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| Posted: 26 Jan 2013 10:18 PM PST  Wide © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Beijing Observation: Xi Jinping the Man, by Gao Yu Posted: 26 Jan 2013 04:49 PM PST A speech lifts the smog over the man.
Soon after the New Year pass, thick smog shrouded much of the eastern and middle China for days on end and struck terror into people. "Ducking into the dark brownish smog," a netizen penned on Weibo, "I was suffocated all of a sudden. I couldn't breathe, so I headed to the hospital." Politically, Beijing has been shrouded in smog too, catching heightened attention inside and outside China. Last Thursday (Jan. 17), in a public lecture titled "China in Transition" at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Harvard professor Roderick MacFarquhar predicted that the likelihood of CCP reforming from within was very small, and reform would probably only be triggered by external, large-scale and eruptive events. (I am unable to find a link to his lecture – Yaxue) As if to clear up the political smog, Xi Jinping's "new south tour speech," made in early December, began its circulation last week in the party. To my surprise, Xi's speech reads like a perfect confirmation to MacFarquhar's prediction. The new leadership's "honeymoon" is hardly over, but it has already become clear that the Party and the people don't share the same "China Dream," as the Southern Weekend incident has abundantly indicated. The most striking part of Xi Jinping's "new south tour speech" is his revisiting the topic of the Soviet Union's collapse. He said, "Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and beliefs had been shaken. In the end, 'the ruler's flag over the city tower' changed overnight. It's a profound lesson for us! To dismiss the history of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party, to dismiss Lenin and Stalin, and to dismiss everything else are to engage in historic nihilism, and it confuses our thoughts and undermines the Party's organizations on all levels." "Why do we must stand firm on the Party's leadership over the military?" Xi continued, "because that's the lesson from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union where the military was depoliticized, separated from the Party and nationalized, the party was disarmed. A few people tried to save the Soviet Union; they seized Gorbachev, but within days it was turned around again, because they didn't have the instruments to exert power. Yeltsin gave a speech standing on a tank, but the military made no response, keeping the so-called 'neutrality.' Finally, Gorbachev announced the disbandment of the Soviet Communist Party in a blithe statement. A big Party was gone just like that. Proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than we do, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist." "Nobody was man enough"! How vividly this captures Xi Jinping's anxiety over the fall of the Soviet Communist Party and the collapse of the Soviet Union! In his inauguration speech on September 19, 2004, when he succeeded Jiang Zemin to become the Chairman of the Central Military Committee, Hu Jintao also broadsided against Gorbachev to be "the chief culprit of Eastern Europe's transformation and a traitor of socialism." "Because of the openness and pluralism he championed," Hu said, "Gorbachev caused confusion among the Soviet Communist Party and the people of the Soviet Union. The Party and the Union fell apart under the impact of 'westernization' and 'bourgeois liberalism' that he implemented." At the time, Hu Jintao's speech was distributed to every party member as a document of the party's Central Committee, and many people found it unbelievable that Hu had said that, for, like the anti-fascism victory of the World War II, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had already been recognized as one of the greatest legacies of the 20th century. I believe Xi Jinping's new south tour speech will shock many party members, let alone outside observers and the public in general. As the son of one of Communist China's founding generals, Xi's speech reflects a lot of his mindset and highlights his political ambition. On the one hand, he wants to maintain the life of the CCP regime; on the other, he wants to revamp the house in the hope of restoring the kind of authority and legitimacy Mao Zedong enjoyed at the beginning of the communist China. Such are the guiding principles, and the destination, of his "road to renewal." MacFarquhar is very insightful when he pointed out that interest groups were already deep-rooted in the party's corrupt system, and Xi Jinping doesn't want to become China's Gorbachev by taking risk to reform, for it could trigger upheavals and lead to the fall of the regime. Xi Jinping didn't mention "political reform" in the new south tour speech. In fact, he has not made any reference to it since after the 18th Party's Congress. Instead, in his south tour speech, he lay out his ideological bedrocks: "Only socialism can save China. Only reform and opening-up can develop China, develop socialism, and develop Marxism." Right now, Chinese government is the wealthiest government in the world, and that's the source of the "three confidences" ("confidence in path, confidence in theoretic foundation, confidence in system") that Xi Jinping recently voiced. In his first stop of the south tour, Xi paid respect to Deng Xiaoping, "the general designer of China's reform and opening-up," but also the creator of China's crony capitalism over the last three decades. What Deng Xiaoping established in his south tour speech 21 years ago is a lame-legged reform path, and it has been the underlying cause of rampant corruption and mounting social crises. But it doesn't look like Xi Jinping wants to acknowledge this. Not yet anyway. He said, "Our reform has always been a thorough reform. I don't agree with the idea that China's reform has been falling behind in some regard. It might be quicker or slower in some ways and at some points, but all in all, there is no such thing that China has changed in this way but not in that way. The key is what to reform and what not. There are things we have not changed, cannot change, and will not change no matter