8 things I'd like to see the Chinese government do today
1) Celebrate Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Prize win as a national as well as an individual honour.
2) Immediately pardon and release Liu Xiaobo from prison.
(And pay him appropriate compensation for his three spells of unjust incarceration. And help to arrange a lecture tour for him to publicise his ideas on China's development.)
3) Introduce a similar amnesty for all other 'political' prisoners.
4) Institute a thoroughgoing overhaul of China's criminal law, abolishing offences like the catch-all concept of "state subversion" which allow citizens to be imprisoned for long terms on charges of no substance at all.
5) Terminate and repudiate the campaign of black propaganda against Liu Xiaobo (and other political activists) which in recent weeks has seen both the state media and the online fenqing hordes vilifying him as "a criminal" and "a traitor" and "an idiot" and so on.
6) Apologise to the Norwegian government, the Norwegian people, and the Nobel Prize Committee for its ill-considered initial reactions of hostility, petulance, and intimidation.
7) Lift Internet and telecommunications censorship measures to allow free and open discussion of Liu Xiaobo and his ideas.
[My god, this is just ridiculous. It's currently impossible to send text messages that mention his name - in Chinese or English. There are probably thousands at least, perhaps tens of thousands of other Liu Xiaobo's in the country; there are a hundred million other Liu's - you can't mention them either.]
8) Set up a working committee (with a defined, short timetable!) to develop meaningful constitutional guarantees and supporting legal frameworks to secure the basic human rights that Liu Xiaobo has been advocating.
This news could be an historic turning-point for modern China. It could be used as a springboard by the more progressive, reformist elements in the Communist Party to finally start moving the country - however slowly and cautiously - along the path to full democracy.
Trouble is, the more conservative and trenchantly anti-democratic elements still hold sway in the Party. And even the would-be reformers are terrified of losing their monopoly of power. And all Chinese - Party leaders and ordinary citizens alike - have a horror of ever admitting that they were wrong.
I was ecstatic when I first heard the news of Liu Xiaobo's win yesterday. But delight soon gave way to depression as I reflected on the probable short-term consequences within China: there will be a reactionary backlash - the government will become even harsher in its treatment of perceived 'political dissent', and there will be no chance of embracing a 'reform programme' any time soon. [And the churlish threats of "harm being caused to bilateral relations" now being hurled at Norway will become more and more common in its approach to foreign affairs. The habitual resort to playground bullying is a glaring indication of the Chinese government's insecurity, and of its immaturity as a world power. How I long for this puerile rhetoric to be abandoned!]
The Nobel Committee has brought hope to a lot of people with this decision. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party is very good at killing hope.
Update: Wow, I was soft-pedalling here! A couple of days later, an open letter [Chinese original text, with English translation, via David Bandurski at the China Media Project] to Wen Jiabao emerged, signed by a group of eminent Chinese academics and media figures, vigorously calling for an end to state censorship and suppression of free speech. The figurehead of the group is Li Rui, an elderly cadre who has held high positions in the government, including working for a while as a secretary to Mao Zedong; the other 22 signatories are also men of some distinction, and a few have actually held senior posts in the country's propaganda agencies. So much for the ridiculous fenqing insistence that notions of 'free speech' and 'democracy' are purely Western affectations that have no appeal to the practical-minded Chinese... outside of a supposedly "China-hating" lunatic fringe (this kind of obnoxious and patently absurd attitude was expressed in a few of the early comments below). The authors of this letter are not an insignificant 'fringe' - not in their numbers, nor their background, nor their intellectual acuity, nor in their connection to the government (most, if not all, are Party members, and some have served in government). And what they have to say is pretty incendiary stuff - go and read it.
23 comments:
Froog:
When South Africa became a 'democracy' in 1994 this is what happened:
http://tinyurl.com/2ejj3k4
China's system is good at saving lives. India's 'full democracy' is not:
http://tinyurl.com/2evkmz6
China's system is good at reducing poverty. India's 'full democracy' is not:
“China is also praised for cutting the number of hungry by 58 million in 10 years through strong state support for smallholder farmers.
But the report criticises economically liberal India where, it says, 30 million people have been added to the ranks of the hungry since the mid-1990s and 46% of children are underweight.
It says hunger exists in India not because there is insufficient food, but because people cannot access it, and that the exploitation of natural resources has led to ‘horrific displacements’ of people, pushing many into poverty.
When people are already on the brink of starvation this is simply unacceptable”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8309979.stm
So Froog:
If you had no choice but India or China, where would you rather your child be born, in order for him or her to grow up healthy, educated, and even wealthy? India a 'full democracy', or 'totalitarian' China.
Come on. Be honest now.
Anyway I'm gonna get you booted out of China.
I've sent your shit on to the relevant people.
Jeez, did you really earn 30 cents for that?
I'll leave your shit up - because it's amusing, in a terrifying kind of way.
Why is the 'Fenqing Handbook' still emphasising this tired old tactic of "I find this topic uncomfortable. Let's talk about something else."??
And as to your 'difficult' question, actually it's a no-brainer: would I choose for myself, my family, my descendants, my friends, anyone to live in a country where they may struggle with poverty and hunger, but have a chance to triumph over these hardships by their own efforts, or in a country where the material conditions of life may be marginally better but we may be subject to arbitrary state harassment or arrest? EASY answer.
India is a relatively civilised, and rapidly maturing country that has solid foundations to maintain steady social as well as economic development over the coming decades. None of this can be said of China. That's a great pity.
"anyone to live in a country where they may struggle with poverty and hunger, but have a chance to triumph over these hardships by their own efforts, or in a country where the material conditions of life may be marginally better but we may be subject to arbitrary state harassment or arrest? EASY answer."
This shows just how completely fucked up you are- fucked up and arrogant by your wealth.
