Winds of Change in China?
In recent weeks, there have been three interesting political developments in China. Most notably has been the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the prominent dissident and Charter 08 signatory. For those looking for extensive coverage of Liu, look no further than the guys at the China Beat, who have really outdone themselves with their work on this issue. In particular, both Jeremiah Jenne of the Granite Studio and Gady Epstein of Forbes have written excellent posts about the Peace Prize.
While the politically sentient world has no doubt heard the news of Liu Xiaobo's victory, there have been two other recent developments that have attracted some interest from China watchers. First, Wen Jiabao seemed to stray a little bit off message in an interview with the journalist Fareed Zakaria, calling out for freedom and democracy in China. Most recently, 23 Communist Party elders have submitted an open letter to the Beijing leadership calling for an end to censorship and for more media freedom. This piece, by the Globe & Mail's Mark Mackinnon, indicates that the letter is tied in some ways to Wen's recent remarks.
It is unusual in China for events of this sort to occur within a short time span, so one might be tempted to think that the winds of change are blowing in the country. But as always, there are always a few caveats to consider.
First of all, the percentage of Chinese who are actively concerned with political liberalization in the country remains very small. This doesn't mean that the rest of the population actively supports the Party, but rather that for most people issues such as media censorship are annoyances that ultimately have little effect on their personal lives. The intellectual class in China is still a very, very small minority. They merely seem larger because many of them have become savvy at using new media tools such as Twitter to publish their thoughts.
In respect to Wen's remarks, the premier has always seemed to be more a 'man of the people' than the wooden, charisma-free Hu Jintao. Prior to his ascension to his current post, he was best known as a top aide to Zhao Ziyang, the premier purged in 1989 following his opposition to the Tiananmen Square crackdown. If there was a current Chinese political figure capable of making such remarks, it would be Wen.
Even still, 'freedom' and 'democracy' mean different things to the Chinese Communist Party than they do to everyone else. Not even a relative 'liberal' like Wen would advocate anything resembling multi-party elections in China, and the notion of a free-wheeling media landscape where criticism of the Party is tolerated remains out of the question for the foreseeable future.
Given the long view, though, change is inevitable. It's difficult to remain a cool-headed rationalist when considering the plight of Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, who have been harrassed, imprisoned, (probably) tortured, and treated like enemies for what amounts to non-violent questioning of their country's political system. And it would be unfair not to recognize the very many other brave Chinese dissidents who risk their lives for the type of justice we in the West take for granted.
Charter 08, the document that Liu Xiaobo steered toward publication, was based on a similar document compiled by Czech intellectuals in 1977. One of the main authors of Charter 77, the poet Vaclav Havel, found himself the democratically elected leader of his country scarcely a decade and a half later. History can work in funny ways, sometimes.
I cannot foresee the future, but I believe that when China has a government worthy of its people, Liu Xiaobo and the countless others like him will be seen as national heroes.
October 16th, 2010 - 05:55
Good post, Matt. I’m surprised it hasn’t attracted more comments.
October 16th, 2010 - 15:52
“They merely seem larger because many of them have become savvy at using new media tools…”
And because the West loves them. Westerners still generally believe “Western democracy” (scare quotes, because that should be plural, but everybody seems to assume the entire West -whatever that is- is a monolith) is the best of all possible systems. And so any Chinese (Iranian, Vietnamese, North Korean…) espousing values generally consistent with “Western democratic” ideals gets a lot of airplay.
We’ll see how people react when China develops it’s own form of democracy- assuming we’re still alive then, of course. Whether the likes of Liu Xiaobo, Hu Jia, Wuer Kaixi, etc are seen as heroes or not remains to be seen. The only thing we can say with certainty is that it will continue to be interesting to watch.