CHINA: Eric X. Li : Style Over Substance ?

                Eric X Li

Recently a young lady from China, (lets give her the unlikely and Orwellian name of ""Mollie""), put a question to me: "Why are you so interested in China? no one else is". And as over a period of weeks she persisted in asking, eventually, we sat down to talk  At first I had hesitated, not for the want of something to say, but because I was concerned about the gulf that existed between us in age and experience. And when we did talk I told her of my unease, and made sure that she understood, from the outset,.that whatever I had to say about China, it was not be interpreted as a value judgement, either about her, or her family, some of whom are committed to the Communist Party

Now Mollie who is university educated and on the threshold of her career, having had time to reflect on what was said, came back a day or so later in fighting mood, and introduced me to Eric X. Li. In particular, to an address given by him in Edinburgh in 2013, entitled, A tale of two political systems. He was new to me, and as I watched the video, it quickly became apparent that he knew how to work an audience: he had charm, wit, and what passed for wisdom. And even if I had been late in finding out about him, the transcript of the talk that I have in front of me, credits the video with 1.9m "views".  

Well as I continued to listen I continued to be impressed, for he had what seemed like a challenging point of view, and he knew how to deliver it. Impressed, until it got to a point where the style and force of his argument seemed to wilt, and he sounded like an apologist for the status quo: for the Communist Party of China, and the continuation there of one party rule. Now it was this slip, (real or imagined), that prompted the question about style over substance, or put another way, as to whether or not as an economic and political commentator, he deserves to be taken seriously. But when I next met Mollie and she asked why I was smiling, I made sure that she understood that it was in admiration for her spirit, in throwing down the gauntlet.

Now for someone with such a high public profile, detailed information about Eric X. Li is hard to come by; and what details there are, (spread over various websites), seem grey in comparison to his provocative and personable public persona. Born in Shanghai, he is variously described as "a well-connected venture capitalist" political scientist and policy expert, who studied in America, and worked for Ross Perot during the 1992 American presidential election campaign. Later, we are told, he returned to Shanghai, doubting the perceived wisdom in the West, that China could only progress  politically and economically, by following the principles of the free market. We also learn that he founded Changwei Capital based in Shanghai, and serves on the board of directors of China Europe International Business School, (CEIBS). And besides being vice chair of CEIBS's publishing arm, he is on the board of CEIBS in Ghana (Africa). And he is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

The reference to his being "well-connected", seems to refer to the fact that he is a business partner of Mao Daolin, the son-in-law of Hu Jintao (former President of China from 2003-2010). And what brought Eric X Li to public prominence, was an op-ed article published in The New York Times in February 2012. Entitled, Why China's Political Model is Superior, the article was timed to coincide with a meeting between President Obama and the then vice president of China, (now President), Xi Jinping; and suffice it for now to say that the article caused a stir, and that Eric X. Li largely unknown up to that point, was in demand. (1).

In his writings, Eric X. Li is clear, concise and to the point. And while the subject matter changes, his objective, in broad terms, is always the same: to promote the interests of the Communist Party in the People's Republic of China, and in particular, to justify the continuation there, of one party rule. And he comes armed with statistics, from credible sources, with which to prove his point. And in terms of the legitimacy of the political system as it exists, he defends it on grounds of "competency", (video), as for him, it is self-evidently the case that only the Party and the continuation of one party rule, can secure the national interest: the future economic well being of China's 1.3 billion citizens; half of whom, in a generation, they have lifted out of poverty. As for the problem of corruption, that he rightly reminds us is not unique to China, again he tells us that only the Communist Party, has the capacity and will to defeat it. They are points of view that he consistently expresses at the expense of the Western democracies, and of America in particular. And while he nods in general acknowledgement of the good things that have been achieved under the democratic process, he is at times scathing in his conclusions: that the system of democracy is corrupt, lacks moral worth, and that as a political system, it is proven to be nontransferable to non democratic states.

At the crux of his argument is the idea that there is more than one way of doing things; an argument that he develops in, From Renaissance to Renaissance. Citing Nocoolo Machiavelli's Discourse on Livy, he argues in the spirit of the Enlightenment, against the notion that there is only one right way of doing politics: the democratic. Recalling that Machiavelli grouped all political systems under three types: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, he reminds us that he attributed to each a degraded form. "Monarchy could degrade into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into licentiousness." And to reinforce his argument for a divergence of view on political systems, he calls on the philosopher Vico who challenged the notion of "timeless universal truths." The Renaissance he reminds us, was a time of inquisitiveness "that gave way in the end to moral and intellectual certitude;" which, in the context of the political debate meant "that democracy alone, among all other possible systems of governance, is infallible." A view that from Eric X. Li's point of view, has only endured until now, because there had never been a credible alternative to elected democracy; that is, until the emergence of modern China

For Eric X. Li, the democratic process, (that he suggest is comparatively young), is in effect, a failed experiment. Self evidently so, when one considers the level of disillusionment with politics in the established Western democracies, and of how, where democracy has been introduced into non Westerns cultures, it has been with results that he describes as "spotty at best and miserable in many instances." (7a). In fact, based on public opinion surveys, where the rate of satisfaction with politicians is 50 percent, or in some cases, a good deal less, and on the theme of consent, (the essence of the democratic process), he describes democracy as "a legal form devoid of moral authority. Legally consensual but morally bankrupt do not legitimacy make."  (1a). And so as to reinforce the point, he draws our attention to Mario Mnti, unelected  and a bureaucrat, who, at the height of the European debt crisis in 2011, was appointed Prime Minister of Italy and head of a bureaucratic government by president Napolitano. To which he adds another discrediting layer. Having described Mario Monti as, arguably, "the most competent statesman in Europe today"; (no mention of Angela Merkel), he links the fact that Monti was unelected, to Machiavelli's idea of degradation in politics. (7a).

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Now in terms of my own particular interests, the more you read of his writings, the clearer it becomes that there is no future for those who campaign for civil liberties, especially if they live and work for that end in China. Not only has he a quasi-religious faith in the capacity of the Communist Party to reinvent itself: defining it  as "meritocratic", (video), so as to act always in the best interests of the people; but, he makes it clear also, that it is the Party, and not the people, who will decide what is in the national interest. And what gained him notoriety in his article in the New York Times, (remember that it was titled Why China's Political Model is Superior), was his endorsement of the crushing of the student protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989. And in the same article there is no ambiguity as to what the government response would be, were such a protest to be repeated

Here is how, in the same article, he sketched out the ideological difference between America and China:

 “...America and China view their political systems in fundamentally different ways; whereas America sees democratic government as an end in itself, China sees its current form of government, or any political system for that matter, merely as a means for achieving larger national ends.”

And in particular, on the participatory aspect of the political process, he writes:

  “The fundamental difference between Washington's view and Beijing's is whether political rights are considered God-given and therefore absolute or whether they should be seen as privileges to be negotiated based on the needs and condition of the nation.”

And as he makes clear, in China, they are definitely not "God given", or even the natural rights of the citizen. In this context, and in the passage that I quote below, the underlining is mine:

“China is on a different path [from the democratic]. Its leaders are prepared to allow greater

popular participation in political decisions if and when it is conducive to economic development and favourable to the country's national interests, as they have done in the past ten years.  

And that expectation of subservience, from the people of China, explains this:

 “However, China's leaders would not hesitate to curtail these freedoms if the conditions

and the needs of the nation changed. The 1980's were a time of expanding popular

participation in the country's politics that helped loosen the ideological shackles of the destructive Cultural Revolution. But it went too far, and led to a vast rebellion at Tiananmen Square. 

"That uprising was decisively put down on June 4, 1989. The Chinese nation paid a heavy

price for that violent event, but the alternatives would have been far worse."

Now accepting that it is simply not possible in a blog to cover every angle, or to contend all the issues that we might, it should be apparent at this point, that I have answered my own question: that it is simply too simplistic to dismiss Eric X Li as representing style over substance. He has significant things to say and he is very effective in saying them. So, if we are to be effective in pursuing our concerns over aspects of life in China, then we need to be clear about what it is that he represents, and how we should deal with it. But first, let me return to where I began, to my conversation with Mollie.
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Having explained to Mollie how, and why, some fifty years ago, I first came to be interested in China, I though it important, at the outset, (and especially in view of the criticism that I would make), to make the point that I accepted that there were people within the Communist Party in China who were well motivated and wanted to do good things for the general population. But as we talked and I sensed that she had no understanding of the concept that she might be her brothers keeper, but instead, saw the raising of civil liberties issues in China, as interference by outsiders, I changed tack, and engaged her instead in a brief discussion on the Second World War; in particular, on Hitler's rise to power and the ambition that ultimately caused him to self-destruct.. It was a discussion made possible as Mollie has German as a third language; and in that context she had some grasp of the social issues: grievances that existed in Germany in the 1930's as a consequence of the Great Depression, weaknesses that Hitler was able to exploit, to which I added, the deep-seated resentment over the settlement that was imposed on Germany at the end of the First World War. But she was truly surprised when going further, I suggested that the Second World War was "ideological" So I had to tell her of the driving force that lay behind Hitler's ambition, and in the end, proved his undoing, when he launched his ill-fated attack on Stalin: the desire to create a Reich, or Empire, that would last a thousand years.

