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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:05 am Post subject: The Great Crackdown |
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The Big Chill
| Evan Osnos wrote: |
Step by step�so quietly, in fact, that the full facts of it can be startling�China has embarked on the most intense crackdown on free expression in years. Overshadowed by news elsewhere in recent weeks, China has been rounding up writers, lawyers, and activists since mid-February, when calls began to circulate for protests inspired by those in the Middle East and North Africa. By now the contours are clear: according to a count by Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, the government has �criminally detained 26 individuals, disappeared more than 30, and put more than 200 under soft detention.�
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China is a rare creature: a high-functioning dictatorship. Its economy and security services work efficiently�either appeasing, contenting, or terrifying people away from organized unrest. For the moment, the real damage may be to China�s international stature. The Harvard Professor Joseph Nye, who enjoys academic rock-star status here because he coined �soft power,� a pillar of Chinese diplomacy these days, has concluded that China�s current wave of arrests is �torpedoing its soft-power campaign." |
We should have seen Ai Weiwei's detainment coming
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| It has been more than 24 hours since anyone has heard from Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and pro-democracy activist detained by authorities at Beijing's Capital Airport Sunday while attempting to board a scheduled flight to Hong Kong. Police also raided Ai's studio near Beijing, questioned eight of his assistants, and placed his wife under house arrest. The lack of news and the sudden disappearance of all mentions of the artist on Chinese micro-blog Weibo have sparked fears that Ai, perhaps most famous in the West for designing the "Bird's Nest" stadium for the 2008 Olympics, may be the latest critic of the Communist government to be charged with subversion. |
I think the Arab Spring may have spooked Zhongnanhai. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:10 am Post subject: |
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This is noteworthy because usually the Chinese government doesn't just do whatever it wants.
Shanghaiist
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| Observers say the current crackdown is unusually troubling because Ai Weiwei has only ever expressed his personal political views and not actually organized any political activities, and secondly, because it's violating local legal procedures that already allow for detainment of people for long periods of time. (The police are allowed to hold people for up to 24 hrs only without formal charges.) |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:16 am Post subject: |
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Where Jasmine means tea, not a revolt
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The current setup fosters allegiance to the party, even if it is based on the survival instinct and not a small dollop of greed. Li Fan, director of the World and China Institute, a nongovernmental group in Beijing that studies political reform, said electoral democracy would threaten the benefits entrepreneurial elites enjoy under the current system. �Those who have prospered from economic reform have no interest in sharing power or the spoils of prosperity with those beneath them,� he said.
The same can be said of the 300 million members of China�s growing middle class, many of whom subscribe to the belief that universal suffrage would overempower their impoverished rural brethren. It has become an article of faith, even among idealistic college students, that Chinese peasants are too unschooled to intelligently select the nation�s leaders. As Jiang Zemin, then the Chinese president, told Mike Wallace in a 2000 interview, �The quality of our people is too low.�
The demonization of democracy emanates from top leaders like Wu Bangguo, the party�s top legislator, who last month warned the nation that electoral democracy would drive China �into the abyss of internal disorder.� Chiming in are celebrities like Jackie Chan, the Hong Kong actor who has denounced democratic societies like Taiwan as �chaotic,� saying the Chinese require authoritarian governance. �If we�re not being controlled, we�ll just do what we want,� he said at a gathering of Chinese executives two years ago, prompting a round of hearty applause. |
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:43 am Post subject: |
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The same can be said of the 300 million members of China�s growing middle class, many of whom subscribe to the belief that universal suffrage would overempower their impoverished rural brethren. It has become an article of faith, even among idealistic college students, that Chinese peasants are too unschooled to intelligently select the nation�s leaders. As Jiang Zemin, then the Chinese president, told Mike Wallace in a 2000 interview, �The quality of our people is too low.� |
This part actually sounds similar to most of the U.S. through the 1800s. I think it makes more sense to restrict suffrage on economic grounds than to have a 1-party state, but both are seen as solutions to the same problem. Having an educated minority making the decisions isn't new for China. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 12:51 am Post subject: |
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| It would make some sense if the elite were educated. Mostly they are goons. A nation of willing slaves. For most of it's history a small elite has exploited the masses. A huge ocean of poor with a handful of wealthy. Nothing changes. |
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Blockhead confidence
Joined: 02 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:22 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
This is noteworthy because usually the Chinese government doesn't just do whatever it wants.
Shanghaiist
| Quote: |
| Observers say the current crackdown is unusually troubling because Ai Weiwei has only ever expressed his personal political views and not actually organized any political activities, and secondly, because it's violating local legal procedures that already allow for detainment of people for long periods of time. (The police are allowed to hold people for up to 24 hrs only without formal charges.) |
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What observers?
As far as I'm aware there is only one other famous outspoken critic of the government in China who doesn't organise activities, and that is Hanhan. Both, it seems, have remained outside of bars because of connections and/or fame. (Ai Weiwei -- apparently has liberal gov't connections because of his father; Hanhan -- amazingly popular with the young)
So really, why it took them so long to detain him, is the real mystery. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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The government is really worried because of the democracy movements in the middle east. But I think it is the rocky economy that has them really spooked. Inflation a slowing economy, and major corruption being exposed recently are fueling discontent. The arrest of several top officials at the railroad for turning the hi speed rail project into a fiasco and the enormous amount of money they stole have people very upset.
