Commentary by Robert Tracinski
The Intellectual Activist
April 13, 2006
Communism has been slowly dying in China for decades. The substance of the Communist system is now entirely dead, and all that remains is the outer form of political tyranny—but without an ideology to support it, that tyranny is doomed to crumble.
Here's a report on an important new stage in that process: the growth of the "civic power" of private advocacy groups that are independent of the government. Most of these groups do not directly advocate the elimination of political controls. They adopt narrow "single issue" campaigns, such as compensation for victims of incompetence by state-run hospitals.
But in doing so, they establish the premise that independent citizens have the right to petition their government for redress of grievances, and that the government is obliged to respond to those demands. They are establishing, from the bottom up, issue by issue, the premise that the government is supposed to answer to its citizens, not the other way around.
The Article:
Howard W. French,
The Intellectual Activist
April 13, 2006
Communism has been slowly dying in China for decades. The substance of the Communist system is now entirely dead, and all that remains is the outer form of political tyranny—but without an ideology to support it, that tyranny is doomed to crumble.
Here's a report on an important new stage in that process: the growth of the "civic power" of private advocacy groups that are independent of the government. Most of these groups do not directly advocate the elimination of political controls. They adopt narrow "single issue" campaigns, such as compensation for victims of incompetence by state-run hospitals.
But in doing so, they establish the premise that independent citizens have the right to petition their government for redress of grievances, and that the government is obliged to respond to those demands. They are establishing, from the bottom up, issue by issue, the premise that the government is supposed to answer to its citizens, not the other way around.
The Article:
Howard W. French,
New York Times,
April 11, 2006
Ms. Liu's experience, all but unimaginable as recently as two or three years ago, is increasingly common in China, where a once totalitarian system is facing growing pressure from a population that is awakening to the power of independent organization. Uncounted millions of Chinese, from the rich cities of the east to the impoverished countryside, are pushing an inflexible political system for redress over issues from shoddy health care and illegal land seizures to dire pollution and rampant official corruption….
"Two years ago, if you raised issues, the government basically ignored you," said Wan Yanhai, the director of Aizhixing, a nongovernmental organization based in Beijing, which petitioned the Justice Ministry on the blood contamination issue. "Nowadays, there will be feedback."…
"This is the way things happened in Taiwan, too," said Merle Goldman, emerita professor of Chinese history at Boston University and the author of the recently published book, "From Comrade to Citizen: the Struggle for Political Rights in China."
"In the early 50s they started to have village elections, which went from the village level and kept moving up. Then they started having NGO's, and then other independent groups and finally independent parties. The government would periodically crack down on them, but they kept coming back."…
"The idea is not to have a couple of figures leading the way to change," said Jiang Tianyong, a Beijing lawyer who has been involved in the AIDS case. "The idea is to have many, many people playing different roles, each taking his own responsibility. What's different from the past is that once, if you cracked down on someone, there would be a time of quietness. Nowadays, if they knock someone out, another person or several others step forward."…
For Mr. Hu, the small victories that Ms. Liu and others are winning represent the first stirrings of an irresistible tide of change.
For Mr. Hu, the small victories that Ms. Liu and others are winning represent the first stirrings of an irresistible tide of change.
"I live in Beijing, and three weeks ago there was almost no green," he said in an interview after his release from detention. "Now it is green every day. You wouldn't notice it if you were living it day to day, but the greenness is blooming everywhere now. It is the same with civil society, or with NGOs. Now there is a citizens' consciousness to participate, a willingness to defend their rights. Call it civic power."
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