China has undergone phenomenal
economic growth, rising living standards for some, increases in
individual economic freedoms and increasing international recognition.
But political authority remains highly centralized and the legacy of the
June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre endures. The students that led the
Tiananmen demonstrations were dedicated to the myth that a small group
of enlightened Communist reformists at the top of the regime could
rescue China from its repressive totalitarian rule.
The communist leadership and its
agenda of political reform that preceded Tiananmen is frozen in time and
no real change in the political landscape has occurred. Prior to
Tiananmen, Zhao Ziyang, the party chief from 1987 to 1989 had laid out a
broad plan for party reform. Zhao's plan would have scrapped party
committees in government ministries, courts, schools and factories.
The goal was to make the
government accountable to the people not the party. In May of 1989
Zhao's reforms were scrapped as being too liberal. Soon thereafter
Tiananmen erupted and Zhao was purged from the party. After Tiananmen
all plans for reform of the old political system were scrapped and no
new initiatives by the leadership have taken place. Zhoa had pledged to
legislate specific protections for the rights of free speech and free
association, which, ironically are guaranteed in China's constitution.
The lesson learned from Tiananmen
is that if democratic reforms are to come they must be a bottom-up
process driven by forces outside the Communist system. The students
failed to comprehend that whether the party members were conservatives
or reformers they were wedded to retaining the existing political
system.
The present party chief and
president of China, Hu Jintao, and Premier Wen, under pressure from
restless citizens, have introduced stop gap measures calling for
accountability of those who hold party power and count on the notion of
discipline associated with accountability to trickle down through the
party hierarchy.
The flaw in such wishful thinking
is that no connection exists between the party base and the people. It
is pure fantasy to imagine that if only leadership is held accountable
to their superiors, accountability can be thus transmitted down to the
bottom levels of the party. With no accountability, the non-voting
citizenry are excluded from human rights, free speech and the right to
assemble. Moreover, the system breeds rampant graft and corruption at
all party levels.
The only elections that have
evolved in China are at the local level and these must be approved by
the local party leader. Party officials are held accountable only for
catastrophic events like the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS). So far only Mayors and ministers are punished -- not
party secretaries above them.
On August 26, 2004 the Houston
Chronicle carried an AP wire release reporting a bomb attack on the
Shanghai residence of Li Haisheng, head of the cities anti-corruption
bureau. The bomb seriously wounded his wife. The details are
eerily-reminiscent of the 1930's in the U.S. when mob gangsters allied
with local politicians terrorized big cities.
LI gained notoriety in Shanghai's
Oriental Morning Press for cracking a bribery case involving top Chinese
city officials. He ordered the local chief prosecutor put under house
arrest. The attack on Li was motivated by revenge for Li's pursuit of
corruption and graft.
Thousands of Chinese officials are
punished every year for extortion, embezzlement and other abuses and
many are executed. However, many Communist Party leaders resist an all
out crack-down on graft and corruption for fear it could threaten their
own authority
An anti-graft official in Fujian
issued an open letter published in the People's Daily, the main party
newspaper. He subsequently received death threats and was attacked in
official state media as having committed an "extremely erroneous
act" -- a common tactic in official efforts to discredit government
critics.
The best example of China's trials
and tribulations with individual rights and political freedom is found
in reviewing the saga of Dr. Jiang Yanjong who wrote a public letter
detailing the extent to which the government went to hide the
seriousness of the SARS epidemic.
Under international pressure, top
party leaders finally admitted that there was an initial attempt to
cover up the epidemic. Dr Jiang became a national folk hero and
international celebrity as a party member who defied the party's rigid
control of free speech. But only low level party officials were ever
punished for serious policy cover-ups.
As the 15 year anniversary of the
Tiananmen massacre approached, Jiang leveled a new criticism at the
party. He requested that the government alter the official condemnation
of the peaceful student protesters. The letter was addressed to top
officials in the State Council, National Peoples Congress, Chinese
People's Political Consultation Congress and Politburo.
The letter was also circulated to
some party members sympathetic to Jiang's views but not to the state
controlled media. The contents of the letter were leaked on the Chinese
Internet and a petition was circulated that was signed by hundreds of
party members at great personal risk. Chinese officials have tried to
rigidly control content on their Internet with the same determination as
in the U.S. to no avail.
The Internet has become the
conscience and backbone of both the U.S. and Chinese people who vent
their anger over political issues in similar ways.
On June 1, 2004, Jiang and his
wife were arrested and confined in a prison, presumably on the order of
the former President Jiang Zemin who still controls the all-powerful
Central Military Committee (CMC) which in turn controls the People's
Liberation Army (PLA). During confinement, Dr Jiang under prison
pressure, was required to write "thought reports" (an
off-shoot of the infamous era of Mao's thought control police during the
Cultural Revolution). Jiang wrote "...the Communist Party in 1989
was like a cancer patient, who without emergency surgery would die
immediately..."
Officials now under extreme
pressure from the international community cited Jiang's thoughts as
signs of progress. Obviously, the party had arrived at a critical
juncture where they had to accept what ever they could obtain from Jiang
to quell further public scorn of their rigid repressive leadership. At a
time when freedom of speech is viewed as a basic human right, the
Chinese government makes no apologies for imprisoning people for what
they say.
When Jiang and his wife were
released, officials accused them of being politically naive. The world
knows that it was the commissars who arrested Jiang who were naïve. Dr
Jiang now plans to direct his energy to China’s problems with the AIDS
epidemic.
On the issue of free speech it is
useful to recount American Vice president Dick Chaney's recent visit to
Shanghai where he was invited to deliver a speech (WSJ, May 3, 2004). As
a condition of Chaney's visit, the Chinese leadership promised not to
censor his speech. When the speech appeared the following day it was
drastically altered to hide any mention of individual liberties and
political freedoms.
China's Internet cybernauts
stepped in and set the record straight, exposing the party's lack of
control over the media. Chinese Web sites are carefully monitored by
Chinese authorities and they went to great trouble to ensure their
censored version of Chaney's speech was posted on major Web sites. For
example, the phrase "rising prosperity and expanding freedom"
was altered to read "rising prosperity" But Chinese chat rooms
run by young well-educated Chinese had posted alerts calling attention
to all changes in Chaney's speech referring to political freedom.
These Chinese Web sites made no
attempt to conceal their feelings and labeled this censorship
"China's media is just a propaganda tool of the Communist Party...
shameless and deceitful..." The pro-China lobby in the U.S. was
dismayed at the censorship because their faulty argument has always been
that rapid Chinese economic development will change the rigid control of
political freedoms.
Copyright by S. Owen Smith. All Rights
Reserved.
