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When randomly looking through website about Chinese Democratization, I found this forum. After reading some of the comments, I felt the impulse to write some unorganized stuff in my Chinese-English as following.
Some countries, such as India, Japan and Germany got their democratic system through different process after WWII. To China’s pity, there was no possibility for China to get a democratic system at that time. CCP claims to be the “people’s democratic governing organization”. Everyone knows what it means now. The other strong party KMT had become essentially a warlord party at that time. China would not get a democratic system either party wins in the civil war.
The CCP won after 3 year of civil war and ruled the main-land China. Fairly speaking, as a main-land Chinese, I think that the CCP has made great achievements and also made uncountable mistakes. Some of its mistakes should be called crimes.
The CCP’s mistakes and crimes have been revealed and criticized by many gentlemen in this forum. I agree with most of them. Here, I would like to play devil's advocate to present some CCP’s achievements. Many of you may not agree with me. But I am quite sure that many main-land Chinese agree with me. Because of the CCP’s achievements and its ability to correct some of its mistakes, I believe that many Chinese people still have a little bit confidence on CCP for improving their life. It also gives me the hope that CCP will one day in the far away future to step down from China’s main political stage without generating significant turmoil in China. I wish that international community will embrace that much more loveable democratic China without creating whatever color revolutions for different part of the China for whatever reasons.
In my option, the CCP made following major achievements since it took power in1949.
The CCP removed all the warlords that controlled different part of the China and united most of the main-land China under one strong government which other Chinese parties such as KMT might not have the ability of doing it.
When the Korean War came to Yalu River, the CCP showed its determination to fight UN army. Backed by USSR, it successfully defended China’s national security with humongous human loss and suffering. The fierce fights presented by CVA (Chinese Volunteer Army) earned China a peaceful environment for developing. The results of the Korean War helped China to acquire 156 projects aided by USSR to establish China’s industrial foundation. The CVA’s fighting in Korean prevented fighting on our motherland. The great contribution of CVA to China should be remembered by Chinese people forever no matter how bad the N. Korean becomes. The son of Chairman Mao was killed in Korean War. He should also be saluted by Chinese people for his ultimate sacrifice. But his death may have changed China’s history to a better direction.
The CCP concentrated national resource at that extremely difficult period of time in recent Chinese history and produced “两弹一星” (atomic bomb 1964, hydrogen bomb 1967 and (shooting) satellite 1970). After 48 nuclear tests, China finally got its nuclear power status and legally owns the nuclear weapons. Somehow, I remembered that Chairman Mao invented an English vocabulary “paper tiger (纸老虎)” for some powerful countries and their nuclear weapons (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_tiger). At the same time, China made great effort to build its own “paper tiger”. Here, Chairman Mao beautifully displayed his statue as a great military strategist. China had a Mao Zedong who brought unbelievable success and unimaginable tragedy to the miserable China. I don’t know how to describe him, an epic hero, a worst monster or both. Anyway, he will be a sky high monument, good or bad, remembered by Chinese people. Those who live their life on cursing him will be forgotten soon. But many Chinese people will forever believe that overall Mao Zedong did something good for China. For the Chinese nuclear weapons, no matter how primitive, Stone Age or paper tiger those stuffs are, they perfectly served their purpose. At least, they prevented other country’s open support for Taiwan’s public announcement of its independency. They give time for main-land China to make progress economically, socially and politically. They give time for main-land to conciliate its conflict with Taiwan. They also give time for the Chinese people in both sides of Taiwan Strait to understand each other and find their common ground for a future peaceful reunification. The Chinese national pride requires the reunification. But it is not the most important aspect of the reunification. The most important aspect of the reunification deals with China’s hard core national interest. The India-Pakistan, the Russia-Ukraine, the Russia-Georgia and other uncountable conflicts taught us lessons again and again. The behavior and hatred of the separatists in Taiwan has already showed us again and again what kind of an enemy an independent Taiwan could potentially become. Some one may tell us that an independent Taiwan could be a friend of China if China behaves itself. It will be impossible for anyone to always behave the way that others think that it is OK. China will never be so naive to take this chance on its hard core national interest. I particularly support the “two hand” Taiwan police implemented by the new Chinese (CCP) leaders. The “hard hand” is to pass the “National Anti-Separation Law” in 3/14/2005 that Pre-Declares the War on the Taiwan’s public announcement of its independency. It draws a line for the separatists in Taiwan and prevents the Taiwan’s independence from becoming