What I had hoped to achieve in a discussion that was not China centred, was to help Mollie to see the reasonableness of the idea, that we are our brother's keeper, and to convey something of the potential foolishness in ignoring the gross abuse of human rights in another country in the belief that it has nothing to do with us. So to that end I gave her a copy of the famous poem by Pastor Niemoller; who, as I pointed out, in the first instance, was a supporter of Hitler, believing that he was a true patriot, that is, until he came to recognize the enormity of the evil that he represented:

  "First they came for the Jews
      And I did not speak out -
      Because I was not a Jew
.
Then they came for the communists
      And I did not speak out -
   Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
      And I did not speak out -
   Because I was not a trade unionist.

      Then they came for me -
     And there was no one left
        To speak out for me."

And in respect of the totalitarian state that is China, what I was hoping to convey, was the wisdom of the dictum that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." And I went further, and sought to make more personal, the plight of the victims of the abuse of power in totalitarian regimes, by turning things around. "Imagine" I asked Mollie, "what it would mean to me, if imprisoned in a Chinese style Laogai [forced labour prison camp], word somehow reached me that people in China knew of my plight and were concerned for me!"

Now returning to Eric X. Li, an important aspect of the challenge that he represents, is that he has the capacity to make us feel uncomfortable, not just by confronting us with perspectives that we are not familiar with, but also, by an assertiveness that allows him, sometimes, to represent contestable utterances as though they were facts. Why? Because more often than not, (unless we take the trouble to be informed), our view of China is coloured from being on the outside looking in. And even allowing for the fact that he is a propagandist, and an apologist, not just for a totalitarian state, but for the crushing of the student protest in Tiananmen Square, it would be foolish to conclude that he has nothing relevant, or worthwhile to say, or that we would gain nothing from confronting the issues as he represents them. He has plenty to say, on a range of subjects, to list but a few: on  Mao Zedong in The Founding Father. On the Internet and its use in China, in, Globalization 2.0: China's Parallel Internet. On China's global ambitions, or lack of them, as the case might be, in, The Middle Kingdom and the Coming World Disorder, and what he sees as China's global diplomatic prowess, in, China's Ukranian Opportunity - Killing A Few Birds Without Throwing A Single Stone.

That said, for me, there is something especially objectionable about the well healed, and especially the well connected, telling the not so well healed, and not so well connected, regardless of their attainments, or aspirations, what it is permissible for them to think, or feel, or aspire to know about, because those who have the power, know what is best for them. And especially when, from the Party's point of view, it is obvious that the chips are down.

And there is something especially obnoxious about an assertion, that is unproven and unproveable, and made at the expense of the dead, that China is a better place than it otherwise would have been, for the crushing of student protests in Tiananmen Square.

As for the Communist Party having a proven capacity to reinvent itself, so as always to know and be appropriately responsive to the nations interest, it is hard to treat such a self-serving utterance, from such a quarter, as a surprise. For it fits a mindset, one that attributes the cause of corruption to a divergence of view, in previous dynasties, as to what it means to be a public servant: something that the Party can fix; (6a) when in truth, we know that greed, envy, and the lust for power, are ageless qualities that belong to the less noble side of the human condition, and have the potential to wreck, not just lives, but economies also. It was unfettered greed, in the financial markets, that brought about this most recent recession. And if, as some people think, another recessions is on the way, it might well have the capacity to wreck, not just Western economies, but the much trumpeted Chinese economy, the astonishing success of which is based on cheaply produced exports to global markets. Nothing, for any of us, is guaranteed

As for the democratic process, and its lack of moral worth; (1a) since when was moral worth measured in percentages? Whatever its shortcomings in practice, and there are plenty, the moral worth of the democratic process rests in what it stands for, and what it offers the citizen, who has the freedom, as of right, to participate in it or not, and the right to have their voice heard, even when they object. And perhaps its greatest strength, and safeguard, is that its leaders know that they are accountable, to the people who elected them, and that they can be got rid of by the people they serve, as we have seen most recently in Taiwan.

Now in a previous blog, China: Refusing to Forget - part 1: written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, I documented under a number of headings, a series of human rights abuses current in China, that are of international concern. They were: (1) "Harry Wu and the Laogai, China's system of slave labour". As a young man Harry Wu spent 19 years in just such a prison camp, and now living in America, has established the Laogai Research Foundation  (2) Civil liberties and the Chinese constitution, with the sub heading, More repressive legislation post Tiananmen. (3) Desmund Tutu and Cheng Guancheng [a blind lawyer exiled from China] call on world leaders to help bring an end to repression in China and in particular to the laogai system of oppression.  (4) Human rights, China and the 2008 Olympic Games. (5) Friends from the press,  [the opening words from an address to journalist by Xi Jinping in 2012] which they interpreted, not for what on the face of it they seemed, but as a salutary warning to anyone who thought that China under Xi Jinping was about to embark on a new and more liberal era. (6)  Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08. A literary critic and university teacher and veteran campaigner on civil liberties, who, in 2009 was sentenced to eleven years in prison on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power"  and two years deprivation of political rights. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, it was presented in absentia. And while he is in prison, his wife lives under what in effect is house arrest in Beijing. And (7) Gao Yu: a veteran civil liberties campaigner, age 70, whom the authorities were forced to admit had been "criminally detained" in April of this year, and who was "deeply remorseful". Then in May, and with the whereabouts of her son still unknown, (he was also unaccounted for around the time that she was detained), she appeared on CCTV in an orange jump suit confessing her crimes to a policeman. What she had done was to leak an internal Communist Party document given to her by a former school friend, in which it was proposed that the party should ignore the human rights agenda and concentrate exclusively on the economic front

Gao Yu  is currently on trial on a charge of leaking state secrets, at which she has retracted her earlier confession, stating that it was made under duress. And the fact that the trial has to do with state secrets, is the justification given for excluding journalists from covering the trial. And if found guilty, she faces the prospect of life in prison. Report here. And lastly, (8) the death penalty. And elsewhere, in China: Refusing to Forget - part 2, I deal with with the one child policy and its consequences.

All of that said, what Eric X  Li represents for me, is the more sophisticated face of China's propaganda war, a face that is personable, confident, brash, informed, and well prepared. And the task? to try to set the agenda, and in particular to steer the public debate on China away from the human rights agenda. And on that front, the omens at this point in time are not looking good.

So before I leave the last word to a new voice, allow me to quote that portion of the salutary warning, that was given by Reporters Without Borders:

"In a speech shortly after his appointment as communist party general secretary in November 2012, Xi Jinping addressed journalists directly. "Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world."

"Woe to any journalist", they wrote, "who thought he was saying "Describe China's stark realities" when what he really mean was "Follow the Party's propaganda to the letter!" Since the speech, the authorities have arrested more journalists and bloggers, cracked down harder on cyber-dissidents, reinforced online content control and censorship and stepped up restrictions on the foreign media."

As for a new voice, it is that of Carrie Gracie, China Editor for the BBC, whose credentials in respect of China are impeccable, and whose perception in respect of civil liberties, seems to fit with the concerns expressed in the above named blog, and by Reporters Without Borders. In a comprehensive article entitled: The Credo: Great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, (7th November 2014), she writes at length on the character and objectives of China's President, Xi Jinping. Under the section headed, Widespread Censorship, she writes;

"But on the mainland [as opposed to the views expressed by the President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou] discussion of universal values is censored, along with civil society, citizens rights, judicial independence and freedom of the press.

"In fact, one notable feature of  Xi Jinping's politics is to close down the number of people who are allowed to discuss politics.

"In the two years since he came to power, the red lines for dissent have shifted, the space for any alternative discourse has narrowed.

"Many lawyers and academics who were once tolerated, even encouraged, are now in jail.

"At a forum for writers and artists in October, Mr XI made a point of applauding the work of a blogger famous for championing the "China dream", in contrast to the "broken American dream.""

A political dream for China, that she describes as, "a rejuvenated authoritarianism". And if her assessment of Mr Xi is accurate, there is nothing to indicate that he is likely to stray from his chosen path, or buckle under pressure.

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© Cormac E. McCloskey
     
Note:  1.  The profile sketch of Eric X. Li is based on the following websites:. TED, Huffington Post, New York Times: Worldremit: What It Means to Be a Rising Public Intellectual in China, by Damien Ma, The All Roads Lead to China website, Quora, and the Bergguen Institute On Governance.

