40개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Today's Korea Times reported the following: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe refused Tuesday to deliver a private apology to former comfort women, Japanese media reports say... Abe also said he believes the Korean government will move the statue symbolizing the former sex slaves from the front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul...
No comment...
But why, dear "gov't" in Taipei, your claims are so modest?? Please remember...
And finally: Don't forget to demand the annual tribute payments by your "vassal states"(Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Burma, Thailand etc...)!!!
Suspicious of N.Korea's "flip flop attitude" and its motives, an article in the Beijing News(run by the Beijing Municipal gov't) reminds that one should observe North Korea's actions instead of its words as Pyongyang's foreign policy is "usually inconsistent". "Because of the lack of integrity, its [North Korea's] verbal statements are not going to convince any country… It tried to gain attention by planning the top official's visit to Seoul, however, this is meaningless as the most important question is whether Pyongyang will give up its nuclear programme," it says, adding that Beijing has repeatedly urged Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme...
A few days ago China’s People’s Daily(人民日報) created a special memorial site(please click the top banner) for the victims of the "Sewol" ferry disaster...
Neo-fascism/nazism in Mongolia? For insiders(incl. some "antifa"activists) it's not really new but its continuity and increasing influence is - nonetheless - shocking... Just check out the following unpleasant report, published in yesterday's Guardian!
Mongolian neo-Nazis: Anti-Chinese sentiment
fuels rise of ultra-nationalism
Alarm sounds over rise of extreme groups such as Tsagaan Khass who respect Hitler and reject foreign influence
Their right hands rise to black-clad chests and flash out in salute to their nation: "Sieg heil!" They praise Hitler's devotion to ethnic purity.
Mongolian neo-Nazi group the Tsagaan Khas ('White Swastika') salute
on the streets of the capital Ulan Bator
But with their high cheekbones, dark eyes and brown skin, they are hardly the Third Reich's Aryan ideal. A new strain of Nazism has found an unlikely home: Mongolia.
Once again, ultra-nationalists have emerged from an impoverished economy and turned upon outsiders. This time the main targets come from China, the rising power to the south.
Groups such as Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, portray themselves as patriots standing up for ordinary citizens in the face of foreign crime, rampant inequality, political indifference and corruption.
But critics say they scapegoat and attack the innocent. The US state department has warned travellers of increased assaults on inter-racial couples in recent years – including organised violence by ultra-nationalist groups.
Dayar Mongol threatened to shave the heads of women who sleep with Chinese men. Three years ago, the leader of Blue Mongol was convicted of murdering his daughter's boyfriend, reportedly because the young man had studied in China.
Though Tsagaan Khass leaders say they do not support violence, they are self-proclaimed Nazis. "Adolf Hitler was someone we respect. He taught us how to preserve national identity," said the 41-year-old co-founder, who calls himself Big Brother.
"We don't agree with his extremism and starting the second world war. We are against all those killings, but we support his ideology. We support nationalism rather than fascism."
It is, by any standards, an extraordinary choice. Under Hitler, Soviet prisoners of war who appeared Mongolian were singled out for execution. More recently, far-right groups in Europe have attacked Mongolian migrants.
Not all ultra-nationalists use this iconography; and widespread ignorance about the Holocaust and other atrocities may help to explain why some do.
Tsagaan Khass points out that the swastika is an ancient Asian symbol – which is true, but does not explain the group's use of Nazi colours, the Nazi eagle and the Nazi salute; or the large picture of the Führer on Big Brother's cigarette case.
Nor does it seem greatly relevant, given their unabashed admiration for Hitler's racial beliefs.
"We have to make sure that as a nation our blood is pure. That's about our independence," said 23-year-old Battur, pointing out that the population is under three million.
"If we start mixing with Chinese, they will slowly swallow us up. Mongolian society is not very rich. Foreigners come with a lot of money and might start taking our women."
Big Brother acknowledges he discovered such ideas through the nationalist groups that emerged in Russia after the Soviet Union's fall; Mongolia had been a satellite state. But the anti-Chinese tinge is distinct and increasingly popular.
"While most people feel far-right discourse is too extreme, there seems to be a consensus that China is imperialistic, 'evil' and intent on taking Mongolia," said Franck Billé of Cambridge University, who is researching representations of Chinese people in Mongolia.
