Hiding in Words

Reading Chronicle of Dingxi Orphanage

Chronicle of Dingxi Orphanage, Chinese book, written by Yang Xianhui / 定西孤儿院纪事，杨显惠

Like most tragic events in Chinese history, the Great Famine that happened between 1958 and 1961 in this country is not mostly forgotten. If anyone still remember sad old stories like famine, violence in the Cultural Revolution or careless killing of “capitalist liberals” in the early 1980’s, the government will try its best to persuade it didn’t do anything wrong — if there was indeed any wrong, the government always has a good excuse.

The Great Famine is officially called “Three Years of Natural Disasters”, “Three Years of Difficulties”. Although it is proven that there wasn’t widespread natural disasters, and all the difficulties happened only because wrong industrial & agricultural policies from the Great Leap Forward.

If in Tombstone (墓碑), senior journalist of State news agency Yang Jisheng (杨继绳) gave an elaborate, comprehensive and rather academic study on the Great Famine, Yang Xianhui’s (杨显惠) narration in this book is more individual. In his calm narration, Yang Xianhui let the characters recount their own stories in a truthful and forceful way. The excruciating experiences of starvation, death and cannibalism can only be understood more deeply in such a style.

Whole villages of people died of starvation. Some survived on grass, barks. And yes, some ate their children to survive. How could such horrible situation ever come on this Earth?

In the 5-thousand year long Chinese history, such terrible famine would about violent uprising, then a new dynasty. But in the three years of famine, and after that, the hungry people of this People’s Republic didn’t know what the hell is really going on in their country. They knew nother and were always piously worshiping Red Sun Chairman Mao, they were always obsessed with the fantasy of another world war.

This government doesn’t want to be responsible for anything wrongdoing that itself has heartlessly done. The Communist Party tend to call the Great Famine a natural disaster, and the Cultural Revolution a political catastrophe. The trick here is no one is actually responsible for disasters and catastrophes. Truth is the real bad guy will never take any responsibility in this country.

What if any tragedy happen today? Without freedom of the media, without allowing people to talk about whatever is really going on, without any restraint of irresponsible government behavior, similar thing will take place for another time, maybe in a smaller scale. Think about SARS, government cover-up only made more damage. In the end an unlucky guy was picked as scape-goat (later that guy was quietly promoted). Let’s see what happens in the government if avian flu become a big problem.

Signs of Political Reform Since 1970’s

This is an interesting article introducing the signs of political reform since 1970’s. Here’s a brief introduction.

Original Title: 政治规则确立的30年 (in Chinese)
Original URI: http://www.douban.com/group/topic/4219342/

The 30 years since Reform and Opening Up has created a new political order in China. Several decisions and political arrangements made in these 30 years will influence this country in the 50 or 100 years to come.

To a single person, 30 years is too long a time that brings half a life away. Yet it is very short time for the political system to have a significant transition.

As our current political system does not have a constitutional ground, these unwritten rules shall be accepted as a conventional way of politics to ensure a peaceful development of this country.

In these 3 decades, the following rules has been or is being established and accepted:

1. Bottom line of political struggle: the loser won’t lose their life.
2. Civil officials shall govern, military power exits political spectrum.
3. Maximum tenure of political leadership is 10 years.
4. Rule of choosing a successor is set.
5. The power of Premier is on the rise.

No. 1: Bottom line of political struggle: the loser won’t lose their life.

This rule is set when the Gang of Four was crushed. In the history of political struggle of Communist Party, usually the underdog would lose their life. Some lucky people could keep their life on exile or banishment (e.g. Lin Biao, Liu Shaoqi, etc.) However, the Gang of Four were all Politburo Standing Committee members, and they were only sentenced to jail instead of being killed after they’d totally lost the political combat.

This doesn’t seem a significant change, but it is really important for the political system. This gives a message that political struggle no longer matters that much as before, it is no longer something so important as to be linked to one’s life. Such message was confirmed on the 40’s anniversary of the foundation of China PR (1989). It was yet again clarified that you won’t lose your life even if you made a severe “political mistake”. (People did die in 1989 on the Square, however political figures [e.g. Zhao Ziyang] was put in house arrest instead of killed.)

Therefore the armed clashes or assassination that was previously possible is no longer a regular strategy. Politics no longer means blood, war or coup d’état. This is a foundation of peaceful transfer of political power.

No. 2 Civil officials shall govern, military power exits political spectrum.

Army controled by State government is the next step. For now, it is more important to contain its power by any means. Currently there is no army presence in Politburo, and the Army is controlled military committee of Communist Party. In retrospect, the Communist Party used to boast it’s a “regime of guns”, power of military forces used to be beyond the Party itself. An army under control of civil officials (though from Communist Party) is a remarkable development per se.

No. 3 Maximum tenure of political leadership is 10 years.

So there wouldn’t be another dictator like Mao.

No. 4 Rules of choosing successor is set.

Hu Jintao was appointed as a successor of Jiang Zemin by Deng Xiaoping when he was alive. And Xi Jinping, who is expected to be the next president (and party boss), is believed to be a result of compromise between factions in the Communist Party.

In short, the 3rd leader would have been decided in the time of the 1st leader, and 4th would have been decided in the time of the 2nd leader. If this were in US, Barack Obama would have been chosen during Bill Clinton’s Administration, and G. W. Bush would have been appointed during his father’s presidency. Well, this is far from anything like democracy, but at least there won’t be coup d’état or assassination or another cultural revolution any more.

No. 5 The power of Premier is on the rise.

