MCLC: Yu Hua on China Dream

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Yu Hua on China Dream
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (7/11/14):
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/opinion/yu-hua-voting-in-china-a-distant-
dream.html

The Opinion Pages| CONTRIBUTING OP-ED WRITER
Voting in China, a Distant Dream
By Yu Hua

BEIJING — I am 54, but have never in my life seen an election ballot.

“Have you seen one?” I ask people, out of curiosity. Like me, most of them
have no idea what a ballot looks like and have only seen pictures on
television of people completely unknown to them clutching a ballot and
voting on their behalf. A few say they have seen a ballot, but a long time
ago, in their college days, when a class monitor came over, ballot in
hand, and had them write down a name they’d never heard of. That was the
closest they came to a democratic election.

Every March, however, almost 3,000 National People’s Congress delegates
and more than 2,000 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
delegates gather in Beijing. The government claims that, as participants
in the political process, they represent the voices of China’s 1.35
billion people.

Every five years sees a turnover in the two assemblies, and at the
meetings in March 2013, delegates who had completed their terms made way
for new members. A friend of mine, returning to Beijing after a lecture
tour in Europe, got a phone call as soon as he landed: He had been elected
a member of the C.P.P.C.C., he was told, and was to proceed at once to the
meeting hall.

“Why have I never had the chance to take part in an election?” someone
posted on an Internet discussion thread. “Who are those people who elected
the delegates to the National People’s Congress?”

“What a good question,” another responded. “What happens basically is that
each grass-roots unit puts forward several prescreened candidates, leaving
the final choice to leadership at a higher level.”

“I’m over 18,” still another asked. “Why can’t I vote?”

“Because you have already been represented,” he was told. “The N.P.C.
delegates and C.P.P.C.C. members are voting as your representatives, even
though you have no clue who they are.”

“Oh, so that’s how it works. Thanks very much!”

I remember that about 10 years ago, our television news liked to broadcast
scenes of smartly dressed Japanese and South Korean lawmakers brawling in
their assembly chambers, so that we could witness the loutish, uncivilized
behavior of elected representatives in capitalist countries. Later, a set
of photographs taken at various congresses around the world began to
circulate via the Internet in China. In other countries, delegates could
be seen quarreling or fighting, and it was only the N.P.C. and C.P.P.C.C.
delegates in China who maintained perfect composure — they would close
their eyes and drift off to sleep in midsession.

These photos brought home to many of us that if foreign legislators
quarrel or fight, it’s because they are seeking benefits for their
electorate, whereas China’s political delegates feel no need to represent
their constituents, and don’t even feel a need to represent themselves. So
it’s only natural that they doze off during meetings.

Of course, during the two congresses in Beijing, China’s N.P.C. and
C.P.P.C.C. representatives have registered some achievements that foreign
lawmakers cannot possibly emulate, proposing motions with great alacrity
and in enormous volume. At the C.P.P.C.C. conference in March, members
proposed 5,875 motions, of which 4,982 were reviewed and endorsed at the
plenary meetings. This is nothing new: More than 5,000 motions were
presented at all the recent sessions of the two congresses.

These motions come in all shapes and sizes. Although the number of motions
is formally announced during the meetings, their content is not made
public. But some motions find their way onto the Internet and are met with
ridicule. There have been motions to carve out new districts so as to
generate more official positions, to raise the salary of officials, to
grant official titles to those who pay high taxes, to change a city’s name
because it sounds too unsophisticated, and so on.

At the same time, Chinese netizens propose their own motions on the
Internet. It’s hard to keep a numerical tally, but the content of those
proposals is clearly different from those of the official delegates:
eliminating the shortfall in retirement payments, making it easier to get
medical treatment and reducing health costs, and other initiatives
designed to address people’s needs.

For this reason, some claim that the true people’s representatives are not
those at the congresses but those on the Internet. But these Internet
“delegates” are probably, like me, utterly in the dark about election
ballots.

On Nov. 29, 2012, the 18th congress of the Chinese Communist Party
presented <http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2014-03/26/content_31911187.htm>
as one of its policy objectives the realization of the Chinese dream. What
is “the Chinese dream”? Defined officially as “achieving the rejuvenation
of the Chinese nation,” the road map explains:

“Its concrete manifestations are that the state is strong, the nation is
energetic, and the people are happy. The route to its realization is
taking the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, adhering to the
theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, promoting
national spirit and concentrating China’s energies. The method of its
implementation is the integrated establishment of political, economic,
cultural, social and ecological civilization.”

I have to wonder how many Chinese can make sense of this overly abstract
vision. A friend called me and told me about a dream he’d had, a dream
that during his lifetime he would be able to vote in an election for
China’s head of state.

“Does this count as the Chinese dream?” he asked.

“Even if it doesn’t count as the Chinese dream,” I said, “it is a dream
dreamed in China.”

“Now I get it,” he said. “That’s what the Chinese dream is — a dream
dreamed in China.”

Yu Hua is the author of “Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden
China.” This essay was translated by Allan H. Barr from the Chinese.