2   Unless otherwise stated, the articles listed below, and taken from the Huffington Post website, were used in the preparation of this blog:
A tale of two political systems: (Video recording and text from the TED website)
Why China's Political Model Is Superior (The New York Times, February 16th 2012):
1a   Globalization 2.0: Democracy the Beautifula
2a   Globalization 2 0: A century for Sale, Any takers ?
3a   Globalization 2.0: China's Parallel Internet
4a   The Founding Father [On Mao Zedong]
5a   Bo Xilai and China's Future
6a   Saints or Thieves - Corruption and the Chinese Dilemma
7a   From Renaissance to Renaissance
8a   The Middle Kingdom and the Coming World Disorder
9a   The Invasion of Hong Kong - the Law, Maids, and Locusts
10a The Umbrella Protesters Are Wrong: China Is Abidinb by Hong Kong's Basic Law
11a Toward a New Equilibrium: China Before the 18th Party Congress (by Wang Wen)
12a  Authoritarian Art
13a  China's Ukranian Opportunity - Killing A Few Birds Without Throwing A Single Stone

"Mollie" Animal Farm by George Orwell
Carrie Gracie profile -  here
Note: The sentence that reads: "And elsewhere, in China: Refusing to Forget - part 2, I deal with with the one child policy and its consequences." was added on 1st December 2014.

CHINA: Behind the Great Wall

                                                     ____________________   

Looking back, (I was 17 at the time), I recall standing by the waters edge on Chain Memorial Road in Larne, and thinking about my religious faith. I was a Roman Catholic, and there was no ambiguity, either about the authority of the church, or the role that it was intended to play in all our lives. It was the church, founded by Christ, entrusted to the care of St. Peter and his successors, and, if properly embraced, accepted, and entered into, it was a sure-fire route to heaven. 

At the time there was a full sun in the sky, and I was trying to make sense of how God works in the world, and I had no illusions. I knew that the faith to which I was committed, I had inherited from my parents, and though I was happy with that, what concerned me, was the rest of the world. And perhaps, because the sun was so high in the sky, and it was especially hot, my thoughts turned to India. I knew nothing about India, beyond the fact that it was vast, and that religion as practiced there was quite different from my Irish Catholicism. So, where in the context of truth, did that leave me, and God? 

This same thought process, (which is one of concern for others,) occupied the mind of the French Philosopher Simone Weil. After she had accepted Christ, but before she consented to being baptised in extremis, by her friend Simone Deitz, (1), she went so far as to write a book about it: "Intimations of Christianity Among The Greeks." For she believed that if Christianity was what she believed it to be, there had to be evidence of it in the world, prior to the time of Christ.

Well I never plumbed those intellectual depths, but I did come to a conclusion: that what was relevant in my case, was, that I was born in Ireland, and not in India, hence my inheritance; and, that however diverse the religious of India were, I was not required to know the mind of God, and still less, to explain to others.

Now it is in this broad context of what is truth, and how in the face of that truth, God works in a diverse world, that I want to share with you, three remarkable moments recalled by Chai Ling in her autobiography,  "A Hart For Freedom". The first is of how, as a young schoolgirl, with an ill-defined sense of the spiritual, she prayed; a remarkable event, given that she was brought up to believe that religion was "poison". The second, and with a decidedly prophetic feel to it, is the story told to her by Wang, a chemistry student whom she came to know while at university in Beijing. And lastly, of her experience when the Buddhist family with whom she and Feng, (her husband), were staying, realized that they were in trouble: on China's most wanted list, and actively being hunted down for their involvement in the 1989 student protests in Tienanmen Square.
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The Temple of Heaven: Beijing. Traditionally

a place of prayer for good harvests

                                                     

In a chapter entitled "Make Me An Extraordinary Child!" Chai Ling recalls her reaction after seeing a fellow pupil on the receiving end of a violent kicking by their maths teacher, and the story is best not abbreviated:

"One day during maths class, the teacher assigned us some exercises to work on independently and then walked out of the room. I finished the assignment quickly and began looking around for something to occupy my attention. In the pencil box of a boy seated nearby, I saw a dried sea horse with a big, round belly and an almost perfectly round tail curling down. I asked the boy to hand it over so I could play with it, but he wanted a pencil in return. Just as we were haggling over the trade, the teacher opened the door and came back in.
   "Who has broken the discipline?" he shouted. "Stand up, come up to the lectern, and talk if you have something to say!"
   I immediately bowed my head, not daring to move an inch.
   Seeing we weren't responding, the teacher burst out like a fire doused with gasoline. Dragging my classmate out of his seat, he kicked him up to the lectern. As the boy struggled to his feet, the teacher punched and kicked him down again. I was scared out of my wits. I couldn't imagine how this teacher was going to deal with me next. By this point, all the kids had stopped their exercises and were looking on. Between the teacher's explosion of fury, there was utter silence in the room. I wanted to slip through a crack in the floor. Thankfully, the teacher didn't raise a hand against me. Instead, he gave me a furious glare and turned his attention back to my cowering classmate, who was still lying on the floor at the front of the room.
   In a sharp, shrill voice, the teacher bellowed at the boy, "You'll never amount to anything, you dog! You're up to your tricks all day, and you won't listen, no matter what! There's a saying that goes, "You can teach first-class pupils with your eyes; with second-class people, you need the lips; but with third-class people, only a whip will work." You remember that, now go!"
   With that, he kicked the boy again and sent him scrambling back to his seat.
   Though I was glad to have escaped such humiliation, I was shocked by what the teacher had said. In my heart, I swore to myself, I'm not going to wait for someone to use a whip on me like that!
   On my way to school the next day, the air was thick and oppressive, as it usually is before a storm. At the horizon, I couldn't distinguish the sky from the earth. As I walked alone on the empty, quiet road, the phrase "You'll never amount to anything" swirled about in my head. Gradually, an idea came into my mind: you must become someone extraordinary. 
   At that moment my muddy thoughts became clear and bright, as if a magic force between the earth and the sky had brought me a revelation. As I continued on my way, I silently recited my new mantra: "Be an extraordinary person."
   That day in language class, I wrote a long essay as soon as I picked up my pen. When I turned it in, the teacher sighed happily and told all the students to put down their pens and listen as he read my essay aloud. Then, without saying a word, he gazed at me deeply. I was embarrassed and bashful at this sudden glory, but after that long stare from the teacher, I understood the meaning of "teaching with the eyes." In his gaze there was nurturing, hope, praise, delight and expectation - and it planted an aspiration deep in my heart.
   That night, after dinner, I took advantage of the general chaos in the house to sneak into my parents' bedroom and latch the door behind me. Kneeling in front of the big mirror on the wall, I closed my eyes, pressed my hands together, and prayed. "Dear God, please help me to be an extraordinary child. Thank you!" I had never been to church, or seen a Bible, or prayed before. I had only read the word God in a foreign novel.  We had been taught religion was poison, but the people in the novel prayed, so I decided to try it too. I was a little embarrassed. When I was done, I saw in the mirror the face of a pious and sincere child.
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"During the registration for my workshop, in the noisy and crowded student government office, I met a young man - his family name was Wang - whose quiet presence stood out among the clamo[u]r. A chemistry student who also excelled in the martial arts. Wang was several years older and of average height and build, and  possessed an unusual aura of peace and calm, which I found very soothing. He soon opened a world to me I had never known before: faith in God. This was another taboo in China., where all forms of spiritual belief were condemned as capitalism's poison to the working-class soul.
  Wang told me he had spent the previous summer travelling by bicycle along the Yellow River, the birthplace of our ancient civilization. He had wanted to see the lives and culture of the Chinese heartland with his own eyes. On his journey through six provinces, he came upon a mountain village so poor that no woman could marry into it. When the local girls reached the age of matrimony, they left the village to marry elsewhere. No one in the village knew how to read, and the villagers clothed themselves in rags. It shocked Wang to see such dire poverty.
   When the people heard that a college student had wandered into their midst, a village elder gathered everyone, young and old, into a small mud hut and invited Wang to join them. As everyone stood around a tiny oil lamp, the elder brought out a bundle wrapped in black cloth. Slowly, with trembling hands, he unfolded the cloth, one layer at a time, until it revealed an old Bible. The pages were wrinkled and yellow.
   The old man told Wang that many years before, an American missionary had left the Bible before he was driven out of China by Mao's liberation. Because none of the remaining villagers knew how to read, when they gathered to secretly worship, they simply passed the Bible around, hand to hand, and each person was allowed to touch it once. In this way, they received the presence of God. Still, they longed to know what was in the Bible, and they prayed for someone who would read it to them. When Wang showed up, they were overjoyed and said their prayers had been answered. Wang had no idea what they were talking about, but he was happy to oblige their request.
   With all eyes on him, he read the Word of God as the people listened intently. He said it was as if they had all fallen into a trance. No one moved or left. Wang, too, felt the special bond these people shared. Without feeling tired, he kept reading late into the night. Each time he paused, the peasants begged him for more. Before he knew it, the rooster was crowing, and the peasants went out to work in the fields. Wang took a nap. After sunset, the peasants returned, and Wang continued reading to them.
   After several days, Wang had to resume his trip in order to be back at school in time. The entire village turned out to see him off. They presented him with a large sack of sweet potatoes and would not let him leave without it. It was the best they could offer him from their village. Although Wang had many more miles to cover before he returned to Beijing, and he gave up many things along the way to lighten his load, he carried the sack of sweet potatoes on the back of his bicycle all the way home.
   When Wang told me this story, I felt like one of those villagers who had longed to hear the Word of God. Though religion was outlawed in China when I was growing up, to me it was neither foreign nor intimidating. As I listed to Wang, I was strongly attracted to that powerful spiritual force. How much I wanted to be a part of those people who had such a stron devotion. I also realised I was strongly attracted to Wang and his peaceful demeanor. In my longing for love, I developed a huge, secret crush on him. But unlike Carmen, who could be so open with her emotions, I was shy and buried my feelings deep within. In my mind, Wang was like Apollo, shining and mysterious - someone I could admire but not get close to."