Hip hop tracks such as Don't Go Too Far, You Chinks by 4 Züg – chorus: "shoot them all, all, all" – have been widely played in bars and clubs. Urban myths abound; some believe Beijing has a secret policy of encouraging men to have sex with Mongolian women.
Yet Tsagaan Khass claims it welcomes law-abiding visitors of all races, and Big Brother can certainly be hospitable.
Enthusiastically shaking hands, he says: "Even though you are a British citizen, you are still Asian, and that makes you very cool."
He says the younger members have taught him to be less extreme and the group appears to be reshaping itself – expelling "criminal elements" and insisting on a good education as a prerequisite for membership. One of the leaders is an interior designer.
But critics fear ultra-nationalists are simply becoming more sophisticated and, quietly, more powerful. Tsagaan Khass say it "works closely" with other organisations and is now discussing a merger.
"Some people are in complete denial … [but] we can no longer deny this is a problem," said Anaraa Nyamdorj, of Mongolia's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre.
The US state department has noted increased reports of xenophobic attacks since the spring. The UN country review cites a recent vicious assault on three young transgender women. When one of the victims publicly blamed an ultra-nationalist group – not Tsagaan Khass – death threats quickly followed.
"They are getting more support from the public," added Enkhjargal Davaasuren, director of the National Centre Against Violence, who fears that ultra-nationalists are growing more confident and victims too scared to come forward. She pointed to a YouTube video posted last year, showing a man roughly shaving a woman's long hair. The victim's face is buried in her hands, but her hunched body reeks of fear.
Others in Ulan Bator suggest the movement is waning and suspect the groups' menacing stance and claims of 3,000 members are bluster. Billé thinks there is "a lot of posturing".
"We have heard of instances [of violence]. They are not necessarily all right or all wrong," said Javkhlan, a Tsagaan Khass leader. But the group is simply a "law enforcement" body, he maintained: "We do checks; we go to hotels and restaurants to make sure Mongolian girls don't do prostitution and foreigners don't break the laws.
"We don't go through and beat the shit out of everyone. We check our information and make sure it's true."
They rely on police and media pressure to reform such businesses, he added. And if that failed? "We try to avoid using power," he said. "That would be our very last resort."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/02/mongolia-far-right
Mongolian fascist propaganda, by M.Y.A. ('Mongolian National Group')
Related articles:
☞ The Neo-Nazis of Mongolia... (Time, 2009.7.27)
☞ The Naivety of Mongolia's Nazis (UB Post, 2008.12.04)
MUST READ! Asia Times(HK) published last Friday(10.2) following great piece:
The night Zhou was drunk under the table
by Ian Williams
As we approached the 60th anniversary on Thursday of Mao Zedong's declaration that the "Chinese people have stood up," I trawled through the memories of my time in China straddling 1970 and 1971, and found, with all the accuracy of retrospective prophesy, that there were more auguries of the current China than one might suspect.
Although my putative memoirs would be called "I was a Teenage Maoist", by the time I landed in Beijing I was a callow 21-year-old, a month older than the People's Republic. In fact, Zhou Enlai, the first premier, from 1949 until his death in 1976, repeated to us his dictum that it was too early to tell whether or not the French Revolution had been a success, let alone China's. Forty years later, I wonder what Zhou, one of the more sophisticated and cosmopolitan of the Chinese leaders, but nonetheless a devoted communist, would have made of present-day China.
I was part of a delegation from an obscure British party that enjoyed unprecedented access to the Chinese leadership, including a drinking competition with Zhou - and a very risky argument about literature with Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, who had, after all, instituted the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) by demonizing all but a tiny group of writers and artists. It was so long ago that even the Chinese used the old Wade-Giles Romanization system for the Mandarin language. We were in Peking (Beijing), and read the Peking Review every week. In fact, our visit featured in it.
Our sessions with the Chinese cadres were often like negotiations, conducted over innumerable cigarettes and a constant flow of tea. The idea was that whoever called for a bathroom break was conceding the field of battle. Sadly for Chinese pride, our side had been brought up on a diet of gallons of tea and bitter beer and had formidable resistance to such diuretics.
Even at the time, I had a sense of bewilderment at the relative isolation from the world outside, of the top leadership. They provided us with a daily English press summary of world affairs and the difficulties of a binary view of the world became apparent. For example, Pakistan was an ally of China, therefore it was socialist and progressive - which the Pakistanis themselves would hardly claim, while social-democratic governments, like the British Labour Party, were reactionary and capitalist to the core.
