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Chinese Democracy

What rights do Chinese citizens have?

Communism and Democracy

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other.

Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

Karl Marx

Following from Marx and Mao’s idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the CCP sees itself as “leading” China into communism.

In order to do this, “bourgeois” political parties are not allowed to win power and therefore deflect the party from its “historic” mission of leading the Chinese people to communism.

Democracy and the Chinese Communist Party

The 2,987 member National People’s Congress is, in reality, subordinate to the CCP.

Hu Jintau is the CCP General Secretary and President of the People’s Republic of China.

Wen Jibao is the Premier (head of government).

The CCP has nearly 70 million members. Membership of the CCP provides power and patronage.

China’s Parliament 2010

Opposition Parties

Chen Zhu, Health Minister

China Democratic National Construction Association

September 3 Society

Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League

China Zhi Gong Party

Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang

Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party

The CCP is the only political party permitted to hold power at the national level.

But eight minor parties are allowed to participate in the political system.

They are not parties in the sense that we know them. They are not allowed to hold power in national elections. They do not have a website where we can evaluate their policies!

The CCP also allows the odd non-CCP politician to join the Politburo. Chen Zhu, for example is the Health Minister, the first non CCP Minister for 40 years. But he has been tightly vetted by the CCP and he will be sacked if he deviates from the CCP line.

Opposition parties are allowed. Sort of.

Examples of Chinese Opposition parties:

Tiananmen

2009 was the 60th anniversary of the CCP coming to power. It was the 30th anniversary of China opening up to the West and 20 years since the Tiananmen protest and massacre.

Since Tiananmen, the CCP has encouraged students and academics to join the CCP. It hopes that the next generation will trade demands for democracy for a share in the country’s wealth.

China: Twenty Years On

“Quality of work is more important than life”6

There are at least 3 million mingong in Shanghai.

They will work for anything between £20-30 per week, doing 14 hours shifts, seven days a week on construction sites or factory sweatshops.

The Great Wall of Shopping7

Some Chinese, the new middle classes, are enjoying the economic miracle. Despite recession elsewhere in the world, “Communist China” continues to experience an economic boom that has seen China replace the UK as the world’s 4th largest economy.

Those with good jobs in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing can enjoy high standards of living – and consumer goods, made at home!

Individual Rights

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Many restrictions have been lifted e.g. Chinese couples can marry younger and no longer need to have a medical before marriage. But there is still a great deal of pressure to have only one child.

Getting round the one child policy

9The Strike Hard campaign

The CCP used the 9/11 attacks on the USA as an opportunity to crack down on its political opponents.

Hu Jintao’s Zero Tolerance “strike hard” campaign has been popular in the way in which it has tackled crimes of burglary and violent assault, but peaceful political opponents have been its victims too.

Portrayed as “ethnic separatists, terrorists and religious extremists”, dissenting voices have been imprisoned, placed under house arrest and harassed by the police.

Re-Education Through Labour

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Troublemakers are Insane

Since 1949 an estimated 50 million people have been taken to Laogai for “Re-Education Through Labour”.

They serve sentences of up to three years, entirely at the recommendation of the police without having had a chance to defend themselves in court.

Most of the inmates are drug addicts (about 40%), followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement (28%) and prostitutes (about 10%).

Drive-by Justice

11 To speed up executions,

mobile courts and mobile execution chambers have been introduced. The police decide guilt. Execution is by lethal injection, in the van.

Capital crimes in China include; Violent crime, drugs offences, separatism , aiding Tibet border crossings, bribery, pimping, embezzlement, tax fraud, insurance fraud, stealing petrol, selling harmful foodstuffs and disrupting the stock market.

Capital Punishment in China

Falun Gong

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Falun Gong followers have been selected for special intimidation by the Chinese authorities.

Its religious code, which stresses “freedom of thought”, is dangerous to one party rule.

The CCP feels it should “re-educate” Falun gong supporters the way a parent will “re-educate” a naughty child.

Assessing how many Falun Gong members have been taken into custody and how they have been treated is difficult.

The CCP warehouse many Falun Gong followers in mental institutions or psychiatric wards.

Falun Gong Arrested

Tibet13

Tibet made the news in 2008 as the Chinese authorities suppressed protests for Tibetan independence.

