China’s government is hunting down signatories of the Charter 08 reform manifesto and upgrading its internet censorship software to allow the authorities to identify and suppress dissent much earlier and efficiently.
Nearly 7,000 intellectuals, farmers, students, journalists, and activists have endorsed Charter 08, modeled after the Czechoslovakian dissidents Charter 77, which warns of “the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions” in the absence of democratic reform.
The communist authorities appear hypersensitive to the risk of unrest as widespread lay-offs and declining economic growth, fearing that economic insecurity could lead the charter to become a rallying call for unemployed graduates.
Bao Tong, a former top Communist Party official jailed for seven years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, signed the charter as “a citizen”. “Would the powers-that-be please tell 1.3 billion people why freedom is a crime?” he wrote recently.
Senior government officials have expressed concern that high unemployment among migrant workers could foment further unrest and instability in 2009, a year in which the ruling Communist party celebrates 60 years in power, while dissidents and democrats will seek to highlight the 90th anniversary of the 4th May protest movement or Chinese Enlightenment and the 4th June 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
China’s internet police are using state-of-the-art internet spying technology to pre-empt criticism and manage public opinion, according to the country’s leading provider of search technology.
Officials are under huge pressure following recent events like the Sichuan earthquake, the Olympics, and the economic crisis, He Zhaohui, marketing manager at TRS, told the Financial Times. “Among those working in the news and propaganda in China the heart attack rate is highest,” he said.
The Communist regime has based its legitimacy on its performance in delivering sustained economic growth and improved living standards rather than on a discredited marxist-leninist ideology. For that reason, analysts suggest, it is acutely sensitive to the political implications of the current economic crisis and is consequently wary of any calls for reform.
“The Party apparently thinks–probably correctly–that further economic reform would threaten the country’s authoritarian system, so the Party will not sponsor much more change,” writes Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China.”So it should come as no surprise that this slow-or-no-reform period coincides with a time of political retrenchment.”
A wave of strikes and protests by China’s upwardly mobile working class - factory workers, cab drivers, teachers, and even police officers - is causing concern within the ruling elite, prompting a clampdown on political dissent. Leading dissidents were detained last week after signing Charter 08 calling for greater democracy, an initiative which led President Hu Jintao to reiterate that China “will never copy the model of the Western political system.”
While officially committed to building a “harmonious society” and “putting people first”, China’s leaders have reason to be cautious about a citizen backlash to restructuring, notes The Economist. It quotes the China Labour Bulletin’s recent joint-report with Canada’s Rights and Democracy that millions of laid-off workers have been left near-destitute due to corruption and poor policy.
The ruling Communist party has long feared the rise of an independent labor movement, proscribing unofficial unions and arresting labor rights advocates. With the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations approaching, the regime is also wary of workers and other social protest groups linking up with unemployed graduates to create the kind of alliance that was crushed by the subsequent massacre.
Having recently conceded the legal right to collective bargaining, some observers believe the party will now be pushed to legalize strikes. “It’s increasingly untenable to view strikes as unacceptable, there are simply too many of them and they are everywhere now,” Robin Munro, China Labour Bulletin’s research director. “They’re happening whether they’re legal or not.”
Reducing unemployment among university graduates will be the government’s main priority next year, prime minister Wen Jiabao said at the weekend. “The creation of a huge population of educated unemployed is worrying for the ruling Communist party, which is keenly aware of the historic role disgruntled students have played in inciting rebellion,” the Financial Times reports, noting that “Mao Zedong, who led the Communists to victory in 1949, was himself an educated son of a rich peasant who had his scholarly ambitions thwarted.”
The regime has been eager to claim credit for China’s dramatic economic growth, basing its legitimacy on performance - its ability to deliver jobs and rising living standards - rather than ideology. But that means that citizens are also blaming the government for the current economic downturn and resulting job losses.
“Government leaders portray themselves as the answer to every problem, expressing their willingness to use public resources to help those left behind by the new prosperity, rather than counting on new businesses to create jobs,” notes one observer, highlighting an ideological shift back toward statism.
The Communist party is “struggling to contain economic fallout,” suggests another observer. “They are all too aware that without the promise of wealth, or if that promise crumbles, then their claims to legitimacy crumble as well.”