__________

"We travelled by bus to the edge of the South China Sea. I had never travelled this far from home. When we stepped off the bus, the sun was high in the sky and gleamed on the water. The gentle breeze smelled of the ocean. People wore summer shorts and shirts and sandals. Palm trees rustled in the breeze. It was heavenly. We really felt like students from the North on summer break, which was how we described ourselves to people who offered us places to stay. In our thick spring jackets and long black trousers, we looked like northerners, out of place among the locals.
   By sundown, we had found a place to stay, and I was able to take my first shower in days. I was relaxing under a flow of warm water when Feng burst into the bathroom and told me to come out right away. He and our hosts had been watching Hong Kong TV, and Feng had seen an image of my face on the screen, accompanied by the audio of my June 8 statement. This was followed by scenes of the massacre, most of which were new to me because I had been on the Square when the killings on Ghsng'an Avenue took place. I watched in horror as the cameras showed people rushing a flat cart with a bleeding body on it to the hospital. I shook involuntarily, I wanted to cry out, but I forced myself not to scream.
   That night, I was filled with pain and agony for the families of the dead and injured. The pain found expression in an old toothache that flared up and vibrated like a drumbeat in my head, keeping me awake all night long. By the time dawn broke, a stubborn question had emerged: Why am I still alive?
   It was a Sunday, and our host couple were still asleep. Their son, who looked to be in his late twenties, had arisen early and was seated in the middle of the living room floor, meditating. When we came in, he stopped what he was doing and engaged us in conversation.
   "How was your sleep?" he asked me. "You looked troubled last night. Is everything okay?"
   This young man radiated a peaceful calm, and I sensed I could trust him. I sat on the bamboo sofa, shook my head, and briefly told him what was on my mind. It felt so bad, I said, to be a survivor after what I had seen on TV. Now that I knew how many people had died, I felt so guilty. "Why did I get to live?"
   "I understand why you might feel that way," he said, looking at me with a spirit of tranquility. "In the Buddhist world, we are all born with a special mission. The people who died may have finished their mission in this life, and they are now in heaven. Your job is not yet done. That is why you are still alive."
   His words soothed my aching heart. Your mission is not yet done. With one sentence, he lifted me from utter confusion and grief to a new vision. Buddhism opened a new world to me.
   "Please tell us more," I said.
   "In this world we believe in reincarnation. All material things are fabrications. They do not last, and they are not of any importance. Money, material stuff, our flesh, our looks. What is really lasting, what endures, is our souls, which are our real selves. We have to nurture our souls every day through meditation and care."
   "That is so different from what I learned when I was growing up," I said. "We were encouraged to study matters having to do with the real world, like physics. We were never educated in matters of the soul. How is this different from Christianity?"
   "That's a really good question," he said. "I'm not qualified to give you an answer. I believe that somehow Buddhism and Christianity become one and the same at the highest level of understanding."
    As I looked at his serene expression, I marveled that he was so tranquil. He knew the kind of trouble we were in and that it could effect him and his family if we were caught.
   "Why are you doing this?" I asked him directly. "Why are you risking your safety to protect us?"
   "Oh that," he said with a smile. "I watched you students on TV during the demonstrations. If I had been the person I once was - in the world - I would have joined you on the streets. But I am committed to the world of the spirit now. I have decided never to marry or have children. Worldly things such a politics are no longer my concern. Buddhists don't involve themselves much in the real world. But you came under my care, and it is my responsibility to save you. There is a reason why we met. Perhaps, in one of our past lives, we shared a long journey, perhaps something else. Either way, we are bound together by this unusual situation. In our world, saving one life is the highest form of worship."
   "I want to know more about your world," I said.
   "Well," he continued with a certain excitement, "each life is an independent spirit. After the body dies, the spirit goes on living. It leaves the body, finds life, and is reborn. It may be reborn as a cow or as a person. It really depends on the situation."
   I was drawn to this new realm of the spirit, as if it were touching a hidden part of me.
   Feng too, was interested, and we came to call this peaceful young man Big Brother. He became our spiritual master, teaching us how to sit and meditate, how to practice tai chi, and how to take in the energy of the sun, the wind, and the universe and put it into our bellies. Soon, Feng, Big Brother and I were chanting together in unison, "Wong ma ni ma mi hong wong ma mihong" (In English, "May all the evil stay away")."
__________

Soon after their true identity had become known, Feng and Ling were separated, and over a period of ten months, moved between safe houses, before, (and at considerable risk to all involved), being smuggled out of China and into Hong Kong, then a British protectorate. And as Chai Ling tells us, this practice of meditation helped her to cope with the enforced idleness in their months of captivity.
__________

Cormac E. McCloskey

(1) Spirit, Nature and Community:
Issues in the thought of Simone Weil
by Diognes Allen and Eric O. Springsted
State University Of New York Press (1994)
ISBN 0-7914-2018-3

A Heart For Freedom
by Chai Ling.
Tyndale House Publishers, inc. Illinois. 2011
ISBN 978-1-4143-6485-8

Chia Ling is actively involved in opposing and helping those affected by China's one child policy - here

CHINA: Refusing to Forget - part 2

"In the twenty first century, America will have no relationship more important than its relationship with China. Our leaders must have their eyes wide open and know whom they're dealing with as they build this relationship. The best way to protect America is to help transform China into a peaceful and benevolent society. Respect for basic human rights, the freedom to worship, rule of law, and free media are all part of that necessary transformation. Still, the true transformation of China will not be political or social; it will be a transformation of the heart . . . "
                                                                                              Chai Ling


      When I had finished reading, A Heart For Freedom, by Chai Ling; and notwithstanding the discussion that would have taken place beforehand; I found myself taking issue with the title of this book. For what struck me about Ling, in this extraordinary story, was her capacity to love; a love that finds its fullness when, towards the conclusion of her story, she commits her life to Christ. But I understood, that when it comes to publishing and the marketplace, things are not that straightforward, which was why I thought I could see the hand of the editor, in the word "FREEDOM", emblazoned in the title and set against the iconic image of the young man, with his bag of shopping, defiantly holding up the progress of a column of tanks, through Beijing. But, from the editor's point of view, why not? For central to this story are the peaceful student protests of 1989, that began in Tiananmen Square, before spreading to other cities in China; and which, in the end, were put down without mercy. But for me and echoing Saint Augustine, a more appropriate title would have been, A Hart For Love. And yes, set against this same iconic image. And in this context, I must leave it to Chai Ling to explain why love matters.

Invited to a conference in Oslo in Norway on the theme "The Anatomy of Hate", this is how she describes her contribution:

"When it was my turn to speak, I said we are born with a good sense of right and wrong, and as children we know the difference between love and hate. When we are brainwashed, however, and hate takes on a moral justification - for example, "It is right to hate an enemy of the state" - the boundary between love and hate becomes blurred. Violence and hatred accelerate because we aren't equipped with the necessary constraints. This was the essence of the Tiananmen massacre, when the leadership and the army jumped the boundary with the excuse that they were "protecting the country" to cover their wrongdoing. It never would have happened, I said, if the Chinese people had been allowed to listen to the truth instead of government propaganda. I concluded by saying that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are essential foils to the free reign of pure hatred." (p.237)

Now there was nothing in Chai Ling's childhood that would have prepared her for such a conclusion. Both her parents were doctors in the People's Liberation Army; and on that account spent long periods away from home. In one instance, almost a year, in response to the devastating earthquake in Tangshan in 1976. So the most important formative influence in her young life, was Grandma:

"Her face had many wrinkles, and her tiny body had withered with age, but hidden within her small frame was the heart of a hardworking, enduring tireless woman. The veins that stood out like blue ropes on the backs of her hands were a testimony to years of manual labour in the fields. . . She had married Grandpa at a young age and gave birth to seven surviving children, often returning to the fields within days of delivery.

"As with many traditional Chinese women, the years of hard labour and subsistence living had left Grandma with a strong set of values and traditions. Because Grandpa had died of starvation during the three-year famine in the late 1950s, Grandma was extremely careful not to waste food. She never started a meal when we did, but would wait for us to finish and then eat our leftovers She got up early every morning at five o'clock when my parents did their calisthenics, and began to make breakfast, wash clothes, and straighten up the house. She often went tottering about on her bound feet to gather twigs and leaves for kindling. On bone-chilling winter mornings, we would see her form rising and falling in the grey mist; and when she returned with an armful of sticks, her silvery-gray hair, which normally was combed neatly and coiled up into a bun, was blown down all over her forehead." (p.5)

She had, we are told, a heart full of "mercy and kindness" towards the less fortunate, after which, Ling recounts that moment of pure joy and youthful transformation, that she saw in Grandma when she told her that she was going to Peking University.

