Democracy in China? Depends on the outcome....

[LeveragedBuyout]

@Genesis , we in the West are often skeptical of the transition you describe because of cases such as this:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-verdict-against-guo-feixiong-is-a-verdict-against-china-1410365877

A Dark Verdict on China's Future
If China continues to take a hard line against human-rights activists like Guo Feixiong, Beijing's worst fears may soon come true.


By
XIAO SHU
Sept. 10, 2014 12:17 p.m. ET

On Friday my friend will face trial and likely be sentenced to prison in Guangzhou, a city in southern China. He has broken no laws. In fact, he is going to go to jail for saying publicly what many Chinese leaders have said publicly themselves. Yet the state will almost certainly deem him guilty of "gathering crowds to disturb public order." This prosecution carries dark significance for all of China.

My friend is Guo Feixiong, a legal activist whose real name is Yang Maodong. He has already served one five-year prison sentence, from 2006 to 2011, during which he was tortured. The reason: Helping a group of villagers to advocate for their land rights against corrupt officials.

Mr. Guo's latest ordeal began when he was detained by police on Aug. 8, 2013. The recently released indictment reveals his supposed crimes: In 2013, amid a censorship scandal at the prominent state-owned newspaper Southern Weekend, he gave a public speech and helped organize demonstrators who held placards on the streets. Nowhere does the indictment say how Mr. Guo's conduct disturbed social order.

Speaking in public and holding placards is not uncommon in China. Street performers, dancers and salespeople hold placards all the time. Yet the government targets activists like Mr. Guo because of what their placards say.

Mr. Guo's speech and placards made only two demands—that the government disclose the wealth of officials, and that the National People's Congress approve the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The two requests are the minimum demand from China's civil society, but the state considers them threatening, dangerous beasts.

Enlarge Image

Protesting censorship in China comes at great risk.AFP/Getty Images

Mr. Guo and other political prisoners, such as anticorruption advocate Xu Zhiyong, ask not for political power but only human and civil rights. These rights are guaranteed by international treaties and by the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. In other words, these activists' demands are not aggressive—they are defensive.

As more of my friends have gone to jail in recent years for conduct like Mr. Guo's, the Chinese government has sent a clear signal to society: For citizens to demand their rights is a form of provocation, an attack, and the state will repress such behavior without restraint. There is a zero-sum relationship between the government's repressive system and the people's basic rights; there is no longer flexibility.

The government is afraid of a "color revolution" and has reportedly sent agents to Russia and Central Asia to study how to prevent such events. Beijing's newly established National Security Commission has apparently investigated foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations in China, and several well-known NGOs are now at risk. All of which exposes one thing: The Chinese authorities are fearful.

The power of civil society in China is growing. The public's rights consciousness is awakening. Yet our civil society is still extremely weak compared with the world's strongest ruling state.

The Chinese authorities' overconfidence in hard power and underconfidence in soft power has rendered them incapable of assessing the situation objectively. So officials are fearful and treat the slowly growing rights movement as a mortal enemy. They probably don't realize that this extreme policy has antagonized people on all sides, stimulating powerful counterforces.

If the government gives no space to the people, it cannot expect the people to give it space in return. If the government gives no retreat route to civil society, it cannot expect civil society to offer a retreat route in return. The government's imagined "hostile forces" and "color revolution" will turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. If the authorities don't change direction, they will eventually reap what they sow.

So when the verdict against my friend Guo Feixiong is read out soon, please don't understand it as an accurate assessment of his conduct or of Chinese law. Rather, it is a verdict on the Chinese regime's future.

Xiao Shu is the pen name of Chen Min, a researcher at the Transition Institute in Beijing and a visiting fellow at Columbia University and National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He is a former columnist at Southern Weekend newspaper.

 

[Zsari]

How naive are you about your China ? Looks like plenty.

No relationship is ever completely one-way, not even under/in a totalitarian state, and your China is authoritarian, not totalitarian. That means business leaders have some degrees of freedom of movements, up-down, left-right, and in-out. The more freedoms they have, the more China's politicians relies on them to get things done, and reliance equals to strings, buddy.

