MCLC: China's veil of civil rights oppression

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: China's veil of civil rights oppression
***********************************************************

This articulate article by Xiao Shu, aka Chen Min, a former columnist for
Southern Weekly and Yanhuang Chunqiu, laments the Plenum’s failure to
bolster rule of law and the rights of citizens.

Paul

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Source: NYT (11/26/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/opinion/chinas-veil-of-civil-rights-oppre
ssion.html

China's Veil of Civil Rights Oppression
By Xiao Shu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Third Plenum, a gathering of Chinese Communist Party
leaders to set economic policy, ended this month with a raft of economic
and social reforms that were praised by Western observers: giving the
market a greater hand in setting prices, relaxing the one-child policy,
strengthening land rights and shoring up the social safety net.

But as far as I’m concerned, the party’s itinerary and timeline for
so-called reform are no cause for optimism, because China’s leaders did
very little to bolster rule of law and the rights of ordinary citizens. To
the contrary, the economic reforms may serve as a convenient distraction
from the appalling crackdown on three advocates of civil rights — the
legal reformers Xu Zhiyong and Guo Feixiong and the entrepreneur Wang
Gongquan, all participants in the New Citizens’ Movement, a campaign for
civil and human rights — who have been detained since the summer.

Criminal investigations against them are proceeding, and all three men are
likely to receive heavy sentences.

Mr. Xu, whose activism helped bring an end to the abusive and arbitrary
detentions of urban migrants without residency permits in 2003, and Mr.
Guo, who helped villagers in Guangdong Province organize a recall election
against a corrupt village chief in 2005, helped initiate this movement.
Mr. Wang, who made a fortune in real estate and technology, gave financial
support to Mr. Xu. The arrests of the three men, an obvious attempt to
decapitate the movement, was preceded by the arrest of more than 20
rank-and-file members.

Unlike the usual silence greeting the arrest of dissidents, this crackdown
has caused many prominent establishment figures to step forward in
protest, and even the risk-averse state media have followed the story
closely. The government’s ruthlessness sent a signal that the authorities
will not tolerate public pressure or any form of opposition — even as
moderate and law-abiding as that of the New Citizens’ Movement.

The movement does not aspire to political power and does not advocate
hostile confrontation. It holds that reform is a multifaceted and gradual
process that involves the transformation of society, the development of
autonomous nongovernmental  organizations, and the protection of basic
human and civil rights.

The movement’s efforts began in 2010 with the signing of a citizens’
pledge of collective action. It successfully petitioned educational
authorities to allow the children of rural migrants to take the national
college entrance exam for university seats. Last year, the group
campaigned for disclosure of government officials’ assets, and promoted
dinner gatherings across a dozen cities to discuss civic affairs. Earlier
this year, the movement collected signatures for an appeal to the National
People’s Congress to ratify international human rights conventions.

The New Citizens’ Movement operates entirely within the bounds of China’s
Constitution and laws, and the mainstream of society. The movement has no
interest in seizing, much less overthrowing, the government, but rather in
creating an environment in which power is constrained through
constitutional government and civil society.

This middle road seeks to transcend the traditional alternatives of
passive reform and tumultuous revolution, and to forgo petty antagonistic
politics for a broad-minded politics that addresses the concerns of
ordinary citizens. It draws on gradualist theories of political change,
like Karl Popper’s concept of “piecemeal social engineering” and John
Dewey’s model of democratic experimentation, rather than grand utopian
project of overnight solutions.

Its goal is a society in which citizens can associate on the basis of
their views, not their class position or their place in the political
system. The Internet, and especially microblogging platforms, have raised
the consciousness of millions of Chinese who, having met their material
needs, are looking for the opportunity to shape their country’s future.
Many of the participants in this “intermediate society” are professionals
who spurn the ideological trappings of class struggle; they want change,
but in an orderly and civilized way, from the ground up. Mr. Wang has
described this movement as “constructive opposition.”

Yet this reasoned, moderate movement has drawn intolerance and hostility
from Beijing. As the Third Plenum shows, the government only wants change
on its own timetable, and in accordance with its needs. Ordinary citizens
are sidelined. China’s leaders have declared that “special interests” are
the greatest obstacle to reform, but an even greater problem is the party
elite’s lust to maintain its power, and its terror of a public that wants
to help determine its future.

The price of this resistance is steep. Mr. Wang recently celebrated his
52nd birthday behind bars. When Mr. Xu was arrested, more than four months
ago, his wife was pregnant, and he will almost certainly not be able to
see the birth of his child. Mr. Guo has been detained for the fourth time,
and his wife and children have taken refuge in the United States. Even so,
these activists remain unbowed; for all their moderation, they do not lack
courage or tenaciousness, and no amount of brutality will make them give
up their pursuit of a civilized society as both an end and a means.

Can the Chinese government afford complacency in the face of their quiet
activism? How can the so-called reforms succeed if the government
continues to defy the Chinese people’s growing demands for dignity and
justice?
Xiao Shu, the pen name of Chen Min, is a former columnist for the Chinese
newspaper Southern Weekly and the Chinese magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, and a
visiting scholar at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. This essay was
translated by Stacy Mosher from the Chinese.