Nor were her parents overtly political; nor did they convey, if they had witnessed it, any sense of the dark side of Communism. But when Ling finally plucked up the courage to tell her father that she wasn't going to join the Communist Youth League; or Party, in the bitter tirade that followed, she also had to admit to not having studied the works of Mao. At that, and as Ling describes it, it becomes all too apparent, that her father was acutely sensitive to the expectations and possible consequences, for families within the People's Liberation Army, who did not behave as expected, that is, display a total commitment to Communism, and in particular, to the thoughts of Chairman Mao.

Except that the stakes were so high, this might have been any row between parents and a teenage child. But the stakes were high, with her father laying down the law, and Ling overwrought by the onslaught, but still refusing to concede to her father's wishes; and mother, doing her heroic best, to restore calm and order. But, on this occasion, there was to be no meeting of minds. Not only did Ling not comply with her father's wishes, but instead, rearranged her study program so as to get away from home a year earlier than planned, and all on account of a teacher recently arrived at her school. "What's so special about Party members anyway?" Ling angrily asked her father, before defiantly holding up the example of Mrs Qian who, though not a Party member, was, in her view, far better than many who were:

". . . Her name was Mrs Qian, and she soon became my best friend, mentor, and enlightened instructor. It was she who helped me learn to think for myself. A few afternoons each week, I stopped by her house after school for a heart-to-heart talk. Gradually I came to know her unusual life story, how she had fallen from a prestigious family in Beijing to our remote village in Shandong." (p.20)

Over four pages Chai Ling documents the misfortunes that befell this capitalist family, after 1949, and particularly during the Cultural Revolution, that began in 1966, a fate encapsulated in this encounter:

   "One afternoon when I entered Mrs Qian's courtyard gate, I ran into a man dressed like a peasant, his dark face wrinkled like a walnut. He was not quite standing and not quite sitting outside the house, smoking a cigarette. He reminded me of the country people I often saw at the bus stop, the ones the city people made fun of for their backward ways and appearance.
   After the man had left, Mrs Qian said to me, somewhat uncomfortably, "That is the father of my children. He fixed a tractor for the production team today and stopped by to see the kids because he was in the neighbourhood. Don't pay attention to what he looks like now: twenty years ago when he was an air force pilot, he was really handsome and had a great spirit."" (p.21)

After which she tells us that:

   "Dumbfounded I watched the stooped-over man hobble off into the distance. I couldn't for the life of me relate him to the Mrs Qian I knew. I'll never forget the image of that man; it was as if life had squeezed him dry of the spirit of vigour and youth. What kind of force could do such a frightening thing?" (p.22)
___________

In the four years that she was at university, Ling tells us that she managed to "steer clear of anything that resembled political activity" and the reason was unsurprising:

"In my newfound freedom I still had not completely escaped my father's sphere of control and protection. Somewhere in my subconscious lurked the fear that getting involved in politics would endanger my loved ones. Memories of my grandmother's pale face reminded me from time to time of the risk of wandering into dangerous territory . . ." 

But politics apart the picture that she paints of her time at Beida, (a pet name for the university), is idyllic:

". . . The lake, the bell tower at the top of a little hill, and the gardens that flower year-round give Beida a feeling of secluded peace and privilege. In such an idyllic setting, it was hard for any young student not to feel the zest of enthusiasm. The Triangle was the heart of campus, the place where, all day long, students' paths crossed on the way to class, to the dining hall, or to exercise. And it was there at the Triangle we encountered a blizzard of postings for lectures by famous visitors, English contests, sporting events, weekend dances, musical performances, film showings, and flyers for the occasional demonstration or local election. The bewildering array of announcements gave a newcomer the sense of a campus bursting with fresh life . . ."

In this environment she flourished and became, she tells us: "the real young woman I was created to be: radiant, active, curious, trusting and full of zest."

It was Mrs Qian who first introduced her to the life and work of the Nobel prize winning scientist, Madame Curie; and wanting to emulate her, Ling applied herself assiduously to study, in the hope that at university, she would be allowed to study physics. But for reasons that she explains, this wasn't possible, nor was she allowed to follow her preferred second subject, psychology, but instead, was assigned to geology. But such was her resolve, (she had participated fully, though unofficially, in the psychology course for two years), that the authorities were persuaded, and she was allowed to transfer to psychology. And the reasons why this matters in understanding who Ling is, runs deep.

Having first explained why, during the Cultural Revolution, and on Mao's instruction, the study of psychology was banned, and the psychology lectures sent to work among peasants as an aid to "thought reform", she has this to say on the significance of the change, for her:

"The lectures on Maslow's hierarchy of needs opened up a whole new dimension to me. During my growing-up-years, my parents had exemplified devotion and discipline. They subordinated their personal needs and sacrificed their lives for a cause larger than life: the nation and its people. They were my role models, together with a cultural icon named Lei Feng, whose sacrificial service to the army and China was highly praised throughout the country, and they had instilled in me a belief in these ideals. But I could never truly relate to them. At Beida, I discovered a theory that addressed human psychological needs. I began to understand that we had a need for physical safety and well-being, but also for love and belonging, esteem and what Maslow called self-actualization, or realizing ones full potential.
   "This was extraordinary/ Never before had I questioned my fundamental beliefs. I had grown up in a system that had divided people into opposite categories: good or bad, red or black, hero or enemy. Things were either right or wrong, there was no middle ground. These new psychological theories fascinated me. As I began to question the assumptions that had formed who I was, I realized that there might be more than just two sides to human behaviour. I wanted to learn more by declaring a major in psychology." (p.36). 

Now not withstanding the care that Ling had taken not to become involved in politics, in the end, and after she had graduated, she married Feng. She first came across him in 1987 outside the library talking to other students, and she kept listening until there was just the two of them; and Feng was a revolutionary.

"All sense of time vanished. My curiosity and admiration seemed to encourage him to talk more. Though I could never have imagined we would soon be lovers and destined to marry and lead a student revolution. I was attracted to his spirit - sincere, pure, and brave." (pp.60-61)

At the time there had been tensions on the campus over the arrest of thirty-six students who had been campaigning for open elections, and when a permit to demonstrate, as required, had been refused this fledgling democracy movement went ahead and protested in Tiananmen Square; and one of them was Feng.

__________

Now as it has never been my intention in this blog, to discuss in any detail, the events that took place in Tiananmen Square; but rather to try to create a sense of who Chai Ling is, before turning to an aspect of her autobiography that puzzled me, I can't just change direction without a paragraph on Tiananmen and its consequences. And while my focus is on Ling, I am mindful that hundreds of thousands of others were involved in the protests, many hundreds, if not thousands of whom were slaughtered. And slaughter is a wholly appropriate word to use, in respect of those students and others, who, when fleeing along Chang'an Avenue were pursued by tanks and crushed to death as they fled.

When Ling married Feng in 1988 what she most wanted was a career, and to live happily with Feng. But without either intending, or wanting it, over the weeks of protest in 1989, she surfaced as a leader: in the first instance as Commander in Chief of those on hunger strike; and at the point where the protests were at their most fraught, and though there was a standing committee: the Defend Tiananmen Square Headquarters, Ling became Commander in Chief for the Square. As Commander in Chief for the hunger strikers, her task was primarily to ensure their safety: to see that there were a sufficient number of students to protect them from being attacked; and a safe means of evacuating them to hospital where it was necessary. And the numbers were never stable. At first there were a few hundred on hunger strike, and by the end, the numbers were in the thousands. And as the title suggest, as Commander in Chief of the Square, she was the leader and recognizable figure when it came to negotiations with officials, maintaining order and advising the vast crowd as to what was actually happening, as opposed to the fear and confusion that was inevitable and generated by rumour and deliberate misinformation. It was a period fraught with danger for everyone, the chief of which, was that the students might unwittingly provide the army with an excuse to attack them. But, there were other less obvious dangers for Ling, as, on 3 June, the final military assault on Tiananmen Square got underway:

"Around eleven o'clock at night, [June 3rd] after another peaceful day, a young man burst into the headquarters tent, shouting, "They're really shooting!"He instantly had our full attention. "We were all in a line," he continued, "holding each other's arms. Ping was standing next to me. He was telling me how tired he was after several days without any sleep. I saw a flash. Then I heard a crack over where the soldiers were. Ping fell down. I kicked him, laughing. "Don't fool around like that," I said. "You can sleep after tonight."  He didn't answer."
   The young man's mouth was wide open. His face was set with tears. "I reached down to get him up, and" - his hands formed a big circle - "he was dead. He had a huge hole in his back."
   Around midnight news of other casualties in other parts of the city became more frequent. One worker broke into the tent and pointed a gun at me. "Chai Ling," he shouted, "so many of my fellow workers have died to protect you students. If you withdraw from the Square, I'll shoot you. And I'll shoot you if you don't ask students to arm themselves and join the fight too."
   No sooner had I calmed him down than another student came in. This one had a knife which he pointed at me. "Chai Ling, so many students are being killed . . . . I'm going to cut your throat if you don't order the students to leave."
   Growing up I was trained to speak softly and treat people gently, as befits a humble Chinese woman. But I was fed up with taking this kind of abuse. I stood up and pressed my body against his knife. "Go ahead," I said, "cut my throat now." This surprised him and he paused for a second, looking into my eyes. Then a weird grin stole over his face and he fled." (p.185).

