China’s illusion of stability on the eve of changes at the top
In an interview with the Journal of International Affairs, the great dissident Wei Jingsheng talks about Chinese society and politics. In his view, only a major jolt can lead to changes at the top. The country’s leaders must grant democracy and human rights to its citizens if they want China to remain a major world power. He holds some hopes in a changed leadership but criticises those who want to work with the Communist Party. He discusses the change from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping.
New York (AsiaNews) – On 5 December 1978, Wei Jingsheng, an electrician at the Beijing Zoo, posted an essay to a brick wall on Xidan Street called "The Fifth Modernization,’ which stated, "Democracy is our only choice. . . . If we want to modernize our economy, sciences, military and other areas, then we must first modernize our people and our society. . . . Without democracy, society will become stagnant and economic growth will face insurmountable obstacles."
Wei's rare, public appeal for democracy struck a chord with the Chinese people, who were exhausted by the failures of communism and the Cultural Revolution. The brick wall on Xidan Street was soon filled with other criticisms of the regime and became known as the 'Democracy Wall.'
However, the 'Beijing Spring' was short lived. Wei was arrested on 29 March 1979 and imprisoned for fourteen-and-a-half years. He was released in September 1993, only to be detained again in February 1994 for engaging in political activities.
He was deported to the United States in 1997 when the international community succeeded in pressuring China for his release. Having lived in exile for nearly fifteen years, Wei discussed his views of China with Rebecca Chao, an editor at the Journal of International Affairs.(1)
Has China become more democratic or more authoritarian over the last few decades?
Wei Jingsheng: It seems that there is a new trend in Western thought that China is more democratic than before. Many Western politicians, scholars and members of the media think that China has become more free and more open. But I believe that democracy is first and foremost a type of political system. China has not changed its political system, so how can one say that China is becoming more or less democratic? This line of thinking is actually misleading and only makes people more tolerant of China's authoritarian political system.
How has China's burgeoning economy and its strengthening diplomatic relations with the West affected its internal political dynamics?
I believe that China's tremendous economic growth has severely weakened the West's ability to put pressure on China. Western capitalists in the United States and in Europe have profited tremendously from China's export-oriented economy, so it is now in the interest of big business to speak well of the Communist Party. All politicians need campaign funds, so big business uses its wealth to lobby politicians for policies that cater to its interests, which are also China's interests, such as policies to maintain the status quo on human rights and labor rights. It has become more obvious that big business is controlling politics, which even the average American citizen is angry about.
With China's tough stance on dissent, how can the Chinese people have their independence day?
Let me start by comparing mainland China and Taiwan. I visited Taiwan on several occasions to speak with Taiwanese government officials. They told me that the best situation for mainland China is to undergo a gradual and peaceful political change like Taiwan. Theoretically, I agree with the possibility of peaceful change but mainland China and Taiwan are fundamentally different.
The Kuomintang Party ruled Taiwan under an authoritarian political system. But the Kuomintang was, in the words of Chien Foo, hypocritical.(2) The Kuomintang wanted Taiwan to be democratic and even admitted that authoritarianism is an illegitimate political system.
Many people in Taiwan do not understand that communist China believes its authoritarian system is legitimate and wants to maintain one-party rule to control the country and its people. The Communist Party may use democratic language as a cover, just as Mao Zedong once spoke of "democratic dictatorship."
I do not think Taiwan's path to democracy, including the participation of multiple political parties and a peaceful transition, is likely in China. As long as the Communist Party insists on one-party rule, the only way to establish democracy is through revolution.
Some argue that the Chinese government has appeased the Chinese people politically by allowing them unprecedented levels of individual freedom and increased socioeconomic opportunities, but that it has prevented them from uniting and organizing. Do you think that most Chinese people are happy with their government and that only a small minority want to see it democratize?