China “liberated”. or, to be more accurate, invaded Tibet in 1950. Its leader, The Dalai Lama, has been in exile for the past 40 years.

He lives in neighbouring India. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his advocacy of peaceful protest. His photograph is banned in China.

Hundreds of monks and nuns who have supported him are imprisoned by the Chinese government, in violation of fundamental human rights.

Around 11% of the inmates of Tibet’s notorious jails are imprisoned for publicly opposing the leadership of the CCP.

Tibet protest 15 March 2008

Opposition in Urumqi

More than 200 people were killed and 1700 injured in July 2009 during inter-ethnic violence between Han Chinese and Uighurs.

Some Uighurs would like independence from China and, like Tibetan nationalists, see the Han Chinese as an occupying force.

Uighurs struggle for cultural identity

Media control

The CCP is notorious for it’s control over the Chinese media.

Most newspapers self-censor themselves. Their editors instinctively know what they can print and what the cannot.

Sometimes the CCP intervenes directly. A bizarre case was the coverage of a mining accident in 2007 which made the CCP particularly twitchy.

Four Chinese newspapers ended up reporting a mining accident in exactly the same format!

Media Censorship: YouTube

Internet Freedom?

16 Google had been criticised for agreeing to censor its

search engine, Google.cn

When a Chinese citizen entered words such as “democracy” , nothing meaningful, if anything at all, came up.

In January 2010, Google pulled out of China, alleging that the CCP had been hacking into users’ Gmail accounts.

Internet users in China now have to access Google via a link to Google in Hong Kong.

Human rights activists in China say that Google’s actions are merely symbolic and a response to international criticism. Most Chinese internet users are not political protestors. Those who do campaign for human rights are skilled at circumventing search engine censorship.

Google’s censorship

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Should the games have been boycotted?

Olympic Protests

Argument: The Games will improve human rights

"We are taking the bet that seven years from now, we sincerely and dearly hope we will see many changes"

Francois Carrard, International Olympic Committee Director General, 2001

The IOC expressed the hope that the Beijing Olympics would follow the example of the games in South Korea in 1988 where human rights and democracy improved through wider engagement.

The 1964 Tokyo Games were also a model, symbolising Japan's return to the world community, 19 years after its surrender in World War II.

China’s Assurances

When it was awarded the chance to host the Games, China pledged to uphold the values of human dignity associated with the Olympian tradition.

It promised an improvement in human rights and better provision in health and education.

Beijing also promised that the international media would be completely free to report.

Amnesty International Report

But, the human rights organisation Amnesty International claims that even in the immediate period in the run up to the Games, China broke its promises in four key areas;

•persecution of human rights activists •detention without trial •censorship •the death penalty

Amnesty International Olympic Campaign

Freedom of Expression?

But, in these “special zones”, none of the 77 applications filed to hold a protest was granted.

Two elderly grandmothers, aged 77 and 79, were given a year of re-education through labour for applying. This sentence was later revoked after international pressure.

China did grant foreign journalists greater freedoms to report on the Olympics.

The CCP also allowed “special zones” where protest would be allowed.

Political Repression ContinuesHuman rights campaigners say the situation in China has worsened since the Beijing Games.

They accuse the CCP of repression of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang, harassment of dissidents, torture and killing.

One example is Liu Xiaobo, the co-author of a statement calling for political and human rights and an end to one-party rule.

In December 2009 he sentenced to 11 years in jail for “inciting subversion”.

In February 2010 a court in Chengdu handed out a five-year to Tan Zuoren for “inciting subversion”.

His crime was to campaign on behalf of parents whose children had been killed when their shabbily built schools collapsed during an earthquake in 2008.

A Propaganda Success

It is noteworthy that China declined to bid for the 2018 or 2022 football World Cups.

The World Cup lasts four weeks, not two, and could present the kind of security challenges an authoritarian state such as China could not cope with.

The CCP clearly feels the games were a great propaganda success, which they were. The stadia and the ceremonies were spectacular. 43 new world records and 132 new Olympic records were set.

IOC president Jacques Rogge declared the event a "truly exceptional Games“.

China’s Olympic Generation