As Xu Wenli, founder of the Chinese Democratic Party and visiting professor at Brown has said, there is a road to democracy in China, but it is not a straight one.
Change in China must come from within, but any dissidence against the Chinese government has been suppressed. Although some prisoners of conscience, such as Wang Youcai and Xu Wenli, have been released, the Chinese authorities continue without fail to arrest and detain individuals whose acts have been classified as "subversive acts against the state."
What is considered subversive to the Chinese government includes officially registering a political party, since the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party is enforced by its single-party system.
Also considered subversive are the acts of publishing articles that are critical of the government and could possibly incite opposition and discussing the conditions of the nation and its political situation online. Many people representing Hong Kong this past summer, for example, protested the Chinese government's intent to implement Article 26 in Hong Kong. Article 26 called for immediate action from the Chinese government to oppress any individuals or groups that have committed subversive acts against the state. At a protest in Cambridge, Mass., Xu Wenli stated that he felt Article 26 simply means imprisonment.
Furthermore, the conditions of an individual's detainment are far from lawful by our standards. Often the offender can be detained for months before he has a trial, or before his family even knows of his whereabouts. The high level of brutality that such offenders endure at detainment and transfer centers is unconscionable.
This was the case for Chinese Democratic Party leader He Depu, whose wife was denied any knowledge of her husband's location or condition. It is now known that he has suffered severe beatings from guards, to the point that he was left partially deaf. Although some prisoners of conscience, such as Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai, have been released, the reality is that more are detained each day.
The situation at hand is a grave one. Yet the fact that Chinese authorities have thoroughly oppressed freedom of speech and freedom of the press does not imply that democracy is a completely foreign concept to China. The promotion of democratic ideologies dates back to at least as early as the activities of Kang Youwei in the 19th century. The precedent is there.
Are the Chinese people simply incapable of realizing democracy? I think not.
There are three main obstacles obstructing China's road to democracy. The first pertains to the nature of China's political trends. Chinese politics have historically centered on the notion of revolution. From the early periods of warring states that struggled to unite China to the mere turnover of dynasties to the transition between modern 20th century parties such as the Guomindang and the CCP, each new regime is extremely critical of the previous and each attempts to create a more authentically Chinese society under the party line.
If China is to establish a democratic state, it must be a stable one. That is to say, the trend of revolution must come to an end.
Second, the isolationalist policies, so typical of the Chinese government, must be eliminated. These policies continue to lead to the revocation of basic human rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The most obvious manifestation of such isolationist policies is the government's control of information leaving and entering the country by means including the Internet, television, and personal mail. Anyone who has traveled to China and experienced Chinese television realizes the rampant censorship and the extreme one-sidedness of the news made available.
The worst part of the matter is that the educated people of China are aware of the suppression of information but must repress their dissent or risk arrest. The situation of the economy and the state has not yet reached a level where travel outside the country is possible for the average person. Fortunately, the longer China is open to trade, the more difficult it will be for the government to maintain this stagnation.
China's third obstacle derives its potency from the fact that China is such a enormous country. This has always been a cause of unequal development. Perhaps one of the largest most fundamental problems facing China is its unequal distribution of education.
Education in rural areas is thoroughly impoverished. Unless a student tests extremely well, he or she will be faced with paying the cost of college which, considering rural financial capacity, is most likely nothing but a fantasy. This deprivation of education only weakens the nation. Many of its people do not even represent themselves, let alone desire to be represented politically.
In "Zi Xun," Chinese writer and philosopher Lu Xun expresses his frustration with his nation's isolation and deprivation of awareness through the metaphor of a burning iron house. There is a fire inside an iron house that only opens from the inside where people all lie on the floor amidst the smoke. Lu Xun asks his fellow intellectuals, if we knew that some of the people lying on the floor in the iron house were still somewhat conscious, would we not try our hardest to wake them so that they may save themselves and the others who have already passed out completely?
If Lu Xun's model is accurate, then Chinese dissidents like Democratic Party leaders Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai are faced with the task of bringing their nation's people to full awareness. Working with these dissidents of the Chinese government has shed light on the aforementioned state of affairs in China and has provided immense insight through their personal accounts.
The dilemma is this: dissidents who must awaken the sleeping nation are themselves oppressed and detained by the Chinese government or else granted their freedom outside the country, where some remain ineffective.
It is thus the first task for Caring for the Heart of China, a non-profit human rights organization founded in 2003 by Xu Wenli, to focus our efforts on delivering relief to these individuals. China certainly does not need another revolution. But if it is to change from within, these oppressed individuals will be the catalyst.
Erin Baksa '04 is an East Asian studies and philosophy concentrator. She has worked as Xu Wenli's personal interpreter and aide at the Thomas J. Watson Institute of International Studies since his arrival at Brown after his release from prison on Dec. 25, 2003.