Check the Bo and Zhou's case. The first one on the chopping block are always the businessmen. When push comes to shove, business leader are always the sacrificial lamb in the China since time immemorial, as the power that be can easily replace one with another. Part of the reason why the super rich in China wants a safehouse in the US, they have very little leverage in the system.

 

[TaiShang]

Thank Heavens China's is not a rigidified and anti-dialectical system unlike that of the US.

Diversified perspectives help people judge China’s changing society

Zhou Xiaoping, Please Don't Squander This Era, Nan Hai Publishing Co, October 2014

In his masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens depicted the 18th century London and Paris: "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." Now some cited the words to depict China at the current stage.

This ancient civilization is experiencing an unprecedented transition from tradition to modernity, blazing a trail that no one has ever walked before.

This makes the people who live in this country feel they are something of an outlier in this world. Confidence acquired from great economic achievements gives Chinese people strength, but all varieties of problems that have become increasingly prominent in society bring uncertainties to the wider public.

This transitional period renders China's image multilayered. Two different narratives have vaguely divided the Chinese elite into two camps: liberals who hold critical and even radical attitudes toward many social systems, and the pro-establishment advocates who keep defending the legitimacy of the current social framework. Zhou Xiaoping, a well-known online commentator and writer, is an iconic figure among the latter.

Zhou got widespread attention in 2013 after posting on his blog an article called "Please Don't Squander This Era" that was reprinted by many media outlets.

In this long article, he argued that China is now in the best of times, and is even better than many of its Western counterparts. Basing his arguments on patriotism, he defended that Chinese people are living in an era greatest than ever, and as he said, "we are witnessing Eastern civilization's comeback, ending the Western hegemony."

Now this article has been expanded into a book, of the same name but much greater length. More importantly, the author selects the post-1978 era and pitches his ideas in a more logical way.

This book serves as a purpose to counterbalance a tendency that many liberals are trying to push, which is to deflect China's development to another direction that is recognized by the West, even more extremely, to employ a "copy exactly" strategy to overhaul China's whole state system.

The author criticizes that many Chinese liberals have a lopsided attitude toward Chinese society, giving too much emphasis on individual problems instead of looking at the progress in the big picture. What's more, they take as their bible the principles and systems which are working well in Western societies.

It is necessary to point out that the author chooses a risky method of reasoning when he illustrates his stance. He puts much of his focus on detailing what he claims is the actual misery of the West, so that he can prove the West is not heaven and China is not hell.

This perspective he offers demands a high level of academic research and analysis in many fields such as history and sociology. Nonetheless, the work of Zhou, a young scholar born in the 1980s, has apparently overtaken that of most of his peers.

The core value of this book lies in its assertive and patriotic stance which can put straight the record of the public discourse. It gives the readers another perspective about Chinese society, from which they can better make their own judgments.

@Genesis , @Chinese-Dragon , @Edison Chen , @Beidou2020 , @Raphael

 

[gambit]

Rule of law, sure rule of law is not as good as the US in some parts, but no rule of law means anarchy, does China look like it's in anarchy right now.

Your current leadership believes that without its authoritarian rule, China will descend into anarchy. As such, that irrational fear inevitably produced the alternative -- the rule of men.

Confucius said: 'The moral character of the ruler is the wind, the moral character of those beneath him is the grass. When the wind blows, the grass bends.'

Confucius omitted the CONTENTS that make up the moral characters of both ruler and subjects/citizens for a reason: So that both groups can learn for themselves how they influence each other and the society they both live in.

Look at Russia and think -- hard. Why do you think Russia and Russians are in such a sorry societal mess today despite being nominally 'democratic' ? After all, Yeltsin and Putin were democratically elected, right ? The Russians democratically elected a drunk and a master schemer. Democracy worked very well for the electors and the elected. The Russians had little, more like none, alternatives, because since the beginning of the 20th century, they have bend under the same type of ruler, decade after decade, and in doing so, they learned and conditioned themselves that only leaders with serious character flaws or thugs are suitable for them.