__________

Now something that perplexed me while reading Ling's autobiography, was the candour with which she wrote about her personal experience of abortions, and especially as I knew from the inset photographs, that she had a young family. But as I am not one to skip pages so as to satisfy my curiosity ahead of schedule, I kept reading, and wondering, until in the closing chapters it became clear that what Ling was disclosing, about herself, was a truth inextricably linked to Tiananmen Square, and to what the students had hope to change: the character of a government, and a system, that besides being corrupt, is, in some fundamental respects, inhuman. It is a full disclosure, that came only after a good deal of though, confiding in others, anguish, and prayer, (and the asking for a sign from God), as to what she should do; and the knowledge that her husband Bob, in whom she had confided, (and who, to begin with, had understandable concerns), would support her, whatever she choose to do.

For me, this aspect of the story was an unexpected turn of events, and a twist that forced me to think about China's one child policy, in all its starkness, as never before. Because what Chai Ling does, in telling the whole truth, is to make the connection between the implementation of the one child policy, abortion, and gendercide. And the story that she has to tell is truly shocking.

What brought the question of abortion to the fore in Ling's consciousness, was the testimony given by Wujian, at a Senate hearing on China's forced abortion policy, at which she was present. And it is in the context of that policy, that we must accept Ling's later statement, that when living in China, she never had a concept of when life began  And even if you have a strong stomach, as I have, like me, you might well find Ling's description of Wujian's testimony, disturbing:

"The hearing chaired by Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, a devout Christian and longtime opponent of  China's forced abortion policies, and human rights violations, included testimony from Reggie Littlejohn, as well as witnesses such as Harry Wu, who is well known for his fight against laogai - the forced labour system in China; a human rights lawyer from Shangdong Province, who testified about ongoing abuse; the leader of the Uighurs, an oppressed minority in China; and Wujian, a victim of forced abortion. I was not prepared for her testimony.

"When Wujian became pregnant before she had received a birth permit to have a child, she tried to hide her pregnancy in hopes of avoiding a forced abortion. But the family planning officials in her county beat and tortured her father, forcing her to choose one life over another - her father's or her baby's. When they discovered her hiding place, she was dragged into a hospital for an abortion. After one shot, the baby stopped moving, but somehow remained inside her, raising Wujian's hopes that her baby might survive the toxic shots and live. But on the third day before Wujian realized what was happening, she was taken to an operating room and scissors were inserted into her body, cutting her baby to pieces. Above her helpless cries, all she could hear was the sound of the scissors. At last, the doctor pulled out a small baby foot, with five fully formed toes the size of corn kernels. The picture was forever seared into Wujian's mind. At the moment of her baby's death, part of Wujian's life was gone forever."

A testimony that brought an inner cry of anguish from Ling:

"When she reached this point in her testimony, my heart was broken with pain and sadness, for Wujian and her helpless child and for every mother and unborn baby in China. Her shocking report of cruelty brought back memories of the helplessness and pain I had felt during the June 4 massacre. That night was so brutal, yet we had no strength to stop it, and the rest of the world could not stop it either."  (pp.286-87)

Now a consequence of Ling finally telling the whole truth, about her experiences of abortion, was that it helped other women from China, who for years, had lived with feelings of guilt and shame, to unburden themselves; while at a practical level, it led to the setting up of  All Girls Allowed.

"Terror" and "torment", are the words that Ling uses to describe life under the one child policy, and in that context, statistics, taken in isolation, are wholly inadequate. But, quote them I must; and as they are not all at one point in the narrative, I am summarizing them here.:

1   The combined ages of a couple wanting to marry in China has to be 48
2   Though married, a birth permit will not be granted until the wife is 25
3   It is illegal for single women (as well as for married women under the age of 25), to give birth.
4   86 percent of all Chinese women have had at least one abortion, and 52 percent have had at least two or more.
5   According to the Chinese government's own statistics for 2009 and 2010, of the 16 million abortions  :carried out in each year, 70 percent, (11.2 million), were for unmarried women and their children :

"Many of them are driven into the clinics by subtle - yet no less lethal - shame and family and social pressure, not by overt physical attacks such as Wujian endured. These women may not even realize they are victims of the one child policy." (p.298).

6   A 1988 study by Beijing University found that the abortion rate in urban areas was 101 abortions for every 100 live births.
7   Every 2.5 seconds, a baby's life is taken by abortion in China.
8   Every day, thirty five thousand forced abortions take place
9   On account of the one child policy, some 500 women a day, in China, commit suicide
10 In the context of gendercide, one million baby girls are abandoned each year.

And in the context of gendercide more broadly, (a practice that is not unique to China), Ling has this to say::

"The preference for sons and the one-child policy are a lethal combination. Daily, thousands of baby girls are aborted or killed simply because they are girls. With so many girls now "missing" in China, the surplus of thirty seven-million unmarried young men is bound to cause security and economic problems. With a shortage of available mates for all these eligible bachelors, trafficking of little girls and young women is now out of control in China. All Girls Allowed discovered a city of three million people that has had (over a thirty-year period) as many as six hundred thousand "child brides" - little girls stolen early (so they cannot find their way home), who are then sold to be raised as child brides in strangers homes." (p.300)

And in the context of the abortion debate in America and elsewhere, Ling makes this appeal:

"With more than four hundred million lives taken in the past thirty years, ending China's one-child policy, the forced and coerced abortion and gendercide of girls, is the most profound social justice cause in the world today. It is one that should unite people on both sides of the abortion issue. Chinese women have no choice, and their babies have no life." (p.301)

__________

Now for  me the most poignant moment in Ling's long and contorted journey, came at the point where she describes when, and how, she committed her life to Christ. ("Jesus") For I understood something of the pain of her journey and was pleased that she had found peace at last. And I was impressed by the account of her life as a "Jesus follower", of the communal aspect and the practical help and support that came in the form of mentoring as she took her first steps as a disciple of Christ. And given the attitudes of some American Christian fundamentalists, it was a privilege to follow her around the "Sacred Spaces" as she struggled to come to terms with her past. So in this context, it is understandable that she concludes her narrative with the fervour of an evangelist. But though I share her faith, I am not as confident about the future for China as she is: her belief in a profound Divine intervention. As someone who was born during the Second World War and could not but be aware of the three great despots of the twentieth century: Stalin, Mao and Hitler, in that order, of the Vietnam War, and the tragedy of Cambodia; (to say nothing of the modern tragedy of my own Christian country, Ireland), it is hard to conceive of a China as transformed as she envisions it. And when I think of China, I can't help thinking of the madness, desolation and suffering of the people of North Korea, the details of which are nothing like as prominent in the public consciousness, as are the affairs of China. All of that said, I am at one with Ling in her conclusion.

In the closing paragraphs she describes being surprised to receive an email from a friend, Li Lanjiu, a Christian student from Hong Kong who was with them in Tiananmen Square. She had sent a journal entry written in 1999, on the tenth anniversary of the massacre.  In it she described her experience of the killings and went on to narrate how over the years she had asked of God, the same two questions:

"Where were you on the day of the massacre?"and, "Where were you when all those people were gunned down?"

They were questions that she had asked in anger, but, as Ling puts it, on the tenth anniversary, "she quieted her heart and waited for him to answer":

"At that moment, the image reappeared in her mind that had haunted her for the past ten years: a young student dying of a gunshot wound, his face covered with blood, but still repeating as he lay on the ground,, "Persevere until the end, persevere until the very end."

"Just then she saw another figure, coming up slowly from far away. He also had blood covering his face,, but Li was not afraid or shaken. Even though she could not see him clearly, she recognized him as he walked up calmly, with peace and dignity. Then the picture of the young, dying student and the approaching figure merged into one, and Li heard a gentle voice say, "How could you not know where I was? I was right here.""
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Note: On this the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, this is the second of two blogs in support of those, known and unknown, who are still living with the consequences, as well as those who are daily suffering the injustices of the laogai system, etc., please share the link to this blog with your friends.
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© Cormac E. McCloskey

A Heart For FREEDOM
by Chai Ling
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, Illinois,  (2011)
ISBN 978-1-4143-6246-5

Image: Chai Ling (Wikimedia Commons)

All Girls Allowed 
History of the one-child policy

CHINA: Refusing To Forget - part 1

"To belittle what happened in Tiananmen Square is to ignore something everyone needs to know about. China."   Mary Dejevsky 

Modern China
For those living in the totalitarian state that is China, today is "May 35th," while for the rest of us it is June 4th. But much more important, for all of us, is, that it is the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. On that day, and with the world watching, the Chinese Communist government choose to use its mailed fist on its youngest, brightest and most idealistic citizens. Having come to power, and remained in power, through successive reigns of terror, terror was the means they chose to use, to make it clear, that they would brook no dissent. So today, the reality of what passes as representative of a modern progressive China, (apart from the Shanghai skyline), are political thugs in suits.