Half of India's children are malnourished. Half of India's population can't get enough to eat.
Half of India's women can't even fucken read.
Yes - if you are born in a povertous shithole you "have chance to triumph over these hardships by their own efforts"
Arbitrary state harassment or arrest? How many Chinese exactly, out of 1.3 billion, are subject to this or even fear this - can you give me the numbers?
Liu was once asked about how China should progress: “(It would take) 300 years of colonialism. In 100 years of colonialism, Hong Kong has changed to what we see today. With China being so big, of course it would take 300 years of colonialism for it to be able to transform into how Hong Kong is today. I have my doubts as to whether 300 years would be enough.”
Imperialism/colonialism was a Holocaust for the Chinese people. Liu is a traitor. Pure and simple. He would sell out his own country to the West. His sentence was lenient.
Note that in Europe, those who deny the Holocaust, or praise the Holocaust, would also be sentenced to jail. In fact right now there are dozens of academics languishing in jail, simply for questioning the official Holocaust account.
So are you saying Europeans can jail those who offend their own historical sensitivities, but the Chinese cannot?
Go away, you twat!
There is a chance that some people might want to use this thread for a reasonable discussion about the topic of the post - How China should respond to the Nobel Prize Committee's decision.
All this rent-a-mouth fenqing mock outrage and abuse is just so very, very, very, very, very TIRESOME.
You will be "harmonized" if you try and leave any more of your drivel here, "Wayne".
On the India comparison (the Holocaust denial one is too fatuous to be worth addressing, although it's obviously on some fenqing primer somewhere, because EVERYONE is using it), I hope - I expect - that in 50 years India will have largely eradicated poverty, illiteracy, and so on.
My great fear is that in 50 years, China may still be just as repressive as it is today. And - as a direct result - it will have started to lag badly behind countries like India on these indicators.
You were warned, Wayne. You are a fart-for-hire.
Nobody wants your crap around here, thank you. Go somewhere else.
Not incapable of responding, "Wayne". Just can't be bothered. You haven't said anything worth responding to.
Now, for the last time, go and play somewhere else, little boy.
"You will be harmonized"... rofl
Sometimes you just wanna grab the fenqings, the government itself, and hundreds of years of saving face and figuratively grab them by the collar, look them in the eyes, and just say "stop being such a f*ck&ng &*nt".
My first reaction when I heard the news, sorry to admit, was to laugh my ass off. Just a few days prior all you could read about was what injustice the Nobel committee had done by not awarding a Chinese the prize. ROFL, here ya go!
The supression of freedoms is all about preserving one's own hide. Shame on all those who seek to elevate themselves on the backs of others. Should the prisoner really be grateful and happy because the jailor feeds him?
I do think the country is making slow progress, but sometimes you just want it to do the right thing, right now! Unfortunately Chinese logic sometimes dictates that its financial success must mean that everything else it does, by transitive property, must be the right thing.
Now that Chinese government, and some (a small pinch) Chinese people, have rejected the only Nobel Prize a current Chinese resident and a Chinese citizen, has earned while still in China, done the act to be awarded in China, I am convinced that no Chinese deserves to win a Nobel of any kind, including Chinese literature if they have award for that.
Why this list ? You still have some hope for the CCP ? I am so sorry that you will be very disappointed.
I love your 8 ideas for the Chinese Government to consider ... I also lost my happiness once i realized the reality that they could very well feel so overwhelmed my such an enormous loss of face, that they will dig in heels for pending trials (WU, ouch). Unlikely they will show a rare expression of leniency and give a soft sentence to Wu. TBA.
Best analogy of CCP's reaction to Liu's win: Like losing your virginity and waking up the next morning with a raging case of herpes...
Agree entirely with all points in this post.
In light of recent comments over at my place, I didn't realise that Wayne (aka Mongol Warrior) was still frequenting Froogville.
It makes no great difference in terms of new insights if you bother to have a discussion with "Mongol Warrior", or if you cut him short, Froog.
That said, your choice has saved you a lot of time ;).
Quite so, JR.
While I dislike outlawing comments, I think it's justified and necessary with paid-by-the-post psychotics like him. Their tactic is to clog up comment-threads to try to drive everyone else away, not to engage in any meaningful debate.
And this guy was far more objectionable than most.
So my choice is democratic India or authoritarian China?
At the risk of causing you censorship issues, can I pick democratic China - it's a little small but the mountains are nice, the people are friendly, the economy booms, and I just like it there...
But anyway - its no choice at all. I would take India any day of the week.
Quite so, TBC. India may be lagging behind China in a lot of ways at the moment, but I think their social/political infrastructure gives them a much better chance than China of continuing to sustain their development steadily over the next half century.
Unless the CCP pulls its finger out of its arse (and soon), India and Brazil - not China - will be the new 'giants' of the later 21st century.
There's also a major difference between India and China as to education. In India, there seems to be a view of education as a process that involves questioning oen's teachers. From meeting products of the Chinese education system it seems to be a process of blind acceptance of the teacher's word.
And I am not sure in how many ways India is lagging China. The thing is, India is an open country with a free (and pretty brutal) press. China lies out of its ass about everything. And you can't buck the market for ever - development eventually has to be paid for. And China is going to find it cannot carry on with funny money in perpetuity.
Wayne,
You cut and paste the same comment on my blog too. Why is that China supporters are so blazingly unable to be original?
Oh wait...I know.
Alas, I was not at all overestimating the negative impact of this on China's "diplomacy". I hear that all the Embassies in Beijing have been receiving special visits over the past week from MFA goons demanding that they alter (or moderate, or refrain from restating) their government's position on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's decision.
Way to make the story 'go away' faster, China! The CCP remains utterly clueless about the 'Western' concept of PR.
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