The regime’s ideological statism and suspicion of independent organizations means that China’s civil society remains small and unable to act as a shock-absorber - delivering services and providing a channel for peaceful protest - as it does in free societies.
Because an NGO is “essentially an assembly that is capable of collective action and powerfully challenging the government politically,” notes Beijing scholar Kang Xiaoguang, the government has been wary, tolerating social service NGOs addressing issues like poverty alleviation, but keeping any remotely political NGOs under tight control.
The government’s strategy has shifted from across-the-board banning of independent groups to one of “control by categories,” notes Kang, cited by the must-read China Digital Times. Many NGOs have become GONGOs as a result of “elite-ification” - with Chinese retired officials and elite offspring taking key jobs - while many other NGOs have been limited by size. The regime tolerates local NGOs but is wary of national-scale independent groups. It is as if a “high-voltage power line” was suspended above them, he writes.
Today’s must-read: Vaclav Havel makes the case that China’s human rights activists need support. He refers specifically to the signatories of Charter 08, an appeal for democratic reform and human rights inspired by Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77 to which Havel was a contributor and signatory.
Charter 08 has now been signed by several thousand individuals, he notes, including China’s “top minds from law, political science, economics, the arts and culture.” But Beijing’s response has been as short-sighted and repressive as the communist regime in Prague:
Rather than respond to our offer of engagement with dialogue and debate, the Czechoslovak government instead chose repression. It arrested some of the signatories, interrogated and harassed others, and spread disinformation about our movement and its aims.
So too has the Chinese government declined the invitation to discuss with the signatories of Charter 08 the merits of their proposal. Instead, it has detained two signatories, Liu Xiaobo and Zhang Zuhua, both of whom the government has identified as lead actors in its creation. Mr. Zhang has been released, but Mr. Liu, a prominent writer and intellectual, is still being held incommunicado without charge.
Dozens of others have been interrogated, and an unknowable number are being watched by state security agents as they make phone calls and type email messages on behalf of their jailed comrades. Soon after Charter 77 was issued, I was arrested for the commission of “serious crimes against the basic principles of the Republic.” It is feared that Mr. Liu will be charged with “incitement to subvert state power,” a similarly arbitrary crime…..
The Chinese government should learn well the lesson of the Charter 77 movement: that intimidation, propaganda campaigns, and repression are no substitute for reasoned dialogue.
The Washington Post carries today’s must-read article, recounting the ordeal of former North Korean political prisoner Shin Dong-hyuk. The only known prisoner to escape from the Stalinist regime’s gulag, Shin was the victim of the most perverse form of guilt-by-association:
An unforgettable — almost unfathomable — chapter of that story is about the execution of his mother, who was hanged in 1996, on the same day Shin’s only brother was shot to death. Both killings, Shin writes in his book, occurred at Camp No. 14 in a kind of public square, a place where he had seen many others executed.
Before he was taken to the square and ordered to watch them die, Shin said, he had spent seven months in an underground cell, where guards used torture to force him to talk about a supposed “family conspiracy” to escape from the camp.
Since his mother hadn’t told him about such a plan, Shin said, he was startled to hear of it. His torturers also surprised him by telling him, for the first time, why he and his family were in the camp. Two of his father’s brothers had collaborated with South Korea during the Korean War and then fled to the South, the guards told him. His father was guilty because he was the brother of traitors. Shin was guilty because he was his father’s son.
After you’ve read that, check out a new report from the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), entitled Legal Strategies for Protecting Human Rights in North Korea and co-authored by Skadden, Arps, Slade Meagher & Flom LLP. HRNK states: “The report serves as a handbook for groups seeking to use the international legal system to advance human rights in North Korea. After making the case against the Pyongyang regime, the report outlines the strategies available, including the International Criminal Court, the UN Security Council and the Alien Tort Claims Act, as well as various international covenants and conventions.”
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono refutes "Asian values" arguments against democracy in the region
Australia is committing $3 million towards a new Indonesian-based forum to improve governance in the Asia-Pacific region. Controversially, the forum is open to all states across the region, including non-democracies, and will be backed by a new Institute for Peace and Democracy.
