Xu Zhiyong, January 1, 2020
Enter 2020 in themarch of history: another wave of crackdown against civil society is sweepingacross China: NGO worker Cheng Yuan (程渊)in Changsha has been arrested; Pastor Wang Yi (王怡)in Chengdu was handed a heavy nine-year prison sentence; the last few days haveseen the detentions of Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜),Zhang Zhongshun (张忠顺), Dai Zhenya (戴振亚),Li Yingjun (李英俊), Huang Zhiqiang (黄志强).
Where is China heading? Can it sail through the historical gorgesand move towards the broadway of modern civilization without upheaval? Whatchoice is each Chinese going to make? Do we struggle in the quagmire ofdictatorship, or rise to the call of a constitutional democracy? I ask each andevery member of the Communist Party and each and every citizen to weigh ananswer.
In 1978, China launched the Reform and Opening Up, a step in thedirection of where the human civilization had been going, developing, andprospering for more than three decades prior. But over the past seven years,reform has regressed, opening up hindered; the specter of the CulturalRevolution looms over China as though time is flowing backward. This reversalshows no sign of braking.
Inthe 1980s, the Party attempted to separate the Party and the government andtake the Party interference out of the management of enterprises. Today, “theParty leads everything.” For years, rural China has experimented with autonomy,now the village heads must also be the Party secretaries. Private companies areforced to install Party branches, private entrepreneurs feel as insecure aswalking on thin ice. What signals are sent with the retirements of Jack Ma (马云),Pony Ma (马化腾), and Robin Li (李彦宏)?Reform and Opening Up is over as soon as the underlying drive becomes one ofdiscrimination, or even elimination of, private ownership and expansion of thestate enterprise — it doesn’t matter in what name it is done, mixed ownership,or public-private joint management.
Also in the 1980s, the Party moved tocollective leadership, but today it is again one man dictating all. A youngwoman threw a bottle of ink on Xi Jinping’s portrait, but it matters little. XiJinping heads everything and decides everything. How could he do well even ifhe’s a genius? The people are silenced, the Party members are prohibited from“wantonly criticizing the Party’s policies.” What kind of era is this? Intoday’s world of pluralism, Xi Jinping decides to shut down speech, stranglethe market, suck the energies out of the society, and subjugate everyonethrough fear.
Lifelong tenure was abolished in the1980s. Now, Xi Jinping has blatantly amended the Constitution in order to stayin power forever. Look around the world: how many governments are there that donot have term limits?
How great does he think he is to defy such a universalconsensus?
Ideology: What is the “China Dream”? Whatis the real intention behind its semantic mimicry of the dream of freedom thatevery American cherishes? Under its pretty appearance is disregard forinstitutions, values, and culture. The number of “Confidences” has grown fromthree to four, but is it real confidence? Its guiding ideology is nothing butbogus socialism. Its one-party system distorts the market and impedes economicdevelopment. Its path, defined by thirty years of class struggle and thirtyyears of economic development, is a self-contradiction. As for its culture, itembraces Marxism-Leninism, while thoroughly smashing the Confucian traditionand pillaging the Chinese civilization.
Personnel: Xi Jinping has chosen nepotismover talent, personal loyalty over integrity. His government endeavored todrive the “low-end” people out of the capital to the anger of hundreds andthousands of people; it tried to “clean” the cityscape by using force to removesigns of businesses, and was met with all-around condemnation. Without anysense of shame, his administration penned articles denouncing constitutionalismand beating the drum for one-man rule. No theory and no talent, he believes inthe personal cult of himself. China has no shortage of capable men and women,how can he possibly enjoy popular support with such a narrow mindset?
Internal affairs: The state has grownstronger by making the people weaker. Reform has been walked back. Powerinterferes everywhere and the market does not know what to do. Privateentrepreneurs have lost confidence, and the elite class is seeing animmigration exodus. The new Xiong’an city possesses no natural conditions forsuccess, but it is promoted as another Shanghai, another Shenzhen, a grand planfor the next thousand years. One day the urge for environmental protectionstruck, thousands of enterprises were forced to close overnight without regardfor reality or the local economy. The costs of stability maintenance havebecome a black hole sucking up the country’s wealth, while the social securitysystem favors some and offers little to others. Hong Kong has been free andprospering for a hundred years, but the last seven years saw incessantconflicts to which the government in Beijing offers no real solution. Will thesituation continue indefinitely?
Foreign affairs: It’s the 21st century,and China held a WorldCongress on Marxism [in 2018]. What message did it send to privateentrepreneurs, and to the world? Aiming to be the big boss of the CommunistInternational? In the U.S.-China trade war, China has morphed from belligerentposturing to grudging acceptance. It threatened an eye for an eye and a toothfor a tooth; it ended up importing swine fever from Russia and incurring totaldisaster. Xi Jinping admires Putin the strongman, kicking up fracas in SouthChina Sea, Diaoyudao Islands (Senkaku Islands), Taiwan, and Doklam, all ending in self-defeat. Taking a page from its pastengagement with the third world countries, China has made large loans throughthe One Belt and One Road Initiative. But it’s the 21st century, these projectshave neither economic viability nor popular support. As China abolitioned termlimits, the whole world suddenly turned on communism. Is it just a coincidence?