This trend of thought, that the Chinese government gives some freedoms to individuals but not to groups, is wrong. The Communist Party has never given any freedom to individuals. How can individuals have freedom if they are not free to gather, associate or form parties? In other words, if there is no freedom to organize politically, then there is no individual freedom. That is the reality. The wealth in China is concentrated in the hands of the rich. There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, so statistics that say that China is the world's second-largest economy are misleading. Unless you are an animal, not a human being, you cannot like this kind of government. It is simply impossible.
You once criticized Liu Xiaobo for being too moderate.(3) Why?
Before I explain why I criticized Liu Xiaobo, let me first explain one thing. After his capture, I was one of the most vocal advocates calling for his release from prison. Even if our views differ, I believe that we have to use all means to save any Chinese activist who has been imprisoned. I also criticized Liu Xiaobo after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, not before.
I disagree with Liu Xiaobo's thoughts on how to deal with communist China. Why? Liu and his followers promote a peaceful, deliberative, nonviolent approach toward the communist government. I think this is completely wrong.
Mahatma Gandhi was once asked: If a group of bandits came to your town and violently demanded that you give them all of your money, what would you do? Gandhi answered that you need to fight back. There is no peaceful, deliberative or nonviolent way to deal with bandits. The Chinese government should be treated just like those bandits because it is clear that the party members are tyrants. In fact, there is universal agreement that self-defense is a human right, that people have the right to resort to force against tyranny. If the government uses force against its people, why can't the people use force to fight back?
As you can see, Liu Xiaobo's idea is wrong from a theoretical standpoint. His idea would work in a democratic government but not within an authoritarian one. In a democracy, people resolve differences peacefully through negotiation under the law and do not need to resort to force. Liu Xiaobo's so-called peaceful, deliberative and nonviolent principle implies that people should not fight back and use physical force to bring down the communist government. He advocates negotiating with the government through peace talks, but despite his moderate call for democracy, the Communist Party still put him in jail. How can you negotiate with a communist government?
Some say that the Communist Party leaders are simply pragmatists who would reconcile human rights with greater economic prosperity and social stability if they saw a way to do it. Do you think that is possible?
According to this theory, as China's economy develops and prospers, democracy will develop automatically because Chinese officials are pragmatic-they know that economic growth will not continue without giving the people some freedom. This is a very popular theory but it is incorrect. If you think about it, if government officials can make lots of money through power and corruption, why would they want to make changes and give their wealth to others? This will not happen in China, nor will it happen in America. American capitalists will not give their money to the American people. Why should you give away your money to others? Therefore, to say that the Communist Party will give people more money because of greater economic prosperity is wrong and unrealistic.
Some say that communist officials are very practical. This is very true and, because they are practical, they do not want to give people freedom and human rights. In truth, they just want to extend Chinese authoritarianism. If they give human rights to people, people will have the right to file complaints against government officials--that is, themselves. Why would they do that? If they were not practical, but rather a little bit idealistic, they might give the people some freedom and some human rights.
In 1987, you wrote a letter to Deng Xiaoping claiming he would go down in history either as "a great sage or an infamous despot," but did not send it. What are your thoughts now about Deng Xiaoping? And how far do you think China has traveled, politically speaking, since then?
I actually did mail the letter from prison to Deng Xiaoping in 1987. A guard helped me and brought the letter himself to Beijing, by motorcycle, the same day that I wrote it. I had won the respect of the guards while I was in prison. I do not know if Deng Xiaoping received it or not. If he did, he would certainly have pretended not to. In 1989 I wrote him a letter criticizing him harshly and advising him that "your only way out is to resign." Ironically, he resigned four days later.
I still believe that Deng Xiaoping was a despot. He protected and maintained the system of the Communist Party. This was his basic character. In 1979, when he implemented economic reforms, some people believed the political system should also be changed but Deng Xiaoping and his followers wanted to keep the Communist Party.
If Deng Xiaoping had not been so harsh on political dissidents after the Tiananmen Square event, would this have led to instability that could have harmed China's economic growth?