   This concept of "May 35th" is taken from the title of a children's story by the German author Erich Kastner. It is a work of fantasy and satire, and tells the story of the boy Conrad and his journey to the South Seas. And absurd though it is, "May 35" bears witness to the Internet censorship with which the people of China have to contend on a daily basis. An abuse of power, that extends well beyond the scope of the Internet itself, and into the very fabric of Chinese society.

Harry Wu and the laogai: China's system of slave-labour


Harry Wu Captured in 1995 on his fifth return visit to China where he was secretly documenting conditions in the camps. Under severe public pressure he was released after sixty six days, and allowed to return to the U.S.
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Today the chief exponent of this all pervasive system of control and repression is Harry Wu. Born in Shanghai to wealthy parents in 1937, he has lived for many years in America, where, in 1992, he set up the Laogai Research Foundation, whose purpose was, and is, "to gather information on and raise public awareness of human rights violations in China's prison system." Then, in 2008, he opened the Laogai Museum, the only museum of its kind, whose purpose, through the use of exhibits and resource material, is to educate and encourage the public to confront "the Tragic Legacy of China's Laogai System of Forced Labour  Prisons." And Harry Wu knew from bitter personal experience why his foundations were necessary.


Harry Wu showing an exhibit to the Dalai Lama during his visit to the Laogai Museum in Washington DC, October 2009: Source Wikipedia
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Graduating with a degree in geology from university in Beijing, Harry Wu, when a student, fell foul of Mao's "One Hundred Flowers Campaign" when students and intellectuals were encouraged to say what they thought of the Communist Party and society more generally. Cautious, he voiced some criticism of the Soviet Communist Party crackdown in Hungary, [Hungarian Revolution 1956] only to find himself stranded, when Mao reversed the policy and deemed those who had raised their heads above the parapet as the true enemies of the Party. For his pains, Harry Wu spent 19 years in China's forced labour prisons:

"I was twenty three, a college graduate raised in an affluent, urban family, and a political criminal. Xing Jingping, three years younger than I, was a peasant from a starving village, a thief with no education and no political viewpoint. The gulf between us was vast, yet I grew to admire him as the most capable and influential teacher of my life."   


What brought this accolade from Harry Wu was, that Xing had taught him how to fight for survival in the camps: "how to dig for underground rat burrows in order to find clean cashes of grain and beans which then could later be boiled for food" so as not to die from starvation. (1)

Statistics on the scale of deaths, related to slave labour (Laugai) in China
The statistics associated with laogai (a three tiered system of oppression), are truly shocking. In 2008 the Laogai Research Foundation suggested that there were 6.8 million people still detained in a network of some 1,045 "facilities". While estimate vary, the total number of deaths since the laogai was established by Mao in the 1950s, range from 15 to 27 million.. Harry Wu suggests 15 million. Professor R.J. Rummel, the very precise figure of 15,720,000, that doesn't take account of "all those collectivized, ill-fed and clothed peasants who would be worked to death in the fields." Jan-Louis Margolin, one of the contributors to The Black Book of Communism, (1997), suggests 20 million. (2). But In, Mao: The Unknown Story  Jung Chang and the historian Jon Halliday suggest that 27 million may have died in prisons and labour camps during Mao's rule.

"Mao intended most of the population - children and adults alike- to witness violence and killing. His aim was to scare and brutalize the entire population, in a way that went much further than either Stalin or Hitler, who largely kept their foulest crimes out of sight.

"More might well have been killed if it had not been for their value as slave labour. Mao said as much in one order: some people had "committed crimes that deserved to be punished by death," but they must not be killed, partly because "we would loose a large labour force  . . ." * (3)

The three tiers of the laogai system are: convict labour; re-education through labour, and Juyao: a system of enforced residence, whereby as many as 70 percent of those released from the camps are required to live and work in designated areas. And the tentacles of all three aspects of laogai, are the means by which the civilian population are not just coerced, but deprived of some of the most basic of human rights.

Under this system, any citizen, can be detained (without trial), for up to three years; and on the flimsiest of charges,  i.e., "not engaged in honest pursuits," or "being able but refusing to work." And such is the duplicity, that in the absence of a trial and conviction, those forcibly detained, are referred to as "personnel".And as these detentions are carried out by the local security forces, the Communist Party's central government feels empowered to deny that these detentions are politically motivated  And meantime, those who have been detained (without trial) and assigned to the camps, are forced to undergo a program of re-education through labour: a program of two hours of indoctrination at the end of each days work.

Civil liberties and the Chinese Constitution
Now not only is laogai an affront to the most basic of civil liberties, but it also runs counter to China's own Constitution: to Article 35, that guarantees its citizens "freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly of association, of procession and demonstration." And yet, post Tiananmen, the Communist Party, through a series of legislative changes, has been assiduous in curtailing these liberties: by tightening the rules under which, all independent social groups, are required by law, to register with the government.

More repressive legislation, Post Tiananmen.
In 1998 China's State Council issued two sets of regulations: Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Groups, and Provisional Regulations on the Registration and Management of People - Organized Non-enterprise Units; and the thinking behind them is self evident.

(1) The number of legal requirements and time necessary in which to establish a social group were increased.                      
(2) The authorities were given more leeway so as to prevent the registration of selected groups, and
(3) The involvement of people in social groups who had lost their political rights, was forbidden.
(4) The controls that could be placed on social groups by their "official government sponsors", were increased, and,
(5) Funding for such groups was reduced.

A year earlier (1997) and so as to draw more people into the system of controls, the scope of what constitutes collusion "with foreign states to harm the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the People's Republic of China", was widened. Article 9 of the criminal code was amended, so as to include "foreign institutions, organizations, and individuals" as well as foreign states. So not only did the broadening of the code allow the state to regulate more public activities, but the ambiguity of the language used, also allows the courts greater latitude in interpreting a multitude of attitudes as criminal. And there was more.

In this same year, the definition of of what constitutes a counterrevolutionary crime, was changed, so as to allow the Communist Party leadership, to criminalize any activity that it chooses to see as a threat to "state security". Where previously, the crime of counterrevolutionary activity was defined as, "all acts endangering the People's Republic of China committed with the goal of overthrowing the political power of the dictatorship," it was now loosely defined as, "endangering state security." (4)

Desmond Tutu and Chen Guangcheng call on world leaders to help bring an end to repression in China and in particular, to the laogai system of oppression. 
Now accepting that these legislative changes took place some 16/17 years ago, allow me to draw your attention to an article written jointly by Archbishop Desomnd Tutu and, the blind, and now exiled lawyer, Chen Guangcheng. It was published on 6 March 2013 and it was an appeal to world leaders to make the year leading up to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre "A Year of Human Rights in China." Politely, they expressed the hope that the new incoming president Xi Jinping who had called for a ""renaissance" in China and the realization of the China dream; would be of a like mind with the "many in the Chinese leadership and media who have recognized that the dream for China can not become a reality without social and political reforms." After which they addressed the world's leaders in clear and unambiguous term:

"Since China's Cultural Revolution literally millions of Chinese citizens have been forced into slave labour camps for offences related to thought and expression. In recent times these include increasing percentages of innocents, including lawyers who tried to defend their own rights and rights of others, or ordinary public who tried to uphold their rights and were abducted and sent to jail to be persecuted; and those who have done no more than state their loyalty to their religious leader, His Holiness the Dali Lama, participate in Christian religions which have not been "authorized" by the Communist Party, or practice Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation system based on the ancient traditions of China itself.

"Reports from former inmates of the laogai camps detail prisoners living on the edge of starvation and exhaustion in infested and horrific environments, while being forced to produce commercial goods - commercial goods which we have unknowingly purchased in Western stores. Uncounted numbers of prisoners, credibly believed to be in the tens of thousands, have been executed and their organs harvested for sale, a practice so despicable  it is surely beyond our comprehension.

"As we approach this historic anniversary, today's world's leaders have the opportunity to distinguish themselves from leaders of the past, who,  for the sake of economic progress or in the name of "national security," have turned a blind eye to atrocities committed by Chinese leaders against their own citizenry. We ask our leaders to speak on our behalf  to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.. Tell them what they already know - that the dream of China can be realized only when its citizens' universal human rights and dignity are upheld and respected. And that the laogai system and the brutal repression of freedom of thought, conscience and speech, the most basic of human rights, will remain a festering sore on the Chinese dream until it is addressed and removed." (5).        