The Bali Democracy Forum confirms “the need for an organized learning process and comprehensive dialogue on democracy,” said Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It is also a significant indicator both of the “changing global landscape, a shifting of the central power from the United States and Europe to Asia over the last 15 years” and of the fact that Asia, a melting pot for various civilizations, “will be very dynamic in the future, especially in terms of politics, culture and economy and technology.”
Dismissing the “Asian values” argument that democracy is ill-suited to Asian culture, Yudhoyono insisted that democratic practices are historically and culturally rooted in Asian societies.
The forum defines Asia along geographic rather than cultural lines in an attempt to bridge civilizational schisms, notes Benjamin Reilly, director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions at the Australian National University, an approach which includes the region’s repressive regimes, including Burma, China and Vietnam. The United States, which has sponsored the Asia Pacific Democracy Partnership of genuine democracies, was excluded.
But Reilly believes the Bali forum has the potential to stimulate democratic progress across the region, as it “underlines the fact that, contrary to proponents of ‘Asian values’, Asia’s past record of authoritarianism is unlikely to guide its future.”
Other observers are concerned that the new forum should not become an intergovernmental talking shop. ”Diplomatic procedures will limit the capacity of government officials in reaching out to the potential democratic forces of a targeted country,” writes Aleksius Jemadu, a Bandung-based academic. The forum “needs to encourage the participation of the transnational networks of civil society organizations as the social foundation of democracy.
The forum is a first for Asian region government officials addressing the relationship between democracy and its development, says Jakarta-based analyst Pribadi Sutiono, by “extracting best practices and experiences, fostering greater collaboration and encouraging mutual cooperation to strengthen national institutions to build a more democratic Asia.” If it can maintain its democratizing momentum, definitely Indonesia “could become a strategic ambassador for democracy in the region.”
In yesterday’s posting on Charter 08, a vitally significant initiative on the part of over 300 Chinese dissidents, intellectuals and officials, we neglected to include a link to the Charter itself. So here it is. Perry Link provides a useful introduction, noting that:
The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including one-party rule, and their replacement with a system based on human rights and democracy.
The prominent citizens who have signed the document are from both outside and inside the government, and include not only well-known dissidents and intellectuals, but also middle-level officials and rural leaders. They have chosen December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the day on which to express their political ideas and to outline their vision of a constitutional, democratic China. They intend “Charter 08″ to serve as a blueprint for fundamental political change in China in the years to come. The signers of the document will form an informal group, open-ended in size but united by a determination to promote democratization and protection of human rights in China and beyond.
The Charter itself raises fundamental question for the communist regime:
Where is China headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue with “modernization” under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.
Concluding…..
China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.
Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter 08. We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis, responsibility, and mission, whether they are inside the government or not, and regardless of their social status, will set aside small differences to embrace the broad goals of this citizens’ movement.
You really should read the whole thing.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono opened the Bali Democracy Forum today, at which some 33 states are expected to address the theme of “Building and Consolidating Democracy: A Strategic Agenda for Asia”. The forum would not promote any single form of democracy, said Hassan Wirajuda, Jakarta’s foreign minister. “Instead we are hoping Asian countries can learn and share experience about democracy from one another,” Hassan said.
“Indonesia’s transformation offers examples to other Asian states of how to consolidate a vibrant democracy,” writes Joshua Kurlantzick, amidst a widespread anti-democratic backlash in the region. In the 1990s, he notes, Asian reformers identified with the United States and “its blossoming democracy promotion outfits, like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, and the International Republican Institute.”
But a toxic blend of corruption, crony capitalism and a failure to develop institutions capable of channeling protest into peaceful channels has discredited democracy. This has provided an opening for quasi-authoritarian forces to offer an ostensibly attractive alternative, with Russia and China “advertising their undemocratic systems … as development models that Asian countries should emulate.”
Asia has also seen the unwelcome emergence of “uncivil society” movements in Thailand and the Philippines, notes Mark R Thompson. “Elite groups have met challenges to their hegemony by claiming to speak in the name of civil society,” he observes, citing the incivility of business-based NGOs and the authoritarian Thailand’s “network monarchy” alliance of bureaucrats, military and Bangkok middle class.
