Rumblings in China
Written by Mike on April 16th, 2005Actually there seems to be more unrest on the English-laguage blogs than in China itself. Many people seem to want to project what has happened in Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan onto the recent spate of protests and riots that have been taking place across China. This is a mistake. China is not a former Soviet republic nor is it a repressed Arab nation. I haven’t met a single Chinese person yet who has spoken of the desire to have a democratic government in China.
I have traveled all over China, and the only place I have seen any support for democracy is in Hong Kong where it is the status quo. Which is of course why it is so popular there, it has worked and it shouldn’t be meddled with. The same thing is true of the Mainland, the people there believe, almost to a fault, “that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Right now, a capitalistic oligarchy of elder statesmen run China and few Chinese want to change this status quo. It might lead to instability, something people here fear very much.
Look, sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but it ain’t happening hear folks, move right along to the next country. I would look south to Burma, things are slowly unraveling there . . .
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On the micro-scale, I think you’re right. These anti-Japanese riots are just that, these people are generally not interested in democratization. “Spontaneous demonstrations of the popular will” in China are so much horse manure, the riots are being conducted by the CCP.
On the larger, long-term scale, I’m not so certain you are correct, and you might not be talking to the right people. A certain segment, by no means the majority, of the Chinese academics I have associated with, either personally or through interviews, desire democracy. They simply reject the “Democracy” models being put forth by the Chi-Coms, such as the village elections farce, etc.
I would say the biggest long-term problem facing liberalization in China is that young elites, specifically students at the elite institutions like Peking University, Ts’inghua, and Fudan continue to value membership in the CCP whether they believe in the tenets of Marxism and Maoism or not. This has perpetuated a cult of Mao among people who self-acknowledge the fact that they should no better. They have lost the spirit of T’ian-an-men, and opted in to the new materialism.
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“Spontaneous demonstrations of the popular will” in China are so much horse manure, the riots are being conducted by the CCP.”
These demonstrations are not being organized by the CCP. These are students and young people under 30, most of them belligerently nationalistic who genuinely hate Japan. The CCP “allowed” the protests in Sichuan (where all unrest in Chinese history seems to come from) and Guangzhou at first. They spread to Beijing and the police let the students trash the Japanese embassy thinking that this was just some kids that were venting some typical anti-Japanese anger. The problem is that the CCP has created this monster (over the course of the last 50 years), now it must feed it.
Trust me, the CCP wants this to just go away; it is starting to look bad. They have rounded up key anti-Japanese leaders ahead of the Japanese foreign ministers visit this weekend in an attempt to keep some of the more rowdy elements from protesting.
“and you might not be talking to the right people. A certain segment, by no means the majority, of the Chinese academics I have associated with, either personally or through interviews, desire democracy.”
The wrong people? I am talking to THE PEOPLE, the ones selling fruit on the street corners in Beijing, Hebei, Shangdong, Guangdong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, all over the country. Students, businessmen, wealthy elites, poor migratory workers with nothing. Not some academic in an ivory tower in America. Hell if you interviewed American academics to determine your views on America you would think it is the most fucked up country in the world and rightly so, because America’s academics (for the most part) are the largest organized group of wasted sperm this nation has ever seen.
“I would say the biggest long-term problem facing liberalization in China is that young elites, specifically students at the elite institutions like Peking University, Ts’inghua, and Fudan continue to value membership in the CCP whether they believe in the tenets of Marxism and Maoism or not.”
I would say the membership in the CCP is at an all time low, and dropping. You no longer need that “title” to get ahead in China today. There are people who aren’t CCP members who have more power through their guanxi than they could ever attain through the CCP. This is a return to traditional Chinese modes of social climbing. Most young people I know are extremely nationalistic, not particularly interested in the Communist ideology, and fairly materialistic. I have never been to Fudan University, but I know students from Qinghua and Bei Da. They would fit into my above description.
“This has perpetuated a cult of Mao among people who self-acknowledge the fact that they should no better. They have lost the spirit of T’ian-an-men, and opted in to the new materialism.”
Mao is a non-figure among young people, for obvious reasons. Dengxiao Ping on the other hand is revered (as he should be) among almost everyone in China. Older Chinese still look at Mao with some affection, mostly because of the good he did they seem to easily forgive the bad. Jiang Zemin is pretty much despised, as is Zhu Rongji. They are part of the “Shanghai Mafia” and the rest of the nation looks down on them. The spirit of Tian’anmen doesn’t exist, you are right, mostly because the typical Chinese hated “those crazy students who brought so much trouble to their lives”. Materialism, by the way, is a necessary component of capitalism. The idea that the Chinese have given up on reforming the government because they can now all afford cellphones wouldn’t be far from the truth, but it is in keeping with Chinese history.
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