demand the municipal government find a quick settlement. Similar factors often come into play in social conflicts in the countryside, too. They often brought out similar outcomes as well, with leading individual activists punished while the general situation improved gradually to various degrees.

Wu Lihong was a peasant activist for more than a decade when he was named among China’s top ten environmentalists at the Great Hall of People in Beijing in late 2005. His hometown is by Lake Tai, the third largest fresh water body in China, and near Yixing City in Jiangsu Province, not far from Shanghai. Since the 1980s, the lake area had attracted legions of chemical factories that are big in both their contribution to local revenue incomes and polluting the once scenery lake. In his tireless effort, Wu documented more than 2,000 chemical firms by the lakeside and helped to close down some 200 big polluters. Yixing’s officials worked hard to turn the bad publicity into positive image-building, earning the city a title of “national model in environmental protection” in late 2006. Wu was not convinced. He was to go to Beijing for further petitions when dozens of policemen stormed his home and took him away in April 2007, accusing him for “extortion” and corruption. Yet, Yixing’s bad publicity turned to worse in a month, when the most serious algae scum in Lake Tai’s history occurred, threatening 200 million urban population with polluted drinking water. Government agencies at all levels jumped to the emergency, but the municipal authorities did not budge in Wu’s case. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Water quality continued to decline, according to official report, and new regulations taking effect this month are to subject chemical factories around Lake Tai to penalties five times higher than before. It is not clear if any of the Yixing officials being disciplined in any manner; or more likely if they collected credit for overcoming the public hazard. Clearly, neither the central nor the provincial government acted on Wu’s behalf to demand a fairer hearing than the 30 minutes allotted to him. Wu is still serving his sentence. [4]

Human Rights and Civil Rights: Before and After Tian’anmen

Presentation at “China and Human Rights: A Symposium”
Claremont McKenna College
Thursday, March 6 & Friday, March 7, 2008

Last week, China announced that it is ready to resume human rights dialogues with the United States, which have been interrupted for four years since 2004. These dialogues were initiated under US pressure in the aftermath of the 1989 Tian’anmen crackdown, and were something completely new for Beijing. To meet the challenge, Beijing issued its first White Book on human rights in 1991, insisting that China’s record had been excellent in all areas: political, economic, socio-cultural, labor and religious rights, rights of minorities, of women and minors, of disabled people, and rights in legal procedures. Complaining of interference of its internal affairs and of the ideological framework supposedly imposed on it, the government repeatedly emphasized how much social welfare had been improved under the CCP’s leadership. The then president Jiang Zemin’s notorious slogan, “human rights are the rights to survive,” was initially raised in this context.

A key conceptual issue in the White Book was its focus on protective conditions afforded to the populace by a government purportedly representing the collective in toto. Emphasizing its history as a Third World country, with numerous references to infringements and abuses of its sovereign rights by imperialism in the past, it argued in effect that rights accrued to individuals can never be evaluated universally and must be subsumed into collective’s overall interest in consideration.

Nowadays, the Jiang Zemin slogan is no longer propagated noisily by Beijing, but the same logic is repeated in almost all Chinese official utterances on issues relating to human rights. Viewed historically, it is undeniable that there is some truth in the argument. However, in the logical chain of this official line, an important link is missing, which is the individual’s authorization of the collective to act on her or his behalf; That is, the political legitimization of the collective entity itself. Officially, when being pressured, Beijing still invokes the revolutionary victory of 1949 as the basis of its legitimacy to rule and to deal with issues concerning the conditions of human life. It was exactly the question of humanism, however, that most effectively challenged the legitimacy of the CCP in the early eighties.

The Reform Era started in the late 1970s, as a direct response to the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. Intense reflections on that extraordinary decade had already been going on for some time, among Party cadres and dissidents alike. At the same time, underground literature, poetry in particular, ventured most daringly into the sphere of humanism, exploring the existential value of the individual being. By the late seventies, fictions rose to the same calling, when Dai Qing, another speaker in our afternoon program, started her writing career in the same vein. Works like Dai Houying’s “Oh, Human Being” increasingly held humanistic values and human dignity as the top criteria in critical reassessment of social practices under Mao.