Inside the Party: Xi Jinping has usedanti-corruption to purge dissent and rivalry. He’s made “wanton criticism” acrime with which to suppress opinions. Party members and cadres can be committinga crime just for speaking up their minds. The word “struggle” was used 58 timesin a single article, so who is he struggling against? Government entities havebeen subject to endless brainwashing sessions, while actual work is leftundone. In the work units, merit depends on obedience, not performance. Why aregovernment employees indolent and negligent? Because even Party members andcadres can’t stand the oppressiveness anymore, let alone ordinary citizens.
Outside the Party: Speech is increasinglystrangled. Every day an untold number of Chinese experience deletion of postsand shutdown of accounts. Some were questioned by police, others were arrestedacross the provincial borders. Universities have been forced to change theircharter or textbooks to root out the last vestiges of freedom of thought.Surveillance cameras and security checkpoints are everywhere, leaving citizenswith no privacy and no dignity. Independent organizations have been eradicated,even moderate proposals for gradual change have been stumped out. SuppressChristians. Suppress any independent religion. Private businesses are beingappropriated in the name of mix-ownership, forcing entrepreneurs to step down.The entire society feels increasingly oppressed and despirited. Where will thisend?
It took only seven years for a China fullof hope and potential to sink into its current lifelessness.
There is no future for a “China Dream”that means a one-party state that incorporates some degree of market economyonly for pragmatic purposes. It’s the old road of taking what’s useful to usfrom the west while rejecting the underlying principles. China had a choice in2013: follow the example of [Taiwan leader] Chiang Ching-kuo to embrace constitutional democracy, or thealternative: suppress civil society. Many people, myself among them, held highexpectations at the time. But China took the other path. Society has been moretightly controlled, market economy more distorted; dictatorship might have beeneffective in driving the economy in the early years of reform, but it’s now an obstacle to economicdevelopment. The system is so insecure that it throws ever more money tomaintain a gigantic stability maintenance apparatus. This will eventually dragdown the economy and cause it to cave in on itself.
Sadly we are witnessing this process ofChinese economy contracting, while the juggernaut of stability maintenanceconsumes the wealth that this country has accumulated over the last threedecades. We are getting closer and closer to stagflation and poverty.
China cannot go on like this.
I ask each and every Chinese to think seriously: What can we do?What kind of China are we going to leave to later generations?
Communism will end for certain. But China will still be here. Whenthe day comes that the Party vanishes into dust and smoke, China will not wantto go down with it.
Our work today has been to seed new hopefor the Chinese nation when the totalitarian regime collapses. The citizensmovement calls on every Chinese national to take their citizenship, theirrights, and their responsibilities seriously, bring progress to the countrythrough rational and constructive approaches, and realize freedom, justice, andlove in China.
For a better China, we persisted andpersevered in our effort to defend freedom and justice, and to build the civilsociety. We campaigned for the right of migrant workers’ children to takecollege entrance exams where they live, not where they came from; we took tothe streets calling for officials to disclose their assets. These two endeavorsbecame our crimes in 2013. At the end of 2019, lawyer Ding Jiaxi and severalcitizens were again rounded up for continuing to build civil society. The governmentwouldn’t even tolerate such moderate and rational work.
Mr. Ding Jiaxi was a successfulcommercial lawyer and lived a comfortable life in China. Then, answering a callof duty from within, he decided to join the equal education campaign for migrantworkers’ children in Beijing. He took part in the calls for officials todisclose their assets. For this he was sentenced to three and a half years inprison. After he was released, he visited the U. S. to reunite with his wifeand children. To the surprise of many, he returned to China after a month. Hesaid, I want to change my country. He is a citizen, and the country is ours. Wemust change her, not escape from her.
I’m ready to go to jail again, anytime.For many years I have been contemplating under which circumstances I’d havemore value to my country: inside or outside jail? I keep thinking of the menand women, the generations that had come before me that had suffered and madesacrifices. Today we are following in their footsteps, ready to give upeverything we have. But we do not despair, nor will we give up.
My fellow compatriots, if you love Chinaas we do, please take up your civic responsibility for this country. Chinacan’t go on like this anymore. Act to change your own country, act to reversethe decline, act to correct the injustices, act to rise from the state ofindifference, act against the suppression, act to fight the long and darknight, act to refuse subjugation, act against unfettered power, and act tobreak the numbing silence!
If you love China, strive with us. Onlyby rising up will China escape the fate of going back to the long night ofCultural Revolution. Only by rising up, will China stop the rot of decline.Only by rising up will the Chinese nation embrace modern politicalcivilization. Only by rising up will the people stand with dignity and will thecountry have a future. It’s a time of crisis, but we, the Chinese citizens,still believe that history will not stop its march of progress. As 2020arrives, I wish for China to start on the road to constitutionalism, and I wishfor every Chinese to stand up and become a proud citizen.
Citizen Xu Zhiyong
New Year’s Day 2020
Translated by China Change: 《许志永: 改变 — 2020新年献词》
