Is there room for democracy in China’s “parallel universe”?
By David Bandurski — If I had a jiao for every time someone’s told me the Chinese don’t care about politics or democracy, I’d have enough chunk change to fund an American presidential campaign. “The new middle class is young, rich and happy. Just don’t mention politics,” Time reported not long ago. And we are elsewhere informed that “new-generation Chinese”, who exist in a “parallel universe,” “do not want democracy.”
Isn’t there an alternative? Between the Oz of the “China Fantasy” (that a rising Chinese middle class must usher in democracy as we know it), and the nationalistic notion of Chinese cultural subjectivity, the cop-out “parallel universe” of Chinese values in which “our white is their black and their black our white” and democracy could never take root? [Click here for historian Yuan Weishi’s critique of so-called Chinese "cultural subjectivity"].
[ABOVE: Screen capture of Tom Doctoroff's blog at Huffington Post arguing Chinese exist in a "parallel universe" of values.]
The answer, the oft-neglected missing piece, is expression. These assumptions about the Chinese and their shallowest convictions fail to account for the salient fact that real dialogue about politics or civic life is now and has historically been suppressed in China. Speech, the basic condition of public participation in political affairs, is something the Communist Party has historically monopolized.
So while it’s basically true that politics and democracy are not readily discernible topics in China, it’s more to the point to say that China is a one-party state that does not tolerate political debate.
Just as the factor of speech is missing from these calculations about the political insouciance of the Chinese people, speech may also be the key to reading China’s political future.
Last week, CMP co-director Qian Gang (钱钢) wrote in Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan that liberalization in the area of expression in China is a critical precursor to political reforms. Continuing his analysis of Hu Jintao’s recent political report to the 17th National Congress, Qian Gang suggested top leaders might be thinking in this direction too:
Those keeping track of political reform in China noticed the phrase “protecting the people’s right to know, participate, express and supervise” (保障人民的知情权、参与权、表达权、监督权) in Hu Jintao’s political report to the recent 17th National Congress.
This phrase is in fact a slight revision from Jiang Zemin’s political report back in 2002. In Jiang’s report the fifth section, “Political Development and Political Reform” (政治建设和政治体制改革), said: In the matter of cadre selection and appointment, Party members and ordinary people should have more right to know, participate, choose and supervise” (扩大党员和群众对干部选拔任用的知情权、参与权、选择权和监督权).
In Hu’s rendition the term “right to select”, or xuanze quan (选择权), is replaced with the “right to expression”, or biaoda quan (表达权) . . .
While in Jiang’s report the above “four rights” phrase appears in reference to cadre selection, it is used more generally in Hu’s report to talk about democracy. And as Qian Gang points out, “expression” replaces “selection” in Hu’s rendering.
A reader asked us recently on the CMP site whether anything positive had appeared in the report to the 17th National Congress. This could, knock on wood, be read as a positive sign.
Calling the inclusion of “right to expression” in Hu’s report the “product of careful consideration,” Qian relates it to a phrase used by political activist Wang Juntao and others during the political reform movement of the 1980s. That phrase, “checking and balancing [power] with diverse expression by intellectual elites” (多元表达，精英制衡), meant essentially that democracy should begin taking shape in China through expansion of rights to expression. From there it should progress gradually toward direct public participation through electoral politics.
The term “right to expression” has in fact gained some traction in China’s media over the last 10 years, and is often linked directly with other basic rights like the right to subsistence (生存权).
Qian Gang’s point is not unlike that of Chinese political activist Chen Ziming (陈子明), who wrote (again in Yazhou Zhoukan) earlier this year that “social opening” (社会开放) in China, including tolerance for voices of opposition to the party and non-party media, would precede “political opening” （政治开放）.
In that article, Chen said — perhaps with a surplus of optimism — that “social opening,” including action on press freedom, should be a core task of the Hu-Wen leadership over the next five years:
Of course I hope that major political reforms can be pushed ahead in the age of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. But if in the next five years they can resolve the task of ‘social opening’ that would be adequate.
What Qian Gang and Chen Ziming are suggesting is that we can expect (and/or hope for) progress on the right to expression to precede political reform. For this to happen, as Chen justifiably argues, China would have to allow the formation of independent social organizations (社会组织) and independent media, laying down the foundations for civil society.
If this happened Chinese could begin the conversation about China’s political future that so many China watchers have found conspicuously absent. That conversation, says Qian Gang, is itself part of the democratization process, and we should not focus narrowly on participation through democratic election as the immediate goal of political reform:
We cannot lash freedom and democracy together. If one morning, freedom of expression and democracy were liberated from their bonds, this would not necessarily be a great blessing for the people. Democracy must proceed gradually. It requires that the people march ahead in their daily lives, and that march is freedom of expression. Freedom of expression cannot dawdle along. The most reliable path of political development in China would be a succession of openings – opening of expression (言论开放), then social opening (社会开放), then political opening (政治开放).
The process of expression has only just begun in China. But we are fortunately at a point now where we can begin listening to Chinese voices on issues of critical importance to the Chinese.
However the party might try to “guide” public opinion, these voices are growing daily more diverse. And what they are saying is far more complex than a simple, dismissive “No.”