Politically, exactly at the moment when the democracy Wall in central Beijing was in full spate, attracting large crowds in late 1978, the Party’s Central Committee suddenly changed course in the middle of a working session, turning its attention to redressing wrongs committed in previous political campaigns. Older Party leaders, such as Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping, laid their stress on the Cultural Revolution, from which they themselves had suffered. However, Hu Yaobang, who was younger, pushed the drive further, to redress the half million cases of those persecuted in the anti-Rightist campaign of the 1950s. Originally responsible for the anti-Rightist campaign, Deng Xiaoping could not have been pleased with this move. Hu Yaobang, without really adhering strictly to principles of justice, nevertheless appealed to humanistic values, emphasizing not only the human suffering involved in these persecutions, but also their meaningless waste of talents and creative energy. Thus, in the name of humanistic values and human dignity, the Party’s political practices were also assaulted.

Theoretical reflections soon followed, exposing the Party’s legitimacy crisis. Months after the Central Committee’s meeting, a number of reflective works inspired by humanistic perspectives hit the press, including an influential article by Mr. Gao Ertai. Cui Weiping has recently published a well-researched and well-argued article on this important intellectual development, known in China as the debate of “Marxist humanism and the question of alienation.” Attacks on the Party’s line in this wave of lively writing were sharply pointed. For example, Mr. Gao characterized the Party’s ideological operations in these blunt words: “The People in the abstract has become the God; whereas the people in the concrete have been reified as sacrifices on the altar for God.”

Faced with these external challenges and internal divisions, the Party first exploited them to its own advantage and then launched a counterattack in late 1983, when Deng Xiaoping and his ideological allies had consolidated their power at the center. As Cui Weiping has noted, the Party had by then already adopted the theoretical framework that it continues to employ today. Specifically, the Party’s ideologues separated the realm of historical explanations, where they maintained humanism had nothing to contribute; and the realm of ethical norms, where humanism was tolerable to some extent on a subordinate terrain. Wang Ruoshui, a comrade-in-arms of Mr. Gao in the debate, rebuffed this division, arguing that once humanism was compartmentalized in this way, it lost any significance as compass for social change, and that in the contrary China needed to reestablish the social purpose of seeking to realize the true essence of humanity in and for every member of the society.

In this vision the Party instantly detected a subversive danger. The campaign against “Spiritual Pollution” of humanism did not go very far in late 1983, due to Hu Yaobao’s intervention. But by 1987, Hu Yaobang was removed as the Party’s Secretary-General for permitting political dissent and student protest. Meanwhile, Wang Ruoshui was eventually kicked out of the Party. Wang, Mr. Gao, and couple of intellectual activists persisted, launching their short-lived journal New Enlightenment in early 1989. In mid-April that year, Hu Yaobang’s death triggered the massive pro-democracy movement centered at Tian’anmen Square.

=== === ===

At that time, notions of human rights – as distinct from philosophical conceptions of humanism – were still quite marginal in China, even though some veterans of the 1979 Democracy Wall period, such as Ren Wanding, had been promoting them for years. Roughly speaking, the concept of “rights” entered China’s social life in the mid eighties, when Beijing became a member of the UN Human Rights Conference. Subsequently, Deng Pufang, Deng Xiaoping’s son paralyzed in the Cultural Revolution, started an unprecedented association for the disabled. Still, upholding “human rights’ (renquan) as universal and inalienable entitlements of the individual was generally considered a weak position in this period. For most Chinese, it was not until the nineties that this idea acquired real value and dignity.

Between the suppression of the humanism debate in the early eighties and the accepted dignity of human rights in the nineties, there was a tilting period. What held greater sway in people’s imagination was the idea of civil rights, which raised more directly the issue of citizen’s power vis-à-vis the legitimacy of the existing political order. In fact, to most participants of the nation-wide 1989 pro-democracy movement, civic rights were probably not clearly distinguished yet from the idea of political power. The two words in Chinese have an identical pronunciation, quanli, and the blurring of them involved more than just vagueness. For even if a distinction between them was made, the idea of quanli as rights leaned heavily towards the exercise of political power – or, so to speak, in positive liberty rather than the negative liberty of freedom from interference. Thus, individual labor rights could easily be understood as the collective power of labor and individual citizen’s rights as citizens’ collective social power. In a sense, it was this equation between rights and popular power that alarmed the power-clutching CCP the most, stoking its fear of social movements and civic participation to the extreme.

