Liu Xiaobo was convicted of "inciting subversion of state power" on Dec 23rd by a Beijing court and sentenced to jail for 11 years. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8430409.stm Basically, the "crime" of Liu was authoring and soliciting support for his manifesto calling for China's Constitution reform. The English version of Liu's manifesto can be found here. http://knol.google.com/k/零八宪章-08宪章-简体中文版-繁体中文版-日文版-英文版-法文版#Charter_08_(28)English_Version(29) Many signatories of Liu's manifesto were also harassed by the government to various degrees. It makes one wonder if CCP will ever loose its political control, if a guy can be sent to jail for just writing an article calling for political reform. The argument is that the economic reform will push forward the political reform at some point and we have to be patient. As I expressed before on this board, I don't see such is the trend from my personal experiences. This latest disturbing news development illustrates my point.
Nearly nobody in China wants political reform anyways...the CCP played its' cards well. The urban elite and the burgeoning middle class has absolutely no interest in changing things; why would they? Economically speaking they are much better off. Those that do have an interest in political change are too marginalized anyways to contribute to a significant reform. Besides which, the political structure seems to be working. Sure, individual rights are trampled on and that is saddening; of course, even in the most liberal of democracies, perversions of state power occur (I can think of course of the Patriot Act and the Stasi-like nature of Sweden's national security forces). But I don't think a country like China needs lectures on anything from an operational/systematic standpoint from liberal democracies like the US or France or the UK which allowed financial empires of delusion and greed to run unchecked and were forced to bail them out with taxpayer money. I especially don't think China looks kindly on a system that took 70 years just to decide on "significant" health care.
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
Among several thousand signers of Liu's charter 08, there are prominent law professors of Beijing University, lead philosopher of CSA (see quote my the first post) and other elites of the country. Number-wise, maybe you can call them insignificant, but their voices cannot be slighted b/c they are more discerned with China's problem. As for the majority of Chinese, they live under CCP's propaganda and are malleable. They are too dissatisfied with social injustices in many ways but don't necessarily know what exactly they want. Preservation of state power is important. Take this country for example, various levels of judicial reviews on different government actions developed over the years. Constitution reform doesn't mean everything will be solved one night. There will be fights about to what extent Government can "intrude" on individual's sphere even if constitution is the law of China. But concerns of long and winding road towards a constitutional balance shouldn't be the reason not even try to go on this road. 100 years ago when Hu Shi brought similar ideas to China, the same Nationalist's argument such as yours had been advanced by those that didn't understand what Hu was talking about. 100 years have passed, sadly China still remains politically backwards. However, this is not even the point. The more alarming point I got is that Beijing is still an oppressive regime despite economic advances. For many years, I thought CCP at least were open minded on Chinese's political speech for it let Liu get away with many other "subversion" speech he made over those years. This is a serious blow to any one's hope for a democratic and fair China
That's so preposterous. It's comments like these that give liberals the fringe label. Even after the tremendous growth from having adopted western market economy principles their standard of living is like 100th in the world. So go ahead and take the bicycle, the one child by threat of abortion, the government press, and the re-education labor camps and we'll take our health care system, thanks.
Mhmm...prominent law professors and philosophers, the exact kind of people you'd see advocating reform. Unfortunate that the vast majority of power rests with the new (And arguably ignorant) urban middle class, which is the chief beneficiary (besides us and our $4.99 shirts of course) of serf-like living conditions and wages for the menial laborers of China. That's why the economic argument many advanced that the middle class would "rise up" and take China through democracy is just a logical fallacy, why would the middle class rise up against a system designed to cater to them? Disaffection is mostly coming from rural centers, but they don't have the resources or the ability to cohere together into some semblance of a national movement for reform. For the foreseeable future China is going to operate as it has. As it is, it is working. Ideally speaking, it's not good. It's wrong. Pragmatically speaking though, it's the only reason why China is in any semblance of becoming a world power right now; for example, the direct control the CCP has in implementing fiscal and monetary policy is a large reason why China was so quick to rebound from the recession. Ideally, we're going to have a free and democratic China in the Western tradition. Pragmatically, we won't (at least not anytime soon). The CCP has disastrously blundered but it has finally hit on something good and it has the support of the people who matter. I personally am willing to give the CCP the benefit of the doubt that rapidly increasing economic prosperity and relative stability is worth the heavy hand the CCP lays down. That might be naive considering...well, ex: Tiananmen. Still, I think the CCP gets way too much flak and that moderate reform is still possible, although it will require a more rapid erosion of state intervention and a more ready hand at greater social justice then we have seen recently. China is not doomed. I would like to see a freer China, but it wouldn't be possible without the CCP clawing China into chaos. As it is, I think the delicate compromise between stifled individual rights and rocketing economic growth is working well. Yes, this is going to sound typecast, but for reform in China, patience is needed. It is still possible though, no matter how disheartening stories like this appear, China's heavy hand has softened significantly over the years. There is a trend. We've gone from Mao to modern China in just 50 years, people are just going to have work harder to pressure China from the inside and the outside if they want even more change for the next 50 years.