As for our visit: I suspect that Zhou had hoped that it would provide information and encouragement for his planned opening to the West. We were there before British premier Edward Heath, or former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and president Richard Nixon from the United States. Indeed, as almost the only gweilos (foreigners) in town, we could attract crowds just by peering in a shop window. In those far-off days, my hair was red, which was almost like having eyes on green stalks for some people. However, enlisting us as a resource for global realpolitik confirms the naivety of their approach.
We were a sectarian groupuscule with fewer members nationally than the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee. Our contact with the working political system in Britain was minimal and our knowledge of other countries tended to be based on contacts with equally out-of-touch groups. It would be nice to think that we changed the course of history, but there is absolutely no basis for thinking so. Our input probably pointed in the opposite direction to what they did. When we asked why they did not walk in and take Hong Kong, which was then ruled by Britain, Zhou suggested it was better to lessen the economic disparities between the two sides first.
Despite their own sectarian squabbles, despite the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese were at least dealing with some aspects of the real world. For example, they had built a state-of-the-art metro system in Beijing. Even though it was as yet unopened, Zhou took us for a ride on it, which tangentially introduced yet another paradox.
They told us, with almost schoolboyish glee at their boldness, that they were calling the metro station for Tiananmen Square "Zhuxi [Chairman] Station." It was a paradox even then, that in the midst of history's biggest-ever personality cult, no physical location was named after Mao, let alone any of the other revolutionary personalities. I can only presume that it was intended as a gesture of superiority to the Soviet proclivity for churning out city names in honor of top people.
This saved a lot of sign-painting during the various rectification campaigns, the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. Not many of the leadership stayed in power throughout.
Apart from Zhou, we met the full Gang of Four - Jiang Qing and her close associates, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen - but we noticed the omissions. Lin Biao, the powerful military commander who rose to political prominence in the Cultural Revolution and whose picture and introduction was at the front of hundreds of millions of Little Red Books, was absent in name and person. In a seamen's club in Shanghai, I noticed a book on sale by Chen Boda, Mao's personal secretary. Our minders immediately took it out the case and said it was too old and faded to sell.
Our party chairman, Reg Birch, an old communist trade unionist, asked to meet his old chum, Kang Sheng. They brought along his wife instead, explaining that the head of the security and intelligence apparatus was indisposed. In fact, along with Chen Boda, it now seems as if he, and indeed Lin Biao, were at that time in the process of being purged.
Lin shortly afterwards died in a plane crash. Kang resurfaced long enough to ensure that the People's Republic put its weight behind Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. In retrospect, I am glad I never had to shake his hand. Kang was posthumously accused of sharing responsibility (with the Gang of Four) for the Cultural Revolution. The Gang of Four had effectively controlled the power organs of the Communist Party through the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution.
In contrast with all the mass campaigns and circus antics of the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in widespread social and political upheaval and and economic disarray, these purges were being conducted in secrecy with no word of them leaking out from the leadership.
A case in point was a bizarre Christmas feast with an elderly American couple, old-style communists who had moved to China and taken up citizenship and party membership. They were brought out because they knew several of the delegation, who had asked about them.
The turkey dinner was odd in several ways. The couple were Jewish for a start, and although our Chinese hosts were trying to be hospitable with the seasonal bird, they obviously found something alien about the idea of cooking an intact animal: it came as a sort of turkey construction kit, disassembled, cooked and then reassembled. As for the couple, it was only many years later that I heard that their goose had been well and truly cooked. They were languishing in prison, brought out and dusted off for us, and then returned afterwards. But nothing they said gave any of us any grounds for suspicion.
The full Gang of Four came along to join Zhou for talks and a banquet on New Year's Eve. Jiang Qing stood out in a sea of nondescript cotton Mao suits. The still striking woman, who had reduced the repertoire of a huge nation to a handful of revolutionary Beijing operas, one ballet, the Red Detachment of Women, and pretty much one classical sonata, flounced in, every inch the imperial consort. The former actress' cotton greatcoat was draped around her shoulders like a cape, and she carried herself like an imperial consort.