Wei: If Deng Xiaoping had loosened control in 1989, political change might have happened, and I believe that the economy would be more open today. It would be at least equivalent to today's economy. Market-based economies need freedom and the rule of law to grow. In reality, the government tightly controlled politics in 1989, but it also manipulated the economy. The leadership felt that a booming economy would give too much power to the people and make it harder to maintain social stability. Therefore, after the Tiananmen event on 4 June 1989, the overarching domestic policy was maintaining the stability of the country.
Do you believe that the transition of leadership from Hu Jintao to presumably Xi Jinping in 2012 will be smooth? And what will the transition tell us about the health of the Communist Party?
I believe that the upcoming power transition will not be that smooth. On the surface, the transition may look calm, but internally it will not be simple. There are a few reasons for this.
The first reason is that the resistance to this transition by the Chinese people is fiercer than it has been in previous years. The Chinese people are also stronger than before. Almost every day there are protests in the streets and police cars overturned. For example, large-scale protests erupted in the Xintang area of Zengcheng in Guandong Province in June 2011 when police assaulted a pregnant street vendor. And to my knowledge, there were similar protests almost every other day in the first half of June. It seems that there is this type of movement everywhere in China. The people are fired up. The entire society is unstable. Society needs a change.
The second important reason is that, even if the Communist Party claims that the people are satisfied with the government, the officials know that it will become more and more difficult to sustain. Their days are numbered. The party has to manage a great deal of polarization within Chinese society. While average citizens want reform, the wealthy who profit from the current system want to maintain the status quo. There will certainly be a struggle leading up to the Eighteenth National Congress in 2012.
Turning now to pro-reform figures in the Communist Party, Premier Wen Jiabao accompanied then-general secretary Zhao Ziyang to meet with protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but he did not suffer the same political fall from grace as Zhao.(4) Premier Wen said in London recently: "Without democracy, there is no socialism. Without freedom, there is no real democracy." Why does the Communist Party allow Wen to be so forthright and vocal about democratization in China?
President Hu Jintao said the same thing when he visited the United States. Former President Jiang Zemin also said as much when he visited. Even Deng Xiaoping, when he visited the United States, said the same thing. The party leaders just say what the West likes to hear. There is no deep meaning to their words. I think that if the Western media checked to see what all past Chinese communist leaders have said to the West, they would see that they have all said the same thing. There is no new message. Such words are meaningless.
What are the greatest differences between the current generation of leaders and those who have been tentatively selected for the next generation? What do these differences mean for China's future?
The older-generation party leaders were aggressive communist activists while they were still in school. They have been trained since they were young and brainwashed to believe in party propaganda. They cannot be changed now. But the leaders of the current generation have had very different experiences. They talked about democracy when they were young and suffered under the suppression of the Communist Party. Take Vice President Xi Jinping, for instance, he was sent to some of the poorest places in Shanxi Province to work as an ordinary farmer. As a result, these successors are going to be different from Hu Jintao. (5)
The most important similarity between these two generations is that they are members of the elite, even though they may have different thoughts about how to sustain the elite. We do not know exactly how they are going to do this--I am sure that even they do not know. But overall, the thinking of the new generation is newer and more modern, and as a result we hope that they will bring something new to the party and not just follow in the footsteps of the old members.
Between Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao, has there been a change in how Communist Party leaders are chosen? How has this affected internal party dynamics?
Successors are still selected based on loyalty to the party, but other leadership qualities are also important. Deng Xiaoping wanted a successor who could skilfully manage the Communist Party and chose Jiang Zemin. Jiang Zemin selected Hu Jintao for the same reasons. But you never know if one of the new leaders will become like the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev. Nobody can predict exactly what a new leader will do.
NOTES
(1) The interview took place on 7 September 2011 at Columbia University. This is a condensed, edited and translated version of the exchange.
(2) Frederick Chien Foo was Taiwan's minister of foreign affairs from 1990 to 1996. The Kuomintang justified its implementation of martial law on the rationale that it would return to democratic rule once it reclaimed mainland China.