You can do the same for the ME and for Central/South Americas. For Europe, look at Italy, a country that democractically had over forty governments since the end of WW II, then look at the Swiss with a democracy so stable and boring that it borderline on the comatose.

Your China is no different than Russia in this respect. Since the start of the 20th century, China have known colonialism, internal conflicts, oppression and it was an oppression so bloody and brutal that it pales in comparison to the exploitation that foreigners visited upon China before. That oppression continues to this day. For decades, the Chinese people have known leaders mostly of thieves, iron men, and hypocrites. Go back to Europe, for a moment. Do you want your China to be an Italy or a Swiss ? Never mind the US or Russia. Italy or Swiss ?

Mao instructed his disciples to destroy the 'four olds': Old ideas. Old customs. Old habits. And old culture.

Four Olds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unique ideas, customs, habits, and culture that Confucius lived in, and that created and sustained China and the Chinese people for millenias. So hatred of the old China from Mao that Confucius became a 'wandering soul' in China.

Project MUSE - <i>Lost Soul: "Confucianism" in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse</i> (review)

...eminent historian Yu Ying-shih has referred to as Confucianism's wandering soul.

Now look at what came after Mao. May be less bloody handed, better dressed, and nicely groomed, but little different in nature and character than Mao's followers. The Chinese people do not have the options of Italy or Swiss. Just between an iron fist on the left arm or velvet gloved iron fist on the right arm.

 

[Established_1965]

Sorry but China is not a good country for survival of the poor.

China will be great power only when it abolishes Hukou system.

 

[kolinsky]

We will never buy this democracy idea like a fool.

Volting once in every 4 years is not enough for us, we need more efficiency. How many ideas can you post in Internet per day? It is far more than one volt! Just forget the democracy, it is lagged. What we need is a system considering our opinion and making a correct decision.

Looking at the occupy central and the sunflower movement, that are exactly the things I donot want. If the democracy looks like that, why not just shut up. Democracy only over my dead body.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Most people in China don't believe the democrazy, especially when they saw what happened in Libya/Syria/Ukraine.

 

[gambit]

Right...We have overseas Chinese living in democracies while actively denouncing democracy for China.

 

[Jlaw]

Right...We have overseas Chinese living in democracies while actively denouncing democracy for China.

sure. Chinese in US in general are too busy making money paying off their debt to really worry about whats happening in Chinese politics foo'.

Most people in China don't believe the democrazy, especially when they saw what happened in Libya/Syria/Ukraine.

Exactly. The people who want it can emigrate to America where they are welcome with open arms from Stormfront members.

 

[Aepsilons]

Right...We have overseas Chinese living in democracies while actively denouncing democracy for China.

The epitome of hypocrisy, isn't it, Sir?

 

[TaiShang]

Yeah, Iraq is a democracy and ISIS is just a moderate labor movement.

Thanks, but no thanks, US, feel free to shove that democracy in a proper place such as your closest allies in the Middle East, Al Nusra and the FSA or the Saudis.

A WSJ article won't cut it.

 

[Shishike]

In fact, people can visit the Imperial Palace. The Emperor makes regular views with the public.

He is generally well loved by the people. He's the Father of the Nation, symbolically and spiritually.

Tennō Heika Banzai !!

simple question, no offense, is Japanese Emperor blood-based on Korean? or other countries?

I heard that Emperor in Japanese is symbolic of god, is it right?

 

[gambit]

We will never buy this democracy idea like a fool.

But your China bought into Marxism and Maoism -- fools.

Democracy only over my dead body.

Marxism do that even better.

 

[kolinsky]

But your China bought into Marxism and Maoism -- fools.


Marxism do that even better.

Whatever not any stupid idiologies.

 

[XenoEnsi-14]

Yeah, Iraq is a democracy and ISIS is just a moderate labor movement.

Thanks, but no thanks, US, feel free to shove that democracy in a proper place such as your closest allies in the Middle East, Al Nusra and the FSA or the Saudis.

A WSJ article won't cut it.

I find it funny when people say they don't want democracy and then use an elected authoritarian government as an example as to why they don't want it. First we should bring down Britain then other Monarchies and authoritarians, but our foreign policy is screwed so that likely won't happen.