When she discovered that I had been studying English literature, she immediately pronounced that Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens' Hard Times were the only two English proletarian novels. Even as I blurted out a negative, I was thinking hard. I saw the rest of the senior leadership of the party withdraw a little in expectation of the thunderbolt to come. Jane Eyre was clearly a bit too close to home. A governess who marries the boss had too much resonance with the career of a Shanghai starlet who married the chairman. I concentrated on Hard Times, pointing out that its hero was in fact a strikebreaker - a traitor to his class in Marxist terms.
Through narrowed eyes, Jiang delivered her ultimate riposte, "You have long hair. It makes you look like a girl." There was a barely concealed sigh of relief around the table. At least it was not "Off with his head!" or "Counter-revolutionary scum".
The evening, after a banquet fit for an emperor, ended with drinks for us and Zhou and his entourage. The Gang of Four did not, as I remember, hang around. It became a drinking match, with shots of mao tai, the ferocious-smelling sorghum-based overproof liquor that had become the official drink of the party.
As the youngest there, but already with a reputation as a determined drinker, I was moved forward as the champion on going glass-for-glass with Zhou, a man with an iron constitution. But I saw how he stayed ahead. He only drank half his, while I was drinking the lot. Even so, he gave up first, as I remember - allowing for the fact that after large amounts of the stuff, memories can be unreliable.
Despite the Moscow-style purges going on behind the wainscoting, economically, China's development was more balanced than that of the Soviets. We could go on a pub crawl through the streets of Beijing, pijui - beer, being one of the early accessions to our Mandarin vocabulary and although, for example, cotton was rationed, consumer goods seemed in adequate supply. In the covered market, locals looked superior as Aeroflot pilots came rushing through stocking up on things from soap to razor blades to tomatoes that the Soviets' heavy industrial base couldn't provide.
The variety of cigarettes, from coffin nails to the crush-proof packs of the most expensive brands, has always made me wonder about the role of tobacco in industrialization - selling the peasants highly profitable cigarettes was a financially painless way of raising state funds compared with expropriation. The other aspect was the amount of collective entrepreneurial activity that was taking place, even after years of disruption from the Cultural Revolution, which had not officially finished by then.
For example, in the countryside, communes were making cement boats for sale, while in Shanghai we visited a back-street factory that was etching silicon chips - almost state-of-the-art at the time. Even then, I remember wondering about the flue that vented the hydrofluoric acid fumes from the process onto the street. In a microchip, it encapsulated the future environmental problems of reckless development, even as it demonstrated the entrepreneurial urges that Deng Xiaoping was later to unleash.
I returned to Britain puzzled. The Cultural Revolution had not visibly destroyed the economy, as was sometimes claimed. But it was difficult to know what it was all about. It was bad enough when party leaders were denounced for esoteric sins of culture and ideology during the Cultural Revolution, but these silent purges and behind-the-scenes disappearances reduced the struggles to personalities and power-plays. Mao himself seems to have been playing off the leaders against each other.
So perhaps that was the twin legacy of the first 20 years. It developed the ground for the upsurge of economic activity in which China seems not only to have stood up but appears to be racing ahead. But it also has left the Communist Party totally committed to clinging onto power, without much in the way of ideology, while its leadership changes behind closed doors, with only the faintest pretence of consulting the masses. And by all accounts, party leaders at every level are still fond of banquets and mao tai.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KJ02Ad01.html
60年風雲：毛時代的中國記憶
Tomorrow sees the 60th anniversary of the creation of the People's Republic of China. Here, in today's Guardian(UK), four people, all once committed members of the ruling Communist party, recall their part in its creation:
☞ Sixty years on: veterans of Chairman Mao's China remember
Almost twenty years after the collapse - forced by the "PL"A - of the democratic student movement/revolt in Beijing The Guardian (UK, 5.20) published following interesting report about the transformation process in China's "Communist" Party:
The Communist Party's Quiet Revolution
World's largest political party has consolidated its iron grip by transforming itself and its relationship with the Chinese public
Jerry, a bright undergraduate, has been trying to join for three years. Hope, pursuing a philosophy doctorate, dreams of changing society. Tina just wanted a job.
These young, well-educated, cosmopolitan women are the new face of the Communist party: an institution popularly regarded abroad as ageing, male and moribund.
It's become commonplace to contrast China's economic revolution with its lack of democratic progress. Since the bloody suppression of 1989's student protests, political reform appears to have stalled.
