Happy Ending Is A Long Way Off

Comrade Wang Chen in Xinjiang

Happy Ending Is A Long Way Off



Being close allies in the world communist movement, from the world war period to the late 1960s, the People’s Republic of China cannot deny that it had imitated the Soviet management style over its nationality and ethnicity issues. The Soviet Union promulgated its Establishment Treatment in 1922. Two years later, the Soviet Constitution was passed. The Constitution recognized the right to self-determination for minorities, and, more importantly, the right to recede from the Union. In China, the Nationalist Government initiated the idea of regional autonomy as early as in the 1930s when the Chinese Communist Party gained control in some of its areas. Before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party once proposed to adopt the Soviet’s style of federalism. Under the ‘bad influence’ of the Soviets and their immature theories, the Chinese Communist Party proposed rights to self determination, the establishment of a federal state, and the establishment of self-governments of various ethnic minorities based on self-recognition with the rights to break away (‘tuo li’) from China. In 1938, in the 6th Plenum of the 6th CCP Congress, that is, after Mao resumed its leadership after the Zunyi conference, Mao explicitly proposed the Ethnic Autonomous Region system with a view to solve the ethnic problems.

Both the Chinese and the Soviets made one fundamental mistake. They did not foresee, or, alternatively, they turned a blind eye to the rise of nationalism. In China, we had Fei Xiaotung’s thesis of ‘duoyuanyiti’ which was, to a large extent, a modified version of han-nationalism and pan han-chauvinism. In the case of the Soviet Union, its downfall could be attributed to the Stalinist violent governance, as well as the effort of Russianisation.

As commented by today’s Mainland official-scholar aka establishment intellectuals, without hiding their sorrows, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was brought about by the façade federal nature of the Soviet Constitution, together with the abortive reform policy introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev as the last straw of the once mighty Soviet Empire. The Soviet leaders had underestimated the issue of ethnicity and had erroneously identified the issue as one of class struggle, thereby resorting to the cliché class struggle method with a view to solve the problem. On the other hand, the Chinese leader diagnosed the separatist feelings of the Uighurs, the Mongolians, and the Hong Kong peoples as something which could be defused with a huge injection of capital (RMB) into the locals.

In China, central-local relationships, including that between Zhongnanhai and Hong Kong, tends to be more personal, patronage based and less institutionalized, as compared to systems of structured democracy. It is the patronage, instead of the institution, that binds the centre and the periphery. Arbitrated political decisions of the central leaders and the black box politicking hassle between the central and the local bureaucrats always override the interests of the autonomous regions. There is no formal institutional dispute resolution mechanism, such as the Supreme Court in the United States. The PRC Legislation Law does not have any provision which empowers the Government to settle conflicts or inconsistencies that exist in different legislation of different provinces. Neither is there any provision specifically designed for solving conflicts between the central and the local governments.

The current nature of regional governance, namely, unitary and bureaucratic authoritarianism, not only fails to forge a united front of ‘Greater China’, but even precipitates discontent and antagonism towards the PRC state and the nation of China. Recently, there have been separatist movements in Tibet, Taiwan, and Xinjiang. In fact, this phenomenon had once been extended to the Hong Kong SAR quietly. The Hong Kong Independence Declaration was widely circulated on the internet a few years ago, though not surprisingly, the movement died down in this ‘uniquely patriotic’ city without mass support. Deng Xiaoping’s innovation of the ‘One Country Two Systems’ in the early 1980’s was a model designed for dividing sovereignty and autonomy (external autonomy and internal autonomy). The concept may be a great idea. However, similar to many other noble ideas in China, its interpretation and implementation could end up in great distortion. With the current CCP’s regional governance policy in a unitary and bureaucratic authoritarian polity, the happy ending in Canadian Quebec is still a long way off.

