In Remembrance of Memory

 On the 29^th anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, I thought I would post some of my favorite excerpts from the essays of Liu Xiaobo[i], a participant in the 1989 movement and the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner who died in a Chinese prison on July 13, 2017. Written more than 10 years ago, these excerpts continue to resonate for me in this age of Xi Jinping.

 
“The Communist Party of China’s Dictatorial Patriotism” (2005)

In this age of strongman politics, in which Xi Jinping has demanded absolute loyalty to the party, Liu reminds us that we should have no illusion about the nature of one-party rule.

In short, a government can only be qualified to represent the interests of the people, which, when combined, constitute national interests, if it respects and loves the people, and, in particular, if it respects and protects the rights of the people to question, criticize, and even oppose government policies by peaceful means. Only then can it be called a patriotic government and only then is it qualified to promote patriotism.

 However, the patriotism of a dictatorial regime is exactly the opposite: it promotes patriotism with high-flying talk but never respects or cares for the mainstay of the nation—the people. 

First, its power is not conferred by the people but comes from and is sustained by violence. It transforms public power, which is supposed to serve the public good of society, into private power of the regime and the powerful, into a tool for implementing the will of the regime and obtaining profits for the powerful.

The current CPC may be the world’s largest political party, but compared to the 1.3 billion people in China, its 60 some million members are no more than a small minority, so how can it so shamelessly boast that it “represents the people and the nation”? The reason the CPC regards itself to be the natural representative of “the country, the nation, and the people” is not at all because it truly has “the mandate of Heaven to carry out justice,” but because it wants to maintain its dictatorial power and protect its vested interests.

 
“Changing the Regime by Changing Society” (2006)

This is my favorite essay of Liu Xiaobo’s, full of optimism and faith in the power and agency of society, and with wise words about how change will come to China.

In an un-free society ruled by a dictatorship, under the premise of the temporary absence of power that can change the dictatorial nature of the regime, the civic ways that promote the transformation of Chinese society from the bottom up that I know of are as follows:

3. Regardless of how great the freedom-denying power of a regime and its institutions is, every individual should still fight to the best of his/her ability to live as a free person, that is, make every effort to live an honest life with dignity. In any society ruled by dictatorship, when those who pursue freedom publicly disclose their views and practice what they preach, as long as they manage to be fearless in the small details of everyday life, what they say and do in everyday life will become the fundamental force that will topple the system of enslavement.

5. Whether an insider or an outsider of the system, whether working from the top down or the bottom up, each should respect the other’s right to speak. Even the statements and actions of people attached to the government, as long as they do not force constraints on the independent discourse among the people and the rights defense movement, should be regarded as a useful exploration of transformational strategies and their right of speech should be fully respected. Those who advocate transformation from the top down should maintain adequate respect for the explorations of those working from the bottom-up among the people.

6. Institutional common sense on how to confront rather than evade an ever-present dictatorial power: place into one’s own hands the initiative for improving the status of the population without rights, rather than pinning hope on the arrival of some enlightened master or benevolent ruler. In the strategic maneuvering between civil society and the government, regardless of how official policies may change, the most important thing is to encourage and assist the civil rights defense movement and hold fast the independent position of civil society.

In sum, China’s course toward a free society will mainly rely on bottom-up gradual improvement and not the top-down “Chiang Ching-kuo style” revolution. Bottom-up reform requires self-consciousness among the people, and self-initiated, persistent, and continuously expanding civil disobedience movements or rights defense movements among the people. In other words, pursue the free and democratic forces among the people; do not pursue the rebuilding of society through radical regime change, but instead use gradual social change to compel regime change. That is, rely on the continuously growing civil society to reform a regime that lacks legitimacy.

“The Many Aspects of Chinese Communist Party Dictatorship” (2006)

Here Liu delves further into the nature of a one-party regime, which is increasingly propped up by coercion and economic enticements than through any ideological belief in communism, and questions its lasting power.

The CCP regime suppresses dissident political forces in a variety of ways: shadowing, wiretapping and imprisonment, as well as bribery and coercion; evil laws and low schemes, as well as gray space; regime dictatorship, as well as thug violence; open criticism and, secret purges; ironfisted methods, as well as appeals to human emotion (the police officers in charge of keeping watch on dissidents invariably start up their conversations in a “getting-acquainted” tone), to the extent that even when reining in those intractable rebels, the police leave themselves some leeway in that they no longer claim to be motivated by high-sounding ideological reasons, but rather deploy the “rice-bowl theory” that they are simply trying to keep their jobs.

However, the very use of such pragmatic, flexible control methods, because of their thoroughly opportunistic nature, paints the doomsday picture of dictatorial politics—countless flaws in the system itself, questions of the regime’s legitimacy, and rapid erosion of its effectiveness—where the ruler and the ruled engage in expedient cooperation based on the principle of profit-before-everything.

“The Negative Effects of the Rise of Dictatorship on Democratization in the World” (2006)

In this essay, Liu foreshadows the growing concern about the effect that China’s rise has had in shaping global norms and standards concerning development, governance, democracy and human rights.

The CPC regime has replaced the former Soviet Union to become a blood transfusion machine for other dictatorships. It provides large quantities of economic assistance to dictatorships such as North Korea, Cuba, and Myanmar, offsetting to some degree the impact of Western economic sanctions and enabling these remaining despotic regimes on their last legs to linger on.

The CPC regime uses China’s huge market to lure and coerce big capital from the West, and the very nature of capital is to chase profit with no regard for universal values or fair trade. So the big capital from various Western nations inevitably tries to exert influence on its home country’s China policy…..To make a profit, these companies have gone as far as to recklessly betray universal values and the American government’s human rights foreign policy. Without exception, they have all bowed to political pressure and coercion from the CPC regime and have become its accomplices in restricting the freedom of expression and in its literary inquisition.

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[i] English-language translations of these essays are available on Human Rights in China (HRIC)’s website.