Guilty Democrats
Ma Jian
LONDON – When former Czech President Václav Havel knocked on the door of the Chinese embassy in Prague to demand the release of the writer Liu Xiaobo, I had an eerie sense of déjà vu. Thirty-three years ago, Havel helped initiate Charter 77, the landmark document that crystallized the ideals of all the dissidents – and many others – trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
Havel , of course, was rewarded with a long jail sentence for his efforts. Now Liu has been sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for much the same crime: initiating Charter 08, perhaps the bravest attempt yet to chart a peaceful way forward to freedom for China.
History is said to repeat itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. And it is indeed farcical for China’s government to try to suppress the yearning for freedom in the same brutal ways that Soviet-era communists once did. For jailing Liu on the absurd charge of trying to overthrow the Chinese state is typical of the type of thinking found in the closed societies of twentieth-century communism, where the state asserted its absolute right to judge every thought and every thinker.
In such a state, the only way to survive was for everyone to become his or her own thought police: self-censoring and never daring to question. But to judge and imprison one’s own mind, or any other mind, is to criminalize civilization.
In today’s Internet age, moreover, no prison or censorship can destroy an idea whose time has come. In its current fight with Google, for example, China’s government appears to think that its technologists can provide the means to maintain the old thought control. But, thankfully, for anyone with persistence and a modicum of computer skill, the Internet leaks like a sieve.
The great progress of China’s economy over the past 30 years is something all Chinese celebrate. But the jailing of Liu also demonstrates in the starkest terms that China’s neglect of human rights is flowing to the rest of world alongside the mass of Chinese goods. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that China opened its economy only to maintain the country’s over-mighty rulers in power, not to respect and enhance the lives of ordinary Chinese.
Although China’s government does not keep any of its international commitments on economic, social, and cultural rights, the world’s democracies appear to have lost their willingness to stand up for their beliefs, as President Barack Obama’s kowtow to China during his November visit painfully demonstrated. But it was a refusal to buckle to the values of Nazism and Communism in the twentieth century that assured the success of freedom. Liberty today needs the same type of stalwart defense.
Yes, civilization seems to be on the defensive. Though many people seem to be in denial about this, politics has retreated to a renewal of the last century’s long struggle for democracy and freedom. China’s model of authoritarian capitalism appears triumphant, but there is nothing genuinely new about this model; like all dictatorships, it deprives people of political rights and freedom of speech. And Chinese intellectuals face the cruelest reality: harsh suppression and a popular audience devoted to mammon and materialism.
But the globalization of commercial interests does retain some power to restrict Chinese authoritarianism – particularly its efforts to suppress the peoples of Tibet and Xinjiang – if only the world’s democracies will seize it. Weak states, of course, tend to be cynical about China’s growing might. The problem is that the global economic crisis has led even advanced Western states to question the wisdom of allowing the political civilization of human rights to interfere with the quest to restore economic growth.
Democratic politicians must not surrender their consciences to woo either their own economically jittery citizens or the Chinese regime. That route will lead only to moral and political decay. Havel captured this idea perfectly when he criticized Obama’s silence in Beijing on human rights. Such abasement will only lead people to begin to doubt whether democracy is a living social system.
Fortunately, China’s jailing of Liu Xiaobo will not, as we Chinese say, succeed in its effort to frighten the monkey by killing a chicken. Liu is too invisible to ordinary Chinese for that to happen. No, the incarceration of Liu is targeted at those who value democracy, both within China and abroad. It is an effort to criminalize democratic ideas and force people to choose between them and business with China.
That is a false choice. China’s economy needs world markets as much as world markets need China, if not more. Moreover, the West’s inclination to appease China will gradually cause ordinary Chinese to lose confidence that economic modernization will ever set them free. So continued silence when poets, writers, or lawyers – people like Shi Tao, Yang Tianshui, and Tan Zuoren – are treated like criminals will only assure that China’s markets are eventually lost alongside Chinese freedoms. A closed society will eventually return to a closed economy.
The real criminal in the Liu Xiaobo affair is, of course, the Chinese state. But those who think that China’s mutant political authoritarianism and mighty economy can long prevail are guilty as well. Such a system is as unsuited to the future as Mao’s system was to the past.
Ma Jian’s most recent novel is Beijing Coma.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
www.project-syndicate.org
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toma 08:59 26 Jan 10
ChasL :
This is not a money issue, but the values issue. The Chinese government sentenced Liu Xiaobo, not because he received foreign funding, but rather that he had written articles criticizing the Communist Party dictatorship. You really are an ugly clown, America's shame, a selfish wretch! You should go to learn more about your own country's values, rather than here disgraceful.