Human rights in China and the 2008 Olympic Games.
Now this appeal to world leaders, that they would be a beacon of light on behalf of the oppressed people of China, however well intentioned, left me feeling deeply skeptical, for I was instantly reminded of the 2008 Olympic Games. We were in Morocco when the games were awarded to China, and I recall being moved by the response when the news broke in China: of people crying openly. For me, these were tears of both joy and sadness, a cry of pain from a society that for so long had been locked out, and who, (even it they hadn't realized it, or dared to hope for it), now knew that they were accepted by the rest of the world. And I was reminded also of the fact that after the games there was disquiet at the failure of the Olympic Committee to deliver what the Chinese authorities had promised:: the free association of spectators at the games. So I went in pursuit of the Olympic Committee's report on the games and read this:

"Ultimately the games should be seen as a bridge - a bridge between countries, continents, cultures, religions and generations. The Beijing 2008 Games have surely contributed to China's opening up to the world and becoming more integrated within the international community. Through the Games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world." (6)

These are the words of the President of the International Olympic Committee. Jacques Rogge, and they are taken from his introductory remarks to the Final Report of the International Olympic Coordinating Commission. And there is more, in a similar vein. But for the purpose of this blog, I want to focus on the concluding sentiment that is highlighted in the IOC report, that:  "Through the Games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world." And they are important words, for they appeared to find an echo in remarks made to journalists by Xi Jinping, after he was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party in November 2012:

"Friends from the press . . ."
"Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world."

These words of Xi Jinping's are quoted by Reporters Without Borders in the context of the publication of the World Freedom of Information Index, for 2014; and this is what they have to say about them:

"Woe to any journalist who thought he was saying "Describe China's stark realities" when what he really meant was "Follow the party's propaganda to the letter!" Since the speech, the authorities have arrested more journalists and bloggers, cracked-down harder on cyber dissidents, reinforced online content control and censorship and stepped up restrictions on the foreign media."

And in the context of China exporting its methods, (in that it is a model of censorship and repression in the area), they draw attention to Vietnam and Decree 72, introduced in 2013, that places severe restrictions on the use of the Internet:. What Amnesty describe as, taking censorship to a new level:

"Vietnam has stepped [up] information control to the point of being close to catching up with its Chinese big brother. Independent news providers are subject to enhanced internet clairvoyance, draconian directives, waves of arrests, and sham trials. Vietnam continues to be the world's second largest prison for bloggers. Of the 34 bloggers currently detained, 25 were arrested since Nquyen Phu Trong became the party's general secretary in January 2011.

And in respect of the World Freedom of Information Index, for 2014, China came 175th, in a list of 180 countries. (7)

Refusing to Forget
Now if it wasn't for the fact that it is the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, I would be sorely tempted to stop digging in the bottomless and depressing pit that is the history of human rights abuses in China; abuses that were, and are, both ideological and political.. But as the title I have chosen for this blog: "Refusing to Forget" speaks for me, as I am certain that it does for others, allow me to sketch out a few more current examples of abuse and suffering, that I have collected along the way. After which, and in a later blog, I will reflect, (again in the context of the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen), on the past, on the present, and on the future for China, (and for us), in the context of, A Heart for Freedom : an autobiography by Chai Ling

Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08

In 2010 Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for what the citation described as "....his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."; an award that he was unable to accept in person as he was serving an eleven year prison sentence in China. So during the award ceremony the citation and medallion commemorating the award were placed on the chair that he should have occupied.  Born in 1955 Liu Xiabo studied literature and politics, and later established himself as a literary critic and university lecturer. He lectured in Europe and the USA; and was one of a number of young "intellectuals", who joined the hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, and spent two years in prison as a consequence. Later, and for daring to challenge the system of one party rule, he spent three years in a labour camp. And agaian in 2009, he was imprisoned for11 years, for endangering state security, (but in truth), for his organizing, and being a signatory to, Charter 08.

Charter 08: signed by 250 Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists, was published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of The United Nations Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and among its 19 demands  were calls for constitutional reform, the separation of powers, reform of the judiciary and the election of public officials. And such is the vengefulness of the Communist political system in China, that since 2010, his wife, Liu Xia, has been held under house arrest in Beijing, and with neither telephone or e-mill access to outsiders. Once a month, and with a police escort, she makes the long journey, (420 km) by train from Beijing to Jinzhou in Liaoning Province, to visit her husband. At most, they are allowed a half hour together. At first physical contact was allowed, (touching or an embrace). But as soon as Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, physical contact was forbidden and their conversations monitored. In this context, in 2012, when Liu Xia tried to tell her husband that Mo Yan (Guan Moye) had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature she was prevented from doing so. As soon as she uttered the word "Mo" the official monitoring their conversation, intervened.. Nor is she permitted to hand over her letters to him (8)      

Gao Yu A no less redoubtable campaigner for human rights in China, is Gao Yu. Age 70, she was reported missing by her family on 24 April, and later, the authorities confirmed that she had been "criminally detained", and that she was "deeply remorseful" and "willing to accept legal punishment." Then, in early May, CCTV broadcast her confession. With her face blurred out and wearing an orange jumpsuit, and, as The South China Morning Post reported it, she was heard to say, (to a policeman): "I think my actions have touched on legal issues, have harmed the national interest. What I have done was very wrong. I sincerely and earnestly accept to learn a lesson and plead guilty."

Her supporters were quick to dismiss this confession as made under duress, and one that would "negate any chance of a fair trial"; and in this contest they noted also, that her son, Zhao Meng, had gone missing at the same time. What she had done was leak Document No 9 that she is believe to have received, in June 2013, from a Communist Party official whom she had known from school. Dated April 2013, the document was circulated among senior Party officials. "The document is said to detail the government's vision of pushing economic reforms while maintaining ideological controls and preventing the spread of ideas such as democracy, civil society and freedom of the press." Or put another way, what the report was advocating, was a policy of active opposition the human rights agenda.

Now given this very public confession by Gao Yu, and the belief that she was coerced into making it, it is worth recalling that she has a long history of opposition to the abuse of power in China. And, as with Liu Xiaobo and many others, she continues to pay the price. When deputy editor-in-chief of the Economics Weekly, she gave her support to the Tiananmen student protests in 1989, for which, she spent 14 months in prison, and the paper for which she worked, was shut down. Then in 1993, she was sentenced to a further six years, for leaking state secrets. Since her release in 1999, she has worked as a freelance journalist. (9)

And not to be overlooked - The death penalty in China
In its, Annual Report on Human Right in China, 2013, Amnesty International drew attention to the fact that more people were executed in China than in the rest of the world put together; and for which, there are no statistics, as such information remains classified..And it drew attention also, to the fact that under current Chines law, there are no provisions that would allow prisoners sentenced to death, to seek either a pardon or commutation of their sentence. And while the report acknowledged that the death sentence on the businesswoman Wu Yung, for "fraudulently raising funds," had been rescinded, it makes it clear that the Chinese judicial system has a long way to go, if it is to comply with universally accepted standards of behaviour in respect of those condemned to death, or life imprisonment. And that section of the report that deals specifically with the death penalty ends thus:

"In November the authorities announced that a voluntary organ donation system would be launched nationwide in early 2013 to phase out reliance on organs removed from executed prisoners."

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Note: On this the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, and in support of those, known and unknown, who are still living with the consequences, as well as those who are daily suffering the injustices of the laogai system, please share the link to this blog with your friends.
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© Cormac McCloskey

       Mary Dejvevsky  : A profile
(1)  Wikipedia
(2)  Socialphy
(3)  Mao: The Unknown Story .p.338
       By Jung Chang & Jon Halliday
       Jonathan Cape London 2005
       ISBN 0-224-0726-2

(4)  Laogai: "Reform Through Labor" in China 
(5)  Huffington Post
(6)  Final Report of the IOC Coordination Commission 
(7)  Reporters Without Borders 
      Decree 72
(8)  Sources: Reuters. The Guardian. Nobel Prize website, Wang Dan and Wikipedia.
      Charter 08
      Universal Declaration on Human Rights  
(9)  Sources. BBC. South China Morning Post. Amnesty International.

      Links to related organizations
      Lagai Research Foundation
      Laogai Museum
      Human Rights Watch
     Reporters Without Borders 

      Links to interesting articles:
      "This is how China treats the wife of a Nobel peace prize winner"
      "History Matters Remembering Tiananmen (and Abu Ghraib) "
      "Tiananmen Square Massacre: Chinese Activists Call on People To Wear Black."
        Rubber Ducks 
      "Tiananmen Square Remembered: An Eye Witness Account"
       By Mary Dejevsky for The Independent
      "Re-education Through Labour Abolished Yet Arbitrary Detention Remains."
       "China cracksdown on dissent ahead of Tiananmen anniversary"
       By Jonathan Kaiman  * * An especially good and concise report
       Amnesty International Report 2013 : China 
      World Press Freedom Index 2014  
      Transparency International: Corruption Perception Index 2013
     The Black Book of Communism