(3) Liu Xiaobo is a noted Chinese writer and activist who gained international attention in 2009 when he was arrested and sentenced to eleven years in prison after leading the initiative to draft Charter '08, a political manifesto that included demands for an end to one-party rule and greater respect for human rights. Liu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."
(4) Zhao Ziyang was a pro-reform figure in the Communist Party who advocated restricting party power. After showing sympathy for the student protesters in Tiananmen in 1989, he was placed under house arrest and remained there until his death in 2005.
(5) Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are expected to replace President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, respectively, in 2012.
Wei's rare, public appeal for democracy struck a chord with the Chinese people, who were exhausted by the failures of communism and the Cultural Revolution. The brick wall on Xidan Street was soon filled with other criticisms of the regime and became known as the 'Democracy Wall.'
However, the 'Beijing Spring' was short lived. Wei was arrested on 29 March 1979 and imprisoned for fourteen-and-a-half years. He was released in September 1993, only to be detained again in February 1994 for engaging in political activities.
He was deported to the United States in 1997 when the international community succeeded in pressuring China for his release. Having lived in exile for nearly fifteen years, Wei discussed his views of China with Rebecca Chao, an editor at the Journal of International Affairs.(1)
Has China become more democratic or more authoritarian over the last few decades?
Wei Jingsheng: It seems that there is a new trend in Western thought that China is more democratic than before. Many Western politicians, scholars and members of the media think that China has become more free and more open. But I believe that democracy is first and foremost a type of political system. China has not changed its political system, so how can one say that China is becoming more or less democratic? This line of thinking is actually misleading and only makes people more tolerant of China's authoritarian political system.
How has China's burgeoning economy and its strengthening diplomatic relations with the West affected its internal political dynamics?
I believe that China's tremendous economic growth has severely weakened the West's ability to put pressure on China. Western capitalists in the United States and in Europe have profited tremendously from China's export-oriented economy, so it is now in the interest of big business to speak well of the Communist Party. All politicians need campaign funds, so big business uses its wealth to lobby politicians for policies that cater to its interests, which are also China's interests, such as policies to maintain the status quo on human rights and labor rights. It has become more obvious that big business is controlling politics, which even the average American citizen is angry about.
With China's tough stance on dissent, how can the Chinese people have their independence day?
Let me start by comparing mainland China and Taiwan. I visited Taiwan on several occasions to speak with Taiwanese government officials. They told me that the best situation for mainland China is to undergo a gradual and peaceful political change like Taiwan. Theoretically, I agree with the possibility of peaceful change but mainland China and Taiwan are fundamentally different.
The Kuomintang Party ruled Taiwan under an authoritarian political system. But the Kuomintang was, in the words of Chien Foo, hypocritical.(2) The Kuomintang wanted Taiwan to be democratic and even admitted that authoritarianism is an illegitimate political system.
Many people in Taiwan do not understand that communist China believes its authoritarian system is legitimate and wants to maintain one-party rule to control the country and its people. The Communist Party may use democratic language as a cover, just as Mao Zedong once spoke of "democratic dictatorship."
I do not think Taiwan's path to democracy, including the participation of multiple political parties and a peaceful transition, is likely in China. As long as the Communist Party insists on one-party rule, the only way to establish democracy is through revolution.
Some argue that the Chinese government has appeased the Chinese people politically by allowing them unprecedented levels of individual freedom and increased socioeconomic opportunities, but that it has prevented them from uniting and organizing. Do you think that most Chinese people are happy with their government and that only a small minority want to see it democratize?
This trend of thought, that the Chinese government gives some freedoms to individuals but not to groups, is wrong. The Communist Party has never given any freedom to individuals. How can individuals have freedom if they are not free to gather, associate or form parties? In other words, if there is no freedom to organize politically, then there is no individual freedom. That is the reality. The wealth in China is concentrated in the hands of the rich. There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, so statistics that say that China is the world's second-largest economy are misleading. Unless you are an animal, not a human being, you cannot like this kind of government. It is simply impossible.
You once criticized Liu Xiaobo for being too moderate.(3) Why?