12july 02:23 26 Jan 10
Gary Eggelstone – MyMissourian.com
"One of the most notorious Holocaust deniers, Ernest Zundel recently lost his appeal in a Toronto court against deportation to Germany, where he was born.
German prosecuters immediately arrested and jailed Zundel upon his arrival in Germany. He had been sentenced to five years in prison for incitement and insulting and denigrating the memory of the dead.
The prosecuters had charged Zundel with sending hate material and anti-semitic and Holocaust revisionist over the Internet from both the United States and Canada."
this is only a sample of what is happening by the Democracy leaders of the world. Who suppresses and fight the right of expression. It is very exciting to talk about freedom democracy or as the French revolution slogans; equality, justice and freedom. But which justice and what freedom and equality. To speak in general it is very deceptive. If the west with their all these slogans do not respect right of speech and expression, then who do you expect to exercise and respect these nice slogans?
ChasL 06:00 26 Jan 10
toma, have you read the verdict document? Page 3 prosecution evidence section 2 included the Liu's Bank of China account activity, foreign remittance was accepted and withdrew.
This is part of the reason why Chinese court found Liu's political speech exceeded the limit of free speech - foreign sponsorship. There are co-authors and signers of Charter 08, why aren't they all in jail? There are lots of Chinese who are critical of their government (I've met a few myself), why arn't they all in jail?
I know it's very emotionally satisfying to call people names and stick to the old cold war "red China" ideology, but the fact is the same verdict would've happened in US if someone took Chinese government and advocated abolition of US constitution.
hsgross 12:11 27 Jan 10
12july: Germany has very strict laws against those who vocalize support for Nazism or publicly deny the holocaust. Austria too. While it is an infringement on freedom of speech, there are very obvious historic reasons for this and, if you have ever been to Western Europe and China, it would be very clear to you which is the freer.
ChasL: Your Chinese must be quite good indeed. Even assuming you are correct, which I do not, your argument fails to take account many things: the recent Supreme Court decision in the US in Citizens vs. United that explicitly allows for foreign donations to politicians; the fact that Saudis and others have been long-time high-dollar contributors to political campaigns in the US; that Liu Xiaobo is not a foreign agent and has never been charged as such; the main thrust of Ma Jian's thoughts, namely that Liu's imprisonment is a farce and that the world should stand up to China before it's too late; and, finally and most importantly, that though providing much laudable economic opportunity to its people and opening to great degrees since 1978, China remains one of the world's most closed societies with very few social freedoms. At some point the Chinese people may very well gain the self-respect to question the paternalism of their government, en masse. If the PRC is acting in the best interests of the people, why thwart all feedback? As Ma concludes: "Such a system is as unsuited to the future as Mao’s system was to the past."
hsgross 03:25 27 Jan 10
For ChasL and others:
I saw just saw this on the WSJ and thought it may prove interesting to you: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703906204575026503906282806.html
ChasL 06:56 28 Jan 10
Mr. Gross, I'm American, ain't never been citizen of the PRC a day in my life, I'm not sure what you are insinuating, but translation of the Liu Xiaobo verdict is available on-line:
Secondly, do you mind citing the passage where the US Supreme Court have overturned US v. John Huang:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1999/August/357crm.htm
Alas, I wonder if you have hear President Barak Obama's State speech tonight, where he specificall said
"I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, worse, by foreign entities."
Mr. Gross, face it, the Liu case involves political speech that can't be sponsored by foreign entity. Not for us, not for China. It is no long a simple case of free speech when Liu Shaobo is bank rolled by the US government.
ChasL 12:18 26 Jan 10
Mr. Ma, you are a great author of fiction - but do you review all the facts when you write non-fiction?
For example are you aware of the fact that Liu Xiaobo received over US$650,000 of US government funding via the NED in the past five years? Please check the NED's China grants for Independent Chinese Pen Center and Minzhu Zhongguo magazine, which Liu heads.
If Liu is American he'd be in violation of Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). Pray tell, why would we lament Chinese money corrupting our political process, while sending many folds more to China, to corrupt your political process?
This is by no means a straight foward case of free speech. Liu took foreign money the Chinese government has every right to prohibit (as we do under FARA.)
My reading of the verdict is that the Chinese court decided Liu's political speech exceeded the limit of free speech, at least in part due to the prosecution evidence showing Liu received foreign remittance.