So arresting high profile activist is a way of silencing the masses. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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Excellent contributions, Blockhead Confidence, comm, and rollo. I wish all my threads attracted such incisive and measured posts.
I need to remind Chinese about comm's restricted suffrage argument; that arrangement would seem more friendly to human rights than the current status quo.
The persecution of lawyers for essentially doing their jobs, advocating within the system, really upsets me the most.
China: Assault, detention and house arrest of human rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong, Tang Jitian and Teng Biao
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At approximately midday on 16 February 2011, Jiang Tianyong, Tang Jitian and Teng Biao gathered with a group of other lawyers and human rights defenders to discuss ways in which they might offer help to Chen Guangcheng and his family. However, from 12.15pm onwards, the restaurant began to be surrounded by a number of policemen from the Beijing Public Security Bureau, who remained outside until the lunch broke up at 2.30pm.
Front Line believes that the assault, detention and house arrest of Jiang Tianyong, Tang Jitian and Teng Biao are directly related to their legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights. Front Line is concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of all three human rights defenders. |
It upsets me almost as much that private citizens and artists, such as Ai Weiwei and Hanhan, were disappeared for expressing viewpoints, even though they had not assembled with others to do so. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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| I think that they are revealing more what they truly are, thugs because the world has tolerated their murder and violence and just gives them more money as a reward for their savagery. The Chinese people are totally beaten down contrite slaves. They are nothing to the elite. Their life is still third world for the most part. Sixty years of sledge hammer blows to the head and nothing really matters anymore but to survive. If their was a shred of decency in the West , ambassadors would be withdrawn. Sanctions would be placed on China. To watch the president of the U.s. kowtow to the man who butchered thousands of Tibetans. Well as bad as Bush was he refused to have a state dinner for a murderer. So they do not pretend and decency anymore. The young do not care there is nothing in front of them but drudgery for their masters. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:54 am Post subject: |
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China tour de force silenced
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| Startling as it is, the latest apparent arrest of Ai Weiwei - one of China's most famous artists - is also unlikely to provoke much more than a whimper of protest as Beijing's increasing assertiveness and intolerance of dissent become accepted pieces in a new global order. |
China is disappearing all of its best faces to the world. But this is consistent with prevailing Chinese popular attitudes: excellence must be punished to protect the mean.
I hope the Western Chinese Hypemeisters include this in their portfolio of a "rising" China.
Here's a China Daily op-ed: China should be more assertive
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Yan Xuetong, professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said, "If China wants to regain its historical status as a great world power, it must act like a great world power."
While the Chinese mainstream maintains that the call for China to play a more active role is "a conspiracy" by Western countries "to exhaust our economic resources by saddling it with more obligations abroad," according to the article, a growing number of critics have started to question China's decades-old doctrine of "keeping a low profile," first articulated by Deng Xiaoping. The author stated unequivocally that he is "firmly" in the critics' camp. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah this is no different than when Stalin warned about triumpialism to the supreme Soviet in the 30's.
Sure the Chinese professor who has never been outside of China and who thinks the Chinese are intellectually superior wants China to become a great power. An Asian arms race is already underway. Russia and Japan are muscling up. North Korea has nuclear weapons, and the Japanese probably do too. India is also getting quite powerful. The Beijing leadership may fall into this trap means a war or collapse of the C.C.P dynasty.
But locking up lawyers and peaceful citizens is nothing new for this regime. They have always done this. It is just at this time they know that history teaches that a period of violence is around the corner. 1989 was the last outburst, another is due. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:48 am Post subject: |
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The Great Crackdown has attracted the attention of journalists outside of the old China Hands.
When Can the Chinese Expect Their Arab Spring?
The official new US position on China's government:
| SecState Clinton wrote: |
| They�re worried, and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool�s errand. They cannot do it. But they�re going to hold it off as long as possible. |
If protests and crackdowns continue, China faces a dark future
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| China's dilemma is the same one experienced by autocratic regimes across the globe: a too-successful crackdown risks creating only more dissent, which will require even stronger crackdowns, initiating a violent cycle in which both the state and the population are neither willing nor able to back down. Such a cycle, if it continues unabated, has only two foreseeable endpoints: the collapse of the regime, which would be disastrous in a country as large, diverse, and militarized as China; or, more likely, the reversion of the state back to the violently repressive dictatorship of the 1970s. In other words, if the conflict between the state and its people continues to escalate, then the state is forced either to pursue the harshest possible campaign against it people, as it has in the past, or to abdicate. |
Max Fisher is probably wrong; the CCP can get away with this for awhile. The CCP has progressed since Mao, and the Chinese are largely quite satisfied to trade away something they've never experienced, freedom, for something else they've never experienced, a real promise of financial well-being. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:50 am Post subject: |
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| I hope you guys with personal experience in China keep posting your thoughts. It's interesting reading what you think. |
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