China’s Constitution defines Premier as the leader of Administration (State Council), and President is only a symbolic position. Now, the Premier Wen Jiabao is more and more exposed to the public and appears to be much more powerful than before. It is expected that Premier be more influential and powerful in the coming years.

Yang Jia Executed WITHOUT FAIR TRIAL

Attorney Liu Xiaoyuan posted on his blog that Yang Jia’s mother had been notified by two Shanghai judges that the Supreme Court reviewed and approved Yang Jia be executed. According to China’s Criminal Procedure Law, the execution shall be committed within 7 days after Supreme Court [*] approval.

Yang Jia killed 6 police officers at Zhabei District police station in Shanghai on July 1, 2008. Then his trial was postponed in order not to damage the image of Beijing Olympics. He was sentenced to death in August through an close-door procedure, the police and the court both wanted to stay low-profile on this matter. Then his death sentence was confirmed in appeal in October and submitted to Supreme Court for review & approval.

Yang Jia was not given a fair trial. It was not thoroughly investigated whether Yang Jia was maltreated by the police previously (could be the cause of Yang’s revenge). The lawyer that Yang Jia’s father (Yang’s parents divorced) hired were denied, and the government appointed another lawyer that, according to the court, agreed by Yang Jia himself. Besides, Yang Jia’s mother had been held in a mental institution for 132 days by Beijing police.

In any case, it is almost certain that Yang Jia would definitely be sentenced to death, as daring to stabbing so many people is a felony, let alone Yang’s killing could be interpret as a symbol of challenging the government establishment through violence. That is why the court is so eager to execute Yang Jia without a fair trial.

* On the front page of Chinese Supreme Court’s website, the yellow characters read: “party cause first, interest of the people first, constitution and laws first”. So, constitution & laws don’t really come first, but the third.

PS: Amnesty International is calling to stop Yang Jia’s execution.

Updated on Nov 26: Yang Jia was executed this morning in Shanghai. China’s Supreme Court issued death penalty review on 21st, and was delayed & delivered yesterday evening. During this delay, the court hypocritically arranged that Yang’s mother meet with Yang Jia, when the news of death penalty approval was completely kept secret. How coward is the government! via Lao Hu Miao [中文] Such cowardice of government and execution without legal ground or due process will only turn more desperate people into murderers.

Lian Yue: Pessimism is Immoral (a hasty trans)

Lian Yue is a Chinese blogger, columnist, writer, especially a liberal opinion leader. On the evening of Nov. 16, some of the participants in Cnbloggercon met in Tophour (凸凹酒吧, owned by another widely read columnist Beifeng北风). Beifeng invited Lian Yue to give a surprise, and Lian Yue did gave a good short speech.

I found the video clip of Lian Yue talking on YouTube. And I made a haste (and somewhat inaccurate) translation by taking down quick notes (think of this as a quick interpretation). It was only after I have finished this translation when I found a Chinese transcript on Tophour’s blog (you can also read this on Cnbloggercon blog). Please read my not-that-complete-or-accurate translation:

I attended a forum held by Southern Urban News (南方都市报), in which I discussed a lot with other two professors for 3 hours.

I feel the themes of this forum is quite similar with this Blogger Conference, as both focuses on the formation of civil society. And what blogging does is to foster civil society.

There are pessimistic sentiments that everything is just insignificant and meaningless. Yet, as this senior chief said to me this afternoon, in the current stage of China, pessimism is something immoral. Why don’t we hide our possible pessimism in our heart instead of talking sadly about it?

In the very early stage of social change, when the Internet first came into being, when you first began blogging, people might very easily get frustrated and believe those efforts are just meaningless, stupid and vain. If you press hard on those efforts and say there’s no point, such negative attitude might kill civil society in its infancy.

That is why I believe pessimism is immoral at this time in China.

Why all of us blog and attend this Chinese Blogger Conference where we can have a better communication? That is because we believe the power that we have and we can change the society. So please believe in yourself.

In the beginning you really don’t have power and influence, you would wonder how much power the several dozens of us have and how we can change this society. Frankly speaking nothing, for the time being.

And what is the value in it? Think you are a neutron, keep going and one year later, you would have influenced dozens of people, and one more year later, you would have influenced thousands of people.

There are some common negative attitudes that we might have. One is to say to your self, no one would listen to what I say or act like I propose anyway, and think there is in fact no point in going on.

Please remember social transformation is by no means a quick task.

In a democracy like America, very person has one and only one vote. B. Obama has one vote, G. W. Bush one; and a rich man one vote, a poor guy also one vote. If you have a blog and keep writing on it, express your opinion, that is your social responsibility and civic duty being done. Even if there are only 2 readers, your are making quite a move. A civil society would come into being by such gradual influence. Please be optimistic.

I used to say no one can save China, and whatever effort you make, that is meaningless. But after 2007, I would never say that again. We need to encourage the people who act. We shall not give them pressure. If you think a blog cannot influence very many readers or make real change, and even if you sometimes would think it is just some effort in vain, please do not say, just conceal it in your heart. If you are a pessimist by nature, and I believe quiet of few among us are, please conceal pessimism in the heart. Don’t say it.

We shall not fall victim to the delusion of persecution either. I guess quite a few among us might be somewhat persecuted. We need to learn how to keep a normal happy life.

Last year I panicked from time to time if someone is wiretapping on me. Later I began to think, it won’t be possible for the public power not to deny what it has done and listen on one’s phone who criticize the government. OK, we allow the public power such bad behavior. Don’t let it mess up your temper and ruin your day. Move on with your life.

Even if you feel oppressed or persecuted, move on with your life, be happy and keep blogging. Try your best not to be affected by oppression or fall victim of the delusion of being oppressed.

Thank you!

Here comes the video: more »