奧巴馬就職

東盟擴張

奧巴馬救市

Three Cheers for State Power

Three Cheers for State Power

With thunderous applause and loud cheers for the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony from all over the world, who can resist claiming honour as a Chinese? I doubt – not even for liberals who have been long time critics of CCP. Lam Hang-chi of the Hong Kong Economic Journal, for instance, could not deny the event as a recognition of wealth and ability of the State.
The glamorous demonstration of state power by our central government last Friday is highly instrumental. Thirty years ago, when the communist state was rusty and weary, Deng Xiaoping vowed to modernize the nation in four aspects. Thirty years later, with the golden opportunity to host an international event, it was hoped that 8888, supposingly the luckiest time in the era for Chinese, could mark the watershed success point in recent history. The immediate effect of the 4-hour show is encouraging – noises of ‘wow’ on the growing capacity of PRC as a party state, rallying peoples under the five stars flag, are rampant. Everyone’s eyebrows were raised about how far the state has reached.
In a confident democracy, a deliberate demonstration of state power is not common. The French military parade on the Elysees Avenue every 14th July might be an exception. The need is obvious. With 4 regimes after Napoleon yet no single victory in any war, it is not difficult to imagine the insecurity of the French.
The price to legitimize an authoritarian state is even higher. All the stools have to be managed. Yet, those who seek to please everybody please nobody. The recent implementation of the labour contract law was meant to be an honest broker between the evil capitalists and the vulnerable proletariats. While the pseudo “socialist” state attempted to delude itself and its subjects that it strived for the moral high ground to protect its workers, neither the employers nor the employees perceived the same.
The last minute reversal of the decision to support the compromise deal of import surge thresholds also reflected the paranoia. When it endeavored to use 15,000 performers to showcase the nation’s ancient history and its rise as a modern power, it did not have the courage to go for the long-expected Doha arrangement at the last moment – just because it could not take the risk of offending its 900 million of peasants. It was a declimax to the assertion of state power but it was still a calculated fair deal.
A Leviathan government can never walk side by side with a free society. However obscure, China has the most powerful bureaucracy in the world. No doubt, it can serve its people’s interest by satisfying their vanity with a perfect ceremony. At the other end, until 30 July 2008, it defied the spirit of fearless advocacy making lawyers liable to their statements in court, and also the right of the detained accused to privacy with their legal representatives. The sarcasm intensified when the omnipotent central state sought to set the wrong right by legislative amendment - granting lawyer’s immunity in court and accused the right to meet lawyers free from procuratorat surveillance – with the disapproval of the local criminal justice organs who refused to honour the amendment.
It is the obsession of state power that an atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb are desired so much. General Chen Yi once said, “We prefer a nucleon (‘hezi’) to a pair of pants (‘kuzi’)”. This is one of the many experiences that Chinese have been preached by someone from the top that we should ‘stand up’ as if we were invertebrate.
Pundits put the phenomenon down to a cultural cause – the so-called ‘cultural institutionalism’ in the language of political scientists. Culture determines institutional choice. The late Li Shenzhi, Deng Xiaoping’s English secretary and Associate Director of the Chinese Social Sciences Academy, observed Chinese history to be a history of dictatorship. An Australian Historian, W.J.F. Jenner, in ‘The Tyranny of History: The Roots of China's Crisis’, attributed the root of China’s crisis to the Chinese populists’ obsession in state power. Whenever crisis arises, power centralization is always the answer. It works like a panacea to all the problems. A strong unitary state has long been taken as the icon of stability and prosperity amongst Chinese subjects (‘zimin’). Similarly, formidable military buildup and the successful hosting of an international event watched by millions acrossed the planet are viewed as tokens of ‘Strong Army, Rich Nation’.
Everyone is a patriot these days. One would for sure be proud of Director Zhang Yimou and his team for the incredible opening performance. One would be ecstatic if Yao Ming dunks on Kobe Bryant. The question is, putting this August aside, would one feel happier if the State respected workers’ rights by recognizing free labour unions, honoured right of the accused, and protected farmers from exploitation? Should this evolve from wishful thinking, the spontaneous applause filled in the air would definitely be accompanied by long-term appreciation, respect and trust.