Brian:
With all due respect, you have to get out of your tunnel vision of what free information is and how it has been distributed in the Western world for the past century and today. This issue has been discussed in some length in the struggle on an "open. objective media" in the East/West, North/South dialogues a few years back. That fact is, mass communication as it is currently structured makes it conceptually impossible to see the world from an non-Western alternative perspective. So its quite natural the whole Western world shakes its head and wonder why the Chinese leadership is so intransigent and stubborn. They say the Chinese must be stupid to pursue such a self destructive, tyrannical system. The fact is the Chinese leadership has no alternative but to following the current policy of national security and Western opinion has very little effect on it. This is generally true in all of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, even the Mid-East. As it is, some people, including myself, fear that China is moving too far to the right rather than not far enough. Do you think the NY Times will print my postings in its op-ed pages? Let me give one one example: in the last decade, the Western Human Rights organizations, with support form the State Department, focused on less than 10 dissidents by name, who are all made famous in the West, while no one talked about the institutional abuse of human rights in the US where over 90% of the prison population is non-white. One cannot build a case of statistical institutional human rights abuse in China, tried as some might have. The way the US government treated Texas secessionist movements, Puerto Rican Independent movement, etc. even religious cults has been exceedingly abusive by the standards of its own culture. By contrast, the way the China treats its dissidents has been very lenient by the tradition of its traditional repressive confucian culture. Viewed from the perspective of Critical Legal Studies (culturally based theory of justice), Chinese attitude toward political dissidents has been very liberal.
As for you question about the CCP not being open to its own people. That is itself an example of disinformation. the policy of the CCP is openly published every year for all to see. In fact, it reflects very directly the vigorous struggle between left/right, region/central/, reform/conservative etc, within the party which is very democratically represented both in location, age level, ethnicity and even ideology. The common complaint today for those who know China is that there is too much democracy, that the country seem to be going in all directions at once. Even capitalist traders say that. Study President Jiang's speech at the last Party Congress, and you will find everything, including the kitchen sink is included and appeased.
All political systems dislike dissidents, political, cultural, religious. The degree to which a government tolerates dissidents is a function of its perceived security. A revolutionary government, insecure by nature and by perception, generally takes no political prisoners, frequently resorting to political terror. A few word about revolutionary political terror in Chinese history. A political terror in early Tang history around 7th century had been staged by the secret police (kushi) which, like roaches, normally infesting only the subterraneous world, flourished into an open epidemic, fed by the apprehension of a court haunted by the mentality of a garrison state. At first, the victims of political terror were bona fide seditious reactionaries and other deserving criminals whose downfall delights the public, particularly the members of the emerging social forces. Later, the complexity of revolutionary politics gave rise to ideological polemics and esoteric sophistry that were twisted at will to implicate anyone not popular with the secret police. Innocent men were then persecuted at the mirth of their political enemies and the frightened acquiescence of their friends. Finally, indiscriminate arrests became commonplace. As has been wisely said, all it takes for evil to triumph is for enough good men to keep silent.
But there is no reign of political terror today in China that fits that pattern. And the fuss over Zhang is largely confined to the Western press and protested by agitators of very dubious background in terms of patriotic credibility. Zhang was not prosecuted for his misguided ideas. Calling him a union activist is a insult to all union workers of the world. He was found guilty of anti-state conspiracy involving hostile foreign forces. He got 10 years, not the death penalty, and chances are that he will be released and exiled to teach at Columbia within two or three years. None of noises about him really care about him, they are aiming at bring down China. Typically, a reign of terror begins as a temporary political necessity. In time it inevitably degenerates into a dark age of arbitrary mass arrests amid an atmosphere of witch hunt. As the social destructiveness of the terror intensifies, the political purpose of the terror would become diffused and unfocused, while unbridled personal ambition and runaway greed of the secret policemen become its main driving forces. The reigns of terror follow the same predictable pattern across cultural and political borders. If that actually happens in China, the Chinese people will rise up and stop it. But nothing of the sort is even close to happening. Chinese political ideology has a history of protracted contest between the vision of Da'tong (General Harmony) and the pragmatism of Xiao'kang (Individual Contentment). In contemporary political terms, it is a struggle between the noble grandeur of communal socialist vision and the utilitarian efficiency of individual private enterprise. Mao's political rise had been predicated on his ability to skillfully manipulate the contention between these 2 ideologies for the benefit of an evolving new social order, and his post-humous fall was related to his doctrinal failure to balance the same in a changing socioeconomic post revolution context. Deng Xiaoping's ideology is officially based on xiao'kang. When Mao accused Deng of being a capitalist roader, he was not wrong. If Mao were running China today, it is debatable if China would take very different roads. It is a mistake to think current Chinese policy is permanent. In the flow of history, there is no doubt that China will continue to alternate in emphasis between these two poles, but the alternative swings must be framed in a rising spiral of progressiveness. If the sum total of the movement is progressive, we are moving in the right direction. By every measure, even by Western bourgeois standards, China has more freedom today than 2 decades ago. Unfortunately, that may not be a positive development and will surely be exploited by dark forces. That was what happened in Tiananmen, many supported the students at first, until it became clear that other sinister forces were effectively exploiting the situation and a political tragedy occurred. China paid a heavy price for an error of timing, and the penalty has not been fully paid, even though its been 10 years.
Leninists, ask yourselves, what kind of world would it be if China's communists government should fall like the Soviet Union. It will set progressive forces back a century. China welcomes criticism, help, solidarity from the entire left, but only if the intention is good and the vision clear.
Henry C.K. Liu
Brian Basgen wrote:
> Henry,
>
> >
> > Still, the problem is very complex and difficult. It is made more
> > difficult
> > because the speed of change has been accelerated by technology, but the
> > speed of
> > the political process has not advanced.
> > In America, the problem of the minority and the minority community
> > development
> > face similar dilemmas.
>
> If the whites use disinformation, painting human rights abuses in
> China, why is China sill unable to combat disinformation with it's
> only viable alternative: information?
>
> The problem, still today, with the Chinese government is it's lack
> of adherence to freedom of information- not Western 'style'- but from
> within it's own ranks. Why is it impossible or impracticle for the
> CCP to be 'open' to it's own people- to not hide it's policies,
> practices, and decisions in any form whatever from it's people?
>
> So long as this remains true, the Whites will continue to be sucessful.
>
> Regards,
>
> Brian Basgen
>
> =============================
> The Development of the Soviet Union
> http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/
> =============================
>
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