"If the Communist Party does not reform itself, if it does not transform, it will lose its vitality and move toward natural and inevitable extinction."
Who said that, then?
Me? Some other interfering laowai doomsayer? Some horrible China-hater? The US State Department?
Er, no. It was Hu Jintao, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, addressing the Politburo Standing Committee early in 2003, shortly after his accession to the leadership.
It's quoted in an open letter demanding freedom of expression and freedom of the press in China which was released at the beginning of this week. This letter was not written by outside critics, nor by marginalized 'intellectuals' in China, but by a group of distinguished academics and media figures, all senior Party members. [I added a postscript about this yesterday to Saturday's post on Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Prize.]
The authors of this devastating letter further point out that premier Wen Jiabao has twice in the last two months made public statements to the effect that "without the protection afforded by political reforms, the gains we have made from economic reforms will be lost, and our goal of modernization cannot be realised”; but these remarks have been completely excised from reports of these speeches by the Xinhua News Agency and other domestic media outlets. What kind of country is this, they ask despairingly, where even the premier gets censored?
Hu, I rather fear, was probably being wilfully insincere or disingenuous back then. But Wen, entering his last two years in office, might actually be making a bid to finally create a legacy that the two of them can be remembered for - in a good way. Let's hope so. The clock is ticking.
2 comments:
I loved the open letter this week. The iron is hot, and those who really want reform need to strike while the iron is hot. While its easy for the fenqing horde to be vocal, giving the appearance that this horde is bigger than it actually is, the silent majority who want to be heard need to speak up at these moments in time. A million voices cannot be silenced and if the Chinese want to show the world the courage of its people, I can think of no other way than to fight for their rights to express themselves freely. Every country has its shameful moments in history, the one's that don't deal with them just come off as unevolved.
In the struggle for personal freedoms I am often reminded of the famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech. The wall was torn down and it took incredible courage to defy his comrades and do the right thing. Yes, Gorbachev had his flaws, but history will remember the Nobel prize winner not as a puppet, but as someone who had the courage to unshackle the chains placed upon people by cowards.
Hopefully a Chinese leader will show the same courage some day. I wish we had a "Mr. Hu, tear down this Great Firewall!" moment, but unfortunately that would probably only trigger the "saving face" mechanism and would result in cutting off the nose to spite the face.
The thing about the Chinese people, from what I have gathered, is that they are incredibly forgiving of their leaders and their past mistakes. By giving people the simple freedoms enjoyed by the rest of the civilized world you are not going to give rise to a revolution and you may actually start making progress and start winning Nobel prizes in the categories that you cherish. As long as the populous is suppressed, China's potential will always be limited and its current success fleeting.
Please, all you Chinese leaders with principle, have the courage to stand up to the cowards intent only on self preservation and do something for the good of your people! Be heralded by history and generations for centuries and not forgotten as an insignificant puppets!
Unfortunately, I think the Russia/Gorbachev example is exactly what the CCP - and a lot of the Chinese people - are worried about, HF. The glasnost campaign was a prelude to the sudden collapse of the Soviet empire, and a couple of decades of gangsterism and near-anarchy.
To be honest, I think something like that is going to happen in China too. I think the crash, the crunch, whatever you want to call it, is inevitable. But it's going to be far, far worse the longer it gets put off. If the CCP really embraces the need for change early and manages the transition, it might not be so bad. But if they keep playing ostrich, this country could be an apocalyptic MESS in 20 or 30 years.
Post a Comment