For the protesters of 1989, the intermingled understanding worked both ways. On the one hand, as Han Dongfang’s experience at the square testifies, fellow workers in many factories hesitated to join his autonomous union, partly because they could not yet fully grasp the distinction between an official union that make them the country’s collective master on paper and an autonomous union that would reclaim their individual rights and restore dignity to them. On the other hand, the notion of rights shed fresh and critical light on the issue of political legitimization in the PRC, empowering and emboldening individual citizens in political participation. Faculty and students at the China Politics and Law University made a famous large placard. Copied on it were passages taken from the PRC’s constitution, all concerning citizens’ rights. It was cheered at wherever it was held aloft in the huge rallies of those days.

The awakening sense in terms of civic rights went hand in hand with the belief of fighting for essential human dignity. One big banner erested at Tian’anmen Square had lines taken from a poem by Bei Dao, a leading poet in the underground poetry movement since the seventies. Translated roughly, they read like the following:

Never kneel down on the ground
To prove the height of the executioners
So that they may block the breeze of freedom

In the original poem, a few lines before these words, the poet proudly proclaims:

I am not a hero
At a time when there is no more heroes
I only want to be a human being

Contrasting an antihero “human being” to the executioners who, blocking freedom’s breeze, could order at will anyone to kneel down before them, the poet best captures the political gist embedded in the perceived human dignity in the Chinese 1980s.

The democracy movement of 1989 was crushed by force. But since the mid-nineties, human rights consciousness in China has generally increased, thanks in part to persistent foreign pressures. Human rights concerns, even if compartmentalized, have helped many suffering people on a case-by-case basis, me included, and are urgently needed to help many more. By the same token, we should admit that not all Beijing’s accusations that Washington has its own record of human rights abuses are unfounded; and these cannot all easily be answered by reference to differences in legal settings, either. In China or Darfur, in the US or US-occupied Iraq, the premises of any discussion of human rights are always, if I may say, political. Without political space for civic activism, and without procedural politics to ensure renewable political legitimization of the state, a society is ill prepared to take effective actions against human rights abuses. In this sense, to improve human rights situation in China, comprehensive political reform or even a revolution will have to be on the agenda.

ZT: 南方都市报社论：《以国家名义捍卫文明底线》

南方都市报社论：《以国家名义捍卫文明底线》

山西黑砖窑奴役、虐待工人事件，点 燃了举国上下普遍的义愤。昨日，国家主席胡锦涛、总理温家宝及其他国家高层领导相继就此事作出重要批示。截至昨日上午，山西、河南两省通过专项行动，共解 救出了468名黑窑工，目前行动仍在继续。这一数字，从侧面验证了这场灾难的规模。这一场人道的危机，以愤怒的民意推动，正演化成高层意志主导下的政治行 动，要以国家名义，捍卫文明底线。

　　这些天，我们亲见愤怒在全社会、各阶层燃烧。这人道的愤怒当中，也有敏感的抑郁，也有现实的忧心，还有难言的忌讳，但都无须掩饰。如果这愤怒，仍要克制，仍要掩饰，仍要辩证地指导，要么是社会的底线已经完全失去，要么是社会根本就没有底线。

　　这些燃烧的愤怒，是社会底线失守的普遍疼痛，是进步幻觉中蓦然惊醒的惶骇——我们以为自己在向文明飞奔的路上，却发现竟是赤膊上阵，羞愧难当。社会尚未剥夺殆尽的羞耻感，是它仍然活着的生命自证。我们不能阻止它感到羞耻和愤怒。

　　今日的局面，定要有人负责。这不容含糊，也无从商榷。许多人议论，许多人分析，写下各种各样的理据，要为事件找到出路。可是，这不是一道复杂的社会分析题，只是一道简单的文明判断题。那些普遍的愤怒，已经标定底线，也给出答案。