Well, fringe is fringe. Woe is me. But to clarify, I am not saying the Western political system is bad in anyway, just that the Chinese political system is not as bad as it seems and that operationally speaking, a system like America's checks and balances would just not work for an economy that moves this quickly. I may have come off a bit harsher then that because I am just pissed the f*** off at people who look down their noses at China and cry social injustice and try to implement their own convoluted solutions with their idiotic preposition that their system is the best for everyone. China may have its' problems but you know what, s*** is working! People are prosperous. Certain people (I will admit that the poor are getting screwed) are happier then they have ever been. Sure, it might not be the American system, but it is working. Yes, reform is needed, but nothing like the wholesale switch to a Western system some zealous advocates would espouse.
To be honest, I don't see where China is heading to in terms of political reform. CCP this time sends a strong message that it is unwilling to relent its power even if it is on paper. I think your observation of middle class Chinese is largely accurate. They are schizophrenic in that they are torn between Nationalist's pride and dissatisfaction with injustices in their daily lives. They are content as long as long economy is doing well. The stability of the whole country hinges on the growth of economy. But I doubt China will be able sustain 8% growth rate for long. It remains to be seen whether conflicts/dissatisfaction swept under the rug by the economic growth will erupt when the growth stalls. I don't necessarily agree with everything Liu said in his manifesto. For one thing, there are many ideals that are not within the purview of one's natural rights. Some of them seem more like demands for political change and what he lays out is not cardinal standard for China.
No, not at all. You don't jail people for proposing political ideas. This is obviously an area that China needs to improve, that I think we can all agree on. However, the idea is more then open to criticism. Maybe not in China though, yes, but that's the whole heart of the issue. Kinda like health care reform, everyone knows there needs to be change but people differ drastically on how far this change should go and in what direction. I just think the direction he's proposing is too fast too far. My anger though wasn't really directed at him, it was more directed towards the American and European condemnation which in this case is justified, but which in general reeks of the attitude of "if only China were more like us" and "tsk tsk tsk". It may seem petty but it is a pet peeve of mine when Westerners just dogpile on China.
I think a lot us don't want a westernization of China per se but rather for them to recognize the rights that we believe to be universal for all people. We know it's only a short matter of time before China's stripped down form of capitalism comes apart at the seems. Prosperity without dignity won't satisfy for too long. If the US, and Canada and Britain etc. for that matter, doesn't advocate for those who are denied these basic rights then who will? A lot of us feel this advocacy is our responsibility be it in China or Iran or any other country in which people are being denied these rights. The image of the US has taken a beating because of our poor judgement in recent years but that doesn't diminish the moral authority of what we feel to be a righteous cause. Freedom and Democracy might have become cliche terms to cynics of American power but they're still pretty damn important things to us and we'll still fight for it anywhere in the world.
Who says the Chinese people are in such a dire state that they need advocacy? It's not like these words matter anyways since actions (seeking desperately for any trade with China with tacit knowledge of the rights violations and exploited labour) speak louder then words. If the world wanted to, a global boycott similar to South Africa would be massively effective; Chinese culture is hinged on the concept of "saving face" in the event of embarrassment. I guess China is "too big to fail" or "too big to ignore". The price of your cheap shirt and the avoidance of catastrophic inflation is the suffering of the Chinese working class. It is an arrangement the world-and not just China!-has happily lived with and will continue to live with for the foreseeable future, seeing as how all of the countries listed above are coincidentally stacking themselves with Chinese goods and investment. That's why these condemnations piss me off. They're not only somewhat hypocritical and arrogant (for a country that champions "universality" in human rights, absolutely refusing to take part in the International Criminal Court because of sovereignty and the fear that American citizens might be upheld to these same universal standards is just about as black as the kettle can get) they're completely empty of meaning.
The US State Department made the following statement http://www.boston.com/news/world/as...nced_over_decision_to_jail_leading_dissident/ I think it qualifies as the sort of external pressure, which you also pointed out, CCP needs to keep with human rights. For incidents like this one, there is no place for nationalistic pride. A guy publishing an on the internet, whether with merits or not, doesn't deserve 6 month detention w/o a charge and 11 year jail sentence after a 27 minute trial. I just don't see how one can be angry at others calling out China for the egregious violation of humanity. Your emotion is beyond my understanding.
These things don't really matter. In the end, as long as the government provides for the people, then no one will complain. Democratic systems can pass crappy laws just as a one-party system can pass good ones. And the Chinese are living better than ever before. So the CCP is at least taking care of the bottom line. Something that unfortunately, I cannot say for our own governmental policies these past few years.
And US kept slavery legal for centuries and sent Japanese Americans to detention camps. What's your point? CCP too is entitled to lock up a guy for writing articles that "subvert" its power?
Let's see if your first Amendment rights taken out matters or not, and btw your due process right is taken out as well.
Huh? So it's a black or white issue? Do you also complain about the American government for not allowing people to scream F-words in elementary schools or yell fire in a crowded movie theatre? People can say a lot of stuff in China. They even badmouth the government quite a bit. They just can't take it as far as the guy in the OP.
Are you freaking kidding me? First I never heard of US Government made it illegal to swear in public school unless you are referring zero tolerance, which has context. Even if what you said is true, putting a guy in jail for writing something on the internet is different. Your logic is as long as economy is growing, government can do whatever it wants, right?