Before I explain why I criticized Liu Xiaobo, let me first explain one thing. After his capture, I was one of the most vocal advocates calling for his release from prison. Even if our views differ, I believe that we have to use all means to save any Chinese activist who has been imprisoned. I also criticized Liu Xiaobo after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, not before.
I disagree with Liu Xiaobo's thoughts on how to deal with communist China. Why? Liu and his followers promote a peaceful, deliberative, nonviolent approach toward the communist government. I think this is completely wrong.
Mahatma Gandhi was once asked: If a group of bandits came to your town and violently demanded that you give them all of your money, what would you do? Gandhi answered that you need to fight back. There is no peaceful, deliberative or nonviolent way to deal with bandits. The Chinese government should be treated just like those bandits because it is clear that the party members are tyrants. In fact, there is universal agreement that self-defense is a human right, that people have the right to resort to force against tyranny. If the government uses force against its people, why can't the people use force to fight back?
As you can see, Liu Xiaobo's idea is wrong from a theoretical standpoint. His idea would work in a democratic government but not within an authoritarian one. In a democracy, people resolve differences peacefully through negotiation under the law and do not need to resort to force. Liu Xiaobo's so-called peaceful, deliberative and nonviolent principle implies that people should not fight back and use physical force to bring down the communist government. He advocates negotiating with the government through peace talks, but despite his moderate call for democracy, the Communist Party still put him in jail. How can you negotiate with a communist government?
Some say that the Communist Party leaders are simply pragmatists who would reconcile human rights with greater economic prosperity and social stability if they saw a way to do it. Do you think that is possible?
According to this theory, as China's economy develops and prospers, democracy will develop automatically because Chinese officials are pragmatic-they know that economic growth will not continue without giving the people some freedom. This is a very popular theory but it is incorrect. If you think about it, if government officials can make lots of money through power and corruption, why would they want to make changes and give their wealth to others? This will not happen in China, nor will it happen in America. American capitalists will not give their money to the American people. Why should you give away your money to others? Therefore, to say that the Communist Party will give people more money because of greater economic prosperity is wrong and unrealistic.
Some say that communist officials are very practical. This is very true and, because they are practical, they do not want to give people freedom and human rights. In truth, they just want to extend Chinese authoritarianism. If they give human rights to people, people will have the right to file complaints against government officials--that is, themselves. Why would they do that? If they were not practical, but rather a little bit idealistic, they might give the people some freedom and some human rights.
In 1987, you wrote a letter to Deng Xiaoping claiming he would go down in history either as "a great sage or an infamous despot," but did not send it. What are your thoughts now about Deng Xiaoping? And how far do you think China has traveled, politically speaking, since then?
I actually did mail the letter from prison to Deng Xiaoping in 1987. A guard helped me and brought the letter himself to Beijing, by motorcycle, the same day that I wrote it. I had won the respect of the guards while I was in prison. I do not know if Deng Xiaoping received it or not. If he did, he would certainly have pretended not to. In 1989 I wrote him a letter criticizing him harshly and advising him that "your only way out is to resign." Ironically, he resigned four days later.
I still believe that Deng Xiaoping was a despot. He protected and maintained the system of the Communist Party. This was his basic character. In 1979, when he implemented economic reforms, some people believed the political system should also be changed but Deng Xiaoping and his followers wanted to keep the Communist Party.
If Deng Xiaoping had not been so harsh on political dissidents after the Tiananmen Square event, would this have led to instability that could have harmed China's economic growth?
Wei: If Deng Xiaoping had loosened control in 1989, political change might have happened, and I believe that the economy would be more open today. It would be at least equivalent to today's economy. Market-based economies need freedom and the rule of law to grow. In reality, the government tightly controlled politics in 1989, but it also manipulated the economy. The leadership felt that a booming economy would give too much power to the people and make it harder to maintain social stability. Therefore, after the Tiananmen event on 4 June 1989, the overarching domestic policy was maintaining the stability of the country.
Do you believe that the transition of leadership from Hu Jintao to presumably Xi Jinping in 2012 will be smooth? And what will the transition tell us about the health of the Communist Party?