Last week, in posthumously released secret memoirs, Zhao Ziyang – the reformist leader ousted due to that movement – warned that China must move towards western-style democracy.
But the party's number two, Wu Bangguo, ruled that out this spring. Censorship is increasingly sophisticated. A groundbreaking intellectual call for reforms, Charter 08, gained thousands of signatures and was quashed; five months on, one of its authors, Liu Xiaobo, remains in detention. Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer, gave a detailed account of torture by the authorities. Now he has simply disappeared.
But behind this apparent stasis lies a more complex tale: of an evolving party that has consolidated its iron grip precisely by transforming itself and its relationship with the public.
With more than 74 million members – up from 50 million in the early 1990s – it is the largest political party in the world. There are millionaire members, branches in Wal-Marts and plans to open a branch on the first Chinese space station. Senior cadres remain overwhelmingly male, but there is now a compulsory retirement age and even (very low) quotas for women.
In recent years, it has concentrated on targeting the best and brightest. The party has largely transformed itself "from a mass organisation designed for mass mobilisation and ideological campaigns, into a technocratic leadership corps", said Professor Jeremy Paltiel of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Paltiel, an expert on party membership, said that in the 1980s recruits were looked down on by peers as careerists and probably second-rate students.
Some elite students still consider the party – with its attendant political meetings – boring and irrelevant. But between 30% and 50% apply to join the party. An approval rate of about 5% reinforces the desirability of membership: recruiters seek those with top grades, leadership potential and youthful idealism – albeit feigned in some cases.
To rise through the governmental hierarchy, membership is a must.
But it shines out for other employers, too. The draw was not your ideological purity, explained Tina; more the evidence of your accomplishments.
"To be honest I'm a bit embarrassed," the graceful 24-year-old admitted with a blush, twining a long strand of hair around her finger.
"Other people joined because they wanted to help the party and country … My main reason was because it was very hard to find a job."
Spin and polling
Outwardly, the party remains rigidly ideological; members are drilled in Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents and current president Hu Jintao's Scientific Development Outlook. Hu has, in fact, stepped up political education – perhaps because of an evident disconnect: to many, what the party really stands for is personal advancement, social stability and national unity.
"There's a difference between believing in Marxism and being a party member," one said drily.
For the last two decades, the party's mission had been to "maintain the brand but change the content", suggested Anne-Marie Brady, associate professor of political science at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Experts have been called in to study political change overseas, culling lessons from New Labour and French and German socialists – and using Gorbachev's reforms as an example of what not to do.
"That learning from the west has been brought back into China and used to maintain and enhance the strength of the current political system," Brady said.
The government has modernised its techniques as well as its cadres.
It is now an assiduous user of opinion polling and sophisticated spin techniques, showing greater responsiveness to public opinion. Unlike its models overseas, it does not require votes: but it needs at least tacit support.
Allowing people more space to challenge the status quo may, in fact, help to perpetuate the system, providing outlets for frustration and dissent – as long as there are no attempts to organise independently; what the party fears most are alternative power structures.
When public outrage becomes widespread and dangerous – over tainted baby milk, for example – authorities often seek to assuage it before stamping it out. Bloggers may be allowed to have their say before the shutters come down. Official heads may roll. New initiatives may be announced.
The demands of Chinese citizens have carved out greater – albeit variable – space to criticise lower-ranking officials or hold them to account, engage in public affairs, debate ideas and take part in an emerging civil society.
Yet lawyers, activists and dissident intellectuals are routinely harassed and threatened. Even parents who lost their children in the Sichuan earthquake have been bullied and detained for protesting about shoddily built schools.
"If [people] don't touch the line, they can do a lot of things. But there is a line there," said Hope.
She's a softly spoken, thoughtful young woman, who chooses to meet in an artsy cafe near one of the country's top universities, where as many as two-thirds of her classmates are party members.
Like others, she asks to be identified only by her English nickname. But she is candid about her initial hesitation when invited to join, and her ultimate decision to do so.
"It's easy to be a critic, but then maybe you can't change society. You can do more inside the system than without," she said.
"Students can see its problems, but still think China can do much better under its leadership. They want to go into the system and maybe make a little change. Maybe some people have an underlying motive: more desire for power. But quite a lot really want to do something to change the country."
For most, she thought, a priority was freedom of information and the rule of law; only some wanted multi-party elections.