in how long a time. And it cannot be characterized as failure to reform." So, what are the things that cannot be changed? Xi Jinping said, "Some people define reform as changes towards the universal values of the west, the western political system, or it will not constitute reform. This is a stealthy tampering of the concept and a misunderstanding of our reform. Of course we must uphold the banner of reform, but our reform is reform that keeps us moving forward on the path of socialism with Chinese characters. We will walk neither the closed and rigid old path, nor the evil path of changing the flag." In his lecture, MacFarquhar said that, because of corruption from top to bottom, the CCP has lost the kind of authority and legitimacy it had in the early years of Mao's new China; while Deng Xiaoping's focus on mere economic reform after the Cultural Revolution has led to the absence of an ideology that can unite the people and the Party. How to deal with the Party's debilitating illness, and how to rouse the party members' will to reform? Xi Jinping said, "We must see clearly our place in history, see clearly the realistic goals as well as the long-term vision to which we are devoted. We are still in the early stage of socialism, and we must do whatever we can to realize the goals of the current stage. But if we lose sight of our vision as communists, we will lose our direction and succumb to utilitarianism and pragmatism. To uphold our ideals and beliefs, we must uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong thoughts, Deng Xiaoping theory, important thoughts of the "three represents", and the Scientific Outlook on Development. The great renewal of the Chinese nation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese nation over the last couple of hundred years. 'China dream' is an ideal. But of course, as communists, we should have a higher ideal, and that is, communism. With the new south tour speech, Xi Jinping clearly intended to give the CCP ideology a renewed status. During the south tour, Xi Jinping told everyone an old story that was related in an article titled The Taste of Faith in People's Daily on November 27, 2012. In 1920, as Chen Wangdao (陈望道) translated the Manifesto of the Communist Party, his mother once served him glutinous rice dumplings and a small dip of brown sugar. "Is the brown sugar enough?" she called out from outside, checking on him. "Sweet enough! Sweet enough!" Chen answered. Then when his mother cleaned up the dishes, she found that he dipped not the brown sugar but the ink. "That was the taste of faith! That is the power of faith!" The article exclaimed. Let's just believe it's a true story. Does the party still have such translators? I'm afraid, listening to the story, the party members would be thinking about Yi Junqing (衣俊卿), the recently dismissed chief of the party's Central Compilation and Translation Bureau. The rumor has it that the "three confidences," which have been written into the official report of the 18th Party's Congress, were the invention of Yi Junqing through a billion-yuan project called the "Project of Theoretic Research and Construction of Marxism." I heard that people who had tried to protect him cited this particular accomplishment, but I wonder how are the party members going to relish the "taste of faith" next to that 120,000-word exposé of pornography, money and power? Filed under: Current Events, Political Transition, Uncategorized Tagged: Chen Wangdao, Gao Yu, Manifesto of the Communist Party, new south tour speech, Roderick MacFarquhar, Soviet Communist Party, Soviet Union, three confidences, Xi Jinping, Yi Junqing   |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2013 02:25 PM PST Github become the newest major programming websites blocked by China's Great FireWall (GFW), following glories of sites such as SourceForge, Python, etc. Concerned citizens filed a petition at the Whitehouse. The online petition asked the President to deny entry to the US to those "who help internet censorship, builders of Great Firewall in China." The Whitehouse pledge to respond to a petition if it can generate 100,000 signatures within 2 weeks. This petition collected about 3,000 votes in its first day. Demanding an immigration policy change from the Whitehouse might be a long fetch. There are, actually, easier ways to do just the same, if the movement can gain the sympathy from the visa interviewers at the US's Beijing Embassy. The embassy should be provided with a list of most notoriously active GFW researchers. Individual interviewer may block anyone who appears on that list from entering US. Per US laws, the interview agent must exercise her own judgement in each case, regardless of directives from her boss or other government agencies. The GFW is the most extensive and most advanced content filtering and management system in the world. It is estimated thousands of researchers are working on this project on daily basis. Most of them keep a low profile. Few ever show their pride on the Wall in public, with the exception of two persons so far. The first one is of course 'the Father of the GFW', Mr. Fang Binxing. In an interview, Mr. Fang said he truly believe the Wall is an important tool that benefits the Communists government. Because the government is for the people, thus it also benefits the people. The second person is an associate professor Mr. Han Weili in Fudan University. The Wall is rarely discussed in public. When Professor Han posted a job ad for research assistants on the internal bulletin board system (BBS), several students questioned how could he do this in his conscience. Some commented that how would anyone get involved to fix their resume later on (so that not to offend any potential employers whom with no exception must have been victimized by the research). Han boasted his 12 years experience on the Wall, and stated that he only interested in the technology. A student pointed out there is a difference when you already knew how your technology would be deployed (against human mankind) but still work on it. Mr. Han Weili should be found a spot on the list, no question about that. Dr. Han's research activities can be viewed at his university homepage.  |
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