I believe that the upcoming power transition will not be that smooth. On the surface, the transition may look calm, but internally it will not be simple. There are a few reasons for this.
The first reason is that the resistance to this transition by the Chinese people is fiercer than it has been in previous years. The Chinese people are also stronger than before. Almost every day there are protests in the streets and police cars overturned. For example, large-scale protests erupted in the Xintang area of Zengcheng in Guandong Province in June 2011 when police assaulted a pregnant street vendor. And to my knowledge, there were similar protests almost every other day in the first half of June. It seems that there is this type of movement everywhere in China. The people are fired up. The entire society is unstable. Society needs a change.
The second important reason is that, even if the Communist Party claims that the people are satisfied with the government, the officials know that it will become more and more difficult to sustain. Their days are numbered. The party has to manage a great deal of polarization within Chinese society. While average citizens want reform, the wealthy who profit from the current system want to maintain the status quo. There will certainly be a struggle leading up to the Eighteenth National Congress in 2012.
Turning now to pro-reform figures in the Communist Party, Premier Wen Jiabao accompanied then-general secretary Zhao Ziyang to meet with protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but he did not suffer the same political fall from grace as Zhao.(4) Premier Wen said in London recently: "Without democracy, there is no socialism. Without freedom, there is no real democracy." Why does the Communist Party allow Wen to be so forthright and vocal about democratization in China?
President Hu Jintao said the same thing when he visited the United States. Former President Jiang Zemin also said as much when he visited. Even Deng Xiaoping, when he visited the United States, said the same thing. The party leaders just say what the West likes to hear. There is no deep meaning to their words. I think that if the Western media checked to see what all past Chinese communist leaders have said to the West, they would see that they have all said the same thing. There is no new message. Such words are meaningless.
What are the greatest differences between the current generation of leaders and those who have been tentatively selected for the next generation? What do these differences mean for China's future?
The older-generation party leaders were aggressive communist activists while they were still in school. They have been trained since they were young and brainwashed to believe in party propaganda. They cannot be changed now. But the leaders of the current generation have had very different experiences. They talked about democracy when they were young and suffered under the suppression of the Communist Party. Take Vice President Xi Jinping, for instance, he was sent to some of the poorest places in Shanxi Province to work as an ordinary farmer. As a result, these successors are going to be different from Hu Jintao. (5)
The most important similarity between these two generations is that they are members of the elite, even though they may have different thoughts about how to sustain the elite. We do not know exactly how they are going to do this--I am sure that even they do not know. But overall, the thinking of the new generation is newer and more modern, and as a result we hope that they will bring something new to the party and not just follow in the footsteps of the old members.
Between Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao, has there been a change in how Communist Party leaders are chosen? How has this affected internal party dynamics?
Successors are still selected based on loyalty to the party, but other leadership qualities are also important. Deng Xiaoping wanted a successor who could skilfully manage the Communist Party and chose Jiang Zemin. Jiang Zemin selected Hu Jintao for the same reasons. But you never know if one of the new leaders will become like the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev. Nobody can predict exactly what a new leader will do.
NOTES
(1) The interview took place on 7 September 2011 at Columbia University. This is a condensed, edited and translated version of the exchange.
(2) Frederick Chien Foo was Taiwan's minister of foreign affairs from 1990 to 1996. The Kuomintang justified its implementation of martial law on the rationale that it would return to democratic rule once it reclaimed mainland China.
(3) Liu Xiaobo is a noted Chinese writer and activist who gained international attention in 2009 when he was arrested and sentenced to eleven years in prison after leading the initiative to draft Charter '08, a political manifesto that included demands for an end to one-party rule and greater respect for human rights. Liu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."
(4) Zhao Ziyang was a pro-reform figure in the Communist Party who advocated restricting party power. After showing sympathy for the student protesters in Tiananmen in 1989, he was placed under house arrest and remained there until his death in 2005.
(5) Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are expected to replace President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, respectively, in 2012.
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