"Chinese people don't hope to go the western way – but hope for a powerful government to restore social justice," she suggested.
Using the D-word
It is hard to generalise about what a diverse nation of 1.3 billion people without freedom of expression really think; and impossible to know what they might believe without government censorship and propaganda.
But the Asian Barometer study of political attitudes, the most comprehensive to date, came up with some surprising findings. In mainland China, 53.8% believed a democratic system was preferable.
Then came the kicker. Asked how democratic it is now, on a scale of one to 10, the Chinese placed their nation at 7.22 – third in Asia and well ahead of Japan, the Philippines and South Korea.
"Chinese political culture makes people understand democracy in a different way, and this gives the regime much manipulating space," concluded Dr Tianjin Shi.
To the confusion of some western observers, Hu's speech to the last party congress used the D-word more than 60 times.
"They would like to talk about democracy with Chinese characteristics. My problem is that no one really can offer a definition of what that is," said Dr Yawei Liu of the Carter Centre's China Programme, which works with Chinese officials to improve elections and civic education.
"If you look at civic activism, what's taking place in cyberspace and what's going on in 600,000 villages in China [with grassroots elections] they all seem to indicate there's still a push from the top and most importantly from the bottom to expand political reform … The problem is how grassroots efforts could be elevated to a higher level and whether the leadership has the wisdom and courage to move forward with an agenda."
Since the mushrooming and then suppression of the Tiananmen democracy protests amid a split between reformists and conservatives, China's leaders have concluded that cracks at the top can only lead to disaster.
Maintaining consensus – at least in public – has been central to their operation. If anyone is pushing for major reform, it is not evident.
Hundreds of millions in China already go to the polls to choose low-level representatives. But efforts to promote and expand village elections – widely lauded in the 1990s – appear to have stalled.
Recent experiments, such as the use of deliberative democracy in setting budgets and awarding a greater say in the selection of local party secretaries, offer clues to possible routes towards or alternatives to a multi-party system. Yet so far, they stand alone.
Optimists suggest that economic rights lead inevitably to greater hunger for political freedom. But others fear that capitalism has created vested interests that entrench the system.
Professor Sun Liping, a sociologist at Tsinghua University – and the doctoral supervisor of vice-president and heir apparent Xi Jinping – warned earlier this year that China's greatest danger was not social instability, as authorities say, but instead "social decay", with rising inequality and alienation.
"The fundamental cause … is the marriage between political power and capitalism," he wrote.
"The two have joined hands in China … We thought power would be constrained in a market economy. But we have now seen that power has acquired higher value and greater space for exertion."
If you can't beat 'em
"The economy is improving, society is improving but there is no improvement in elections," complained Yao Lifa. He could be the mirror image of Tina and Hope: a 50-year-old, largely self-educated man from the provinces who tried to beat 'em, not join 'em.
He began competing for a seat in his local people's congress in Hubei in 1987, when the election law was first promulgated. After 12 years of harassment and dogged campaigning as an independent candidate, he won. Later he was turfed out again. He has been detained on "at least" 10 occasions, often for promoting voting rights.
The elections are fake, he argues, because the system can't tolerate genuine democratic contests.
"The law only states that people have the right to vote; there are no rules to protect this right. When your right to vote is harmed, you can't even set up a case in the court," he said.
"But there is no reason to say western democracy does not fit China. Chinese authorities say people's education level is too low and our economy is still not developed. But how was the economic and educational situation in the west hundreds of years ago?"
How many compatriots share his views is another matter.
People in China complain bitterly about official corruption, inefficiency and brutality. But – as the government reminds them – multi-party elections do not guarantee good governance or stability. After decades of turmoil, many seem willing to settle for a quiet life and economic wellbeing – at least for now. There's little sign that the current economic downturn is leading to widespread social unrest – still less open opposition to the government.
"Basically, I think they're doing a very good job," Tina said earnestly.
"China's so big, but it's not wealthy. The leadership have helped it develop fast. I looked at the G20 meeting in London and felt kind of proud of the government; foreign countries really hope that China can help.
"Maybe other people think oh, China, there's no freedom. But it's not easy to make everything perfect."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/china-changing-communist-party
Related article:
☞ Tradition statt Revolte (taz, 6.02)
☞ Forget Tiananmen, thus spake Confucius (A. Times, 6.03)
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