社会创制法律，每一个乱法者都要伏法；公民委托政府，每一个玩忽职守者都必须解职。这是社会恢复秩序、维系信心的基本前提。在这场人道灾难中，无良的黑窑 主、暴虐的包工头、邪恶的拐骗者、凶残的打手，一个也不能宽恕。还有那些官员，散漫的、失职的、贪腐的、丧失责任心的官员，没有理由强奸民意，霸权占位， 必须接受道义的谴责与政治的追惩，以及民众和法律的问责。

　　可我们的社会显然缺乏信心。甚至，这份无望的压抑，本身就构成今日愤怒的大部分。虽然这无声蔓延的愤怒，并未站定在公共舞台上朗声发言。可如果这澎湃的愤怒，仍要领受虚词和周旋，仍要观看敷衍和推脱，我们的政治恐怕会变成闹剧。

　　我们努力呈现这压抑而扭曲的愤怒，只因感念社会前进全赖真实。尽管这真实，常常令人不悦。今天的事实，是只有政治高层确认的愤怒，才可以成为驱魔降妖 的真实的愤怒。那么多失子家庭的父母悲呼，他们目睹暴行，直击残酷，他们的忍耐近乎悲壮。那么多民众同心呼应，他们痛斥践踏人权的恶人，更厌恨辜负民意的 官员，他们的忍耐同样近乎悲壮。这种忍耐，本能地在渴望一种起码的政治尊重。现实需要回答他们，他们的忍耐是因为坚信，坚信这个制度仍在不遗余力地修复， 修复他们因愤怒而塌陷的信心。

　　在国家与公众之间，我们需要重申一些常识。个人之恶，从来就不曾消亡。国家之善，即在于以公共名义，遏制个人之恶。不得不承认，黑砖窑累积的罪恶，最 刺人耳目的，并非个人之恶的极度暴虐。而是那些接受公民委托，担当保护之责的官员，如何背信弃义，如何临阵脱逃，如何自私自利，将垄断的公权败坏成公民权 利的惨剧。

　　为骇人的山西黑砖窑写下结语，只能是个人之恶所叠加的公器之恶。为恶毒的人性，我们只留一声悲叹，为反噬其主的公器，却要喊出大声的愤怒。检讨人性，这是每时每刻的个人修为；检讨公器，却是此时此刻全社会必须要做的工作。

　　那么多小心翼翼的愤怒，喧腾躁动，他们在彼此交谈，彼此相识。这愤怒必须被听到，必须被理解。在今日的公共生活中，它在等待来自政治的确认和回馈。民 愤，以及平民愤，逐渐成为今日中国的政治游戏原则。愤怒，就此成为道义的武器，为民众参与，找到一条委婉的路线。也许要说，不幸的是，我们只有愤怒；也许 要说，幸运的是，我们仍有愤怒。

Remembering Chinese blood shed for democracy

http://www.upiasiaonline.com/politics/2007/06/04/commentary_remembering_chinese_blood_shed_for_democracy/

WANG CHAOHUA

Chinese Communist Party officials on several occasions this year have publicly broached the topic of democratic reform, at long last. It seems that time, and repeated lies, have created enough barriers to stop the public from relating the word "democracy" to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

However, the confrontation between the peaceful demonstrators and the army's machine guns and tanks left a huge question in history: What was the conviction that led those demonstrators to confront the military machines? Explanations such as the "impulsiveness" of youth cannot account for those striking scenes that shocked the world. I have always understood their courage to come from the power of a mass movement toward democracy.

Looking back at the widespread participation and the way people were mobilized in 1989, we recall that the marchers paraded in the streets in the middle of the day, carrying the banners of their schools or workplaces, as if the banners made their actions more righteous. Under the social circumstances of the time, the intent of the demonstrators was to participate in a patriotic movement toward democracy, not to overthrow the government. Only by realizing this point can we understand why, throughout the month-long demonstrations, the people demonstrated such strong self-discipline. This did not come from fear of government revenge. Instead it suggested a strong feeling of pride in challenging government suppression. The key point was the widespread participation, which is what democracy relies on.