There are enough voices already to belie the narrow chauvinism — the cultural, political and intellectual Great Wall — of Chinese “cultural subjectivity”. There are voices clamoring for universal values even as they seek China’s own path.
Nor should we forget that China’s “Me generation” is also its most expressive ever. We can of course glimpse this in Chinese weblogs and online discussion forums. But it’s in evidence in China’s traditional media too, where commentary sections are cautiously expanding to include a greater variety of voices on issues that include basic civil rights.
“We have so much bigger a desire for everything than [our parents],” Time quoted 27 year-old Maria Zhang as saying. “And the more we eat, the more we taste and see, the more we want.”
And the more, no doubt, they will have to say.
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Wangchuk, this is not about democracy. It is about allowing for civic repair of a society that has been burdened by 30 years of pragmatist reforms that imbued only such superficial values such as money, fame, and power. Without such deep changes coming from within society, and gradual awakening through free thinking and free expression, if you had national elections in China tomorrow, any new regime would just be falling back into the old traps.
All of the Chinese people I’ve talked in Hong Kong & abroad want democracy for China. Most of them came from mainland China. When Chinese people live in a free country, they express their true feelings. But in the PRC, Chinese people are censored & can’t express their true feelings for fear of being arrested or harassed by the CCP police. I think if you had national elections in China tomorrow, the CCP would be voted out of power. That is the real reason the CCP fears democracy.
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Chinese “don’t want democratic change”, says top US multinational corporation executive
Chinese people don’t want democracy because they are fundamentally different from Americans and don’t want to be western, says an advertising executive who has successfully sold millions of pairs of Nike shoes and corporate British bank services to the local market.
“Why do we think that Chinese will develop along the same path as us,” asked Tom Doctoroff, while sipping a frappucino from the local Starbucks in his swish office set high amid the skyscrapers of Shanghai, on China’s east coast.
“Sure, they have seen extraordinary industrial growth based on unsustainable abuse of the environment, exploitation of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, huge wealth inequalities, and a politics based on materialism. But so what?
“Unlike us, the 1.3 billion Chinese – all of them – speak with one voice when they say they do not want any democratic accountability brought to this model.”
Mr Doctoroff said he had conducted widespread surveys among the wealthy urbanites he encountered in M on the Bund, at the shopping centres around the Ritz Carlton and in Pudong cafes, many working for international investment banks, who all said they saw no need for change, and certainly not if it meant giving poor people the vote.
“You see, the people I know are just not like us,” he said. “In fact, I’m amazed that I have any friends here at all.”
He said that while visiting other towns and cities with his Chinese business partners he had often walked up to complete strangers and asked them if they wanted to see local Communist Party bosses replaced through elections.
“They mostly didn’t answer,” he said. “The people just aren’t interested in politics, except for a few rabble-rousers who mislead foreigners by telling them they are dissatisfied with the Party and are rightly locked up as trouble-makers.”
When asked whether it was not true that other countries with a long history of autocracy had found that developing democracy had in fact preserved their traditions in the face of huge international change, such as most of Europe, he said: “I’m sorry, where’s that, did you say? I don’t quite follow.”
He admitted that it would be useful for future advertising executives in China to experience more freedom of thought, as it benefitted the creative endeavour. But he said most of the Chinese people he knew were able to get that when studying for their MBAs in Harvard and London.
“And in any case, we don’t need creatives – the Chinese people have me to do their thinking for them!”
ends
I agree with Qian Gang that an immediate change to a fully democratic system with universal suffrage is not in the best interests of China. I understand that many people want change, but oftentimes, such a fast shift in the political situation can cause more problems than solve. Good examples of this is the French Revolution, that would inevitably bring about “The Terror” and then of course, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, yet another authoritarian leader. The best thing for the youth of today to do, if they seek to make change, is not to make outward demonstrations to the government, but to educate themselves historically and contemporarily, and seek to enter the party and make changes that way. Many people demonize the entire CCP for what they do (even native Chinese), but this doesn’t take into consideration that yes, they do some things that we may not approve of, but there are people in there honestly trying to help the people.
The fact is that we are all born into our current situations, and, like in life, aren’t able to choose the situations in which we are born into. It’s called a “transition” for a reason: because it’s not immediate, and there will be grey areas. Currently, China is in transition and so if you want change, then support the people that are trying to make a difference, and have patience. Even if it doesn’t happen in our lifetime, isn’t it enough that later generations will appreciate us for the work we’ve done for them now?
Foster the new generation to run the government right and to be honest and upstanding, and that is the path to a true and virtuous government, even if it is authoritarian.
I’m a CBC currently living in Canada, and frankly, if you want democracy so bad, you can have ours, over 50% of people here don’t vote anyways. Without the right people running it, democracy is merely a word used to make one set of people sound more honourable than others. Sorry for the long post.
I completely agree. I think there are no debates because they are not allowed and they are not encouraged. Some young Chinese have told that they don´t care about politics because they cannot participate in the system. So, if they cannot do anything, why should they care about politicis??
How ironic…Chen Ziming’s essay is, of course, blocked here in the Mainland. I think your optimism is great, however this dictatorship in not going to give an inch on ANYTHING, let along freedom of expression.