Indonesia’s upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections will determine whether the world’s largest Muslim democracy continues along the path of “uneven but nonetheless substantial reform”, notes Greg Fealy. But he cautions that resilient residues of the country’s authoritarian past are still evident in its culture. “Patronage, clientelism, corruption, intimidation, monopolistic and oligarchic practices, and primordialism remain widespread and continue to distort and undermine further democratic consolidation,” he warns.
The evolution of Islamist parties in Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia indicates the conditions under which political participation might normalize them, a comparative survey from Australia’s Lowy Institute suggests.
Drawing on case studies of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Indonesia’s Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Turkey’s ‘post-Islamist’ Justice and Development Party (AKP), the report argues that, as Islamist parties move from authoritarian to democratic contexts, several “fairly consistent shifts in Islamist ideology and activism” emerge:
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From shari’a state to shari’a values: an Islamic state becomes less important than the promotion of Islamic principles;
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From Islamic governance to good governance: policy agendas become secularized as they are forced to address a wider range of issues for which there is no ready Islamic response;
- From moral message to moral messengers: leading Islamists become “exemplars of Islamically inspired probity, effectiveness and selflessness” rather than ideologically driven movements;
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Greater membership diversity: imperatives of electoral competition and the need for political talent demand that Islamist parties broaden their membership and electoral base;
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Regeneration: while noted for their lack of internal democracy, Islamist groups are nevertheless opening up to “younger, more open-minded, worldly and technically adept activists”;
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Oscillation rather than moderation: Islamist parties do not necessarily become more moderate in more open political contexts but do “become susceptible to greater internal tensions over ideology and policy” between purist and pragmatic factions.
The report’s authors stress that such shifts are not an inevitable result of democratization. Critical variables encouraging ‘normalisation’ of Islamist parties include the existence of strong competition from other parties or movements; the legitimacy of countervailing forces or institutions; and the adoption of genuinely participatory, non-violent strategies.
The authors are critical of the “Faustian pact that secular liberals have made with authoritarian rulers” in many states, noting that such compromises neither prevent repressive measures against Islamists being used against others nor stop regimes from adopting Islamist-tinged restrictions in an effort to co-opt popular religious sentiment.
Police yesterday arrested Liu Xiaobo, one of over 300 signatories to the 08 Charter demanding democracy and human rights
Liu Xiaobo, a leading dissident who mobilized hundreds of Chinese thinkers and writers in calling for democratic reform, has been arrested. Police raided his Beijing home late on Monday a few hours before the release of the “08 Charter”, a manifesto calling on the ruling Communist Party to hold free elections and grant greater freedom of expression. The document’s publication was scheduled to coincide with tomorrow’s 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The 303 signatories propose 19 measures to improve human rights in China, including an independent legal system, freedom of association and an end to single-party rule. The initiative is a conscious throw-back to the Charter 77 declaration by Czechoslovakian dissidents which demanded that the Communist authorities ratify United Nations human rights conventions, and respect the 1975 Helsinki Accords’ human rights obligations.
“All kinds of social conflicts have constantly accumulated, and feelings of discontent have risen consistently,” the 08 Charter states. “The current system has become backward to the point that change cannot be avoided.” China remained the only big power still to retain an authoritarian system that so infringes human rights, it said.
The ‘08 Charter is significant because it convenes diverse, prominent figures around a common agenda, said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch. “The Chinese government really insists that human rights concerns are an external agenda imposed by Western countries and Western governments, but this gives the lie to this thesis,” he said.
Charter 08 was signed not only by dissidents and intellectuals but also by officials and rural leaders, notes the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network. The signatories will form an informal and open group to promote democratization and human rights, it reports.
The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt has a must-read article on Chee Soon Juan. The authoritarian mentality of Singapore’s ruling elite is exposed in a rather chilling metaphor from the city-state’s ambassador to the United States, attempting to justify the state’s persistent harassment of the democratic dissident, a former Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy:
Ambassador Chan says that her country must have a “tighter democracy” than America’s, because it is a small, multiethnic city-state in a challenging region — a rowboat next to America’s aircraft carrier.
“In an aircraft carrier, you can be playing soccer in one corner and have jets taking off in another, and the carrier remains stable,” she told me. “In a rowboat, it makes sense for everyone [our emphasis] to row in the same direction.”