When night fell, the people who went out to the streets represented only themselves. They did so of their own free will, and many confronted government officials face-to-face. This shows that, although the students' strategy was to stir the sympathy of the people, the force that mobilized the masses went far beyond mere expressions of sympathy and support. Sympathy was just superficial; whether it was the April 27th incident (when students protested the state media's depiction of the movement), the martial law order, or the gunshots on the night of June 3rd, the largest scale participation always occurred in direct opposition to the government's tough measures.

We might say that the 1989 incident was quite similar to today's campaigns to defend the people's rights. The deprivation or denial of a citizen's rights is the most effective motivator, and the real foundation of mobilization is the hope of democracy. Most victims in the June 4th incident were acting as individual, ordinary citizens. They were sacrificed at the fatal place at the fatal time only because they couldn't accept the ruling authority's violence toward the practice of their civil rights.

Commemorating the June 4th incident and returning political power to the people can never be separated. We can say without any doubt that the victims of the June 4th events shed their blood and died in the pursuit of democracy.

Those unwilling to face the democratic nature of the movement, or who intentionally wish to cover it up, always avoid examining the intentions of the citizens who were involved at the time. They just look at the students and criticize them by picking out certain details. They argue that if the students had obtained power they would have exerted a stronger dictatorship than the Communist Party. This argument is completely unfounded.

During the democratic movement, the students were pursuing political participation. They were not asking for sympathy, coercing the government or usurping authority. Although they lacked practical experience, due to a prolonged ban on non-governmental organizations, the students did experience a certain amount of openness and reflection in the 1980s. Ideas of democratic reform had been widely spread by physicist and professor Fang Lizhi and others.

Less than one week after the death of the reformist Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, those who gathered to mourn him began uniting into independent organizations. As soon as one active individual initiated a group, many students followed. Every school had such student representatives, who used their real names rather than hiding behind pseudonyms, which was a great difference from previous student movements. Besides, up until the final phase of the movement, including the clean-up in Tiananmen Square, the student leaders still made their decisions by voting, which shows the democratic character of the movement.

If we consider that the students' organizations were the voluntary leaders of the mass movement at that time, they had to take into account the views of the masses. They had no intention of extending their authority beyond the principles of democracy. In fact, we can resolutely say that if the government had fallen, the students would surely not have established an autocracy or dictatorship. Instead, they would have asked people from all walks of life to elect new authorities to share the heavy burden of governance, which they could hardly carry.

Nowadays there are many discussions and discourses on democracy within China. Especially in recent times, these have become more and more confusing. The major problem lies in the fact that the fundamental meaning and function of democracy has been made ambiguous.

In my opinion, the word "republic" emphasizes a voluntary unity among citizens, whereas "democratic" stresses the political procedures to be followed after unity is established. China had abolished an imperial system before the People's Republic of China was established. Only by first admitting the concept of a republic can we make it democratic, and only by realizing the spirit of democracy can we guarantee the original spirit of a republic. Instead of contradicting each other, the two complement each other, and both emphasize the equal political status and right to political participation of the citizens.

In this sense, there is a great distance between real democracy and the current political situation in China. This is the root cause of the emerging social conflicts and confrontation. If the Communist Party does not open the channel of democracy, the conflicts between people will never end, especially those between local people and the central groups that are the beneficiaries of the current system.

Democracy is a good thing and it is what the students paid for by shedding their blood and losing their lives in order to protect their civil rights in 1989. At this moment, as we commemorate the 18th anniversary of the June 4th incident, I look forward to the time when every Chinese citizen can practice his or her right to participate in democratic elections and political decision-making.

--
(Ms. Wang Chaohua was a leader of the democratic movement of 1989, when she was a graduate student and lecturer at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences. She left China after the June 4th incident and pursued her master's degree in history at the University of California. She is currently a PhD candidate of Chinese contemporary literature at the University of California in Los Angeles. This article is translated and edited from the Chinese. The original was published in "Trends" magazine and can be found at www.ncn.org. ©Copyright Wang Chaohua.)