an internationally accepted irreversible reality. Someone may argue that Taiwan is an independence state just without announcement. That is OK for us. Like it or not, main-land China will not go anywhere but patiently waiting in the opposite side of the Taiwan Strait for a future peaceful reunification. The “software hand” is to make more effort to understand the requirements and pride of the people in Taiwan. CCP leaders are also wisely choosing to keep distance from Taiwan’s internal affairs. Many Chinese people feel hurt in their heart for the non-unification reality between main-land and Taiwan. If we Chinese look at this problem in another angle, we should realize that it is China’s fortune that we have Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau that were not under CCP’s control. These three places avoided all the terrible mistakes made by CCP. They become excellent examples of economic, social and political models for main-land China. They put pressure on the CCP to continue carry out its reforming process and become a relatively better Communist Party. They provided critical initial financial, knowledge and technical helps for main-land China’s reform to take off. They become the main-land China’s initial window to access the international market. They are continuously playing very important roles in China’s development. Today, there is still lot of restrictions for main-land China to access cutting edge technologies from developed countries. But Taiwan is in a much better position and many Taiwan businessmen bring those technologies to main-land as investment. It opens a back door for main-land China to access some of the cutting edge technologies. On the other hand, today, the main-land China has provided a huge economic stage for the businessmen from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to display their extraordinary performance. In the future when the people in both sides become more mature and understand each other to certain degree, I hope that we can provide them with political stage too. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and main-land China create diverse economic, social and political models. If the worst scenario predicted by people at different stage of China’s reforming process becomes reality, the main-land China collapses. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau will become less wounded safe harbors. They will help main-land China to go through a difficult period of time to take off again. Therefore, we main-land Chinese need to sincerely thank the people in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for all their helps. We may even need to ask their future favor for reviving. It is in the best interest of all Chinese to keep Taiwan’s status as it is and to treat Hong Kong and Macau to be special districts. We need to thank Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping for their visions of not reuniting Hong Kong and Macau back prematurely and granting them special district status. Just a thought, if India did not “liberate Goa” in 1961, or treated Goa as a special district, I wonder if Goa could have played a more important role in today’s India miracle. But I doubt that it is possible under the national pride and democratic system of India.
The grand effort of reforming China by Deng Xiaoping and a controlled transition toward market economy may also give CCP some credits although this is just the CCP correcting its early mistakes. Through all kind of struggling, suffering, humiliating, mistake, crime, defeat, blood, tear and hard work, China revived from its death bed and today finally reached her best time since its Opium War defeats (1834-1843 and 1856-1860) by English (India). Today, China is a third world developing country. We should not be fooled by our outstanding progress since 1978. We are still far far away from a developed country in almost all areas. China will be a third world country for long long time. Our generation should forget the dream of China’s world class power status and work hard and smart for our future generations to realize that dream. Some people are talking about China’s joining the G-8 group. I am glad that CCP new leaders refused exploring the possibility to join G-8. Look at the pity status of Russia in G-8. Let India join it first if she wants. With China’s increasingly closes cooperation with African countries, with the China’s relationship with the “Axis of Evil” countries and with its CCP government status, you can image how uncomfortable the Chinese seat could be in front of G-8. Self-portraited as a third world leader, G-8, the rich people club status does not fit us. However, without the support of China, the 4th largest economy and UNSC veto member, some of policy that G-8 or future G-9 (with India) produced could well be undermined. I think that as a responsible country, China should always make its effort to be ready for possible compromise with all countries and all international organizations based on win-win principle and respect with each other. China should cooperate with G-8 or future G-9 (with India) as an outsider in the foreseeable future.
Another great contribution of Deng Xiaoping is that he adopted a conciliating policy after he took the power. He did not ask for revenge. The wrongly accused people and politic victims got back to their original positions. My father (an engineer of a small factor in the western rural China, now retired) is one of them. Those people who carried out terrible policy were forgiven. Only those who carried out clear personal crimes were convicted. Chinese people live through post-culture revolution era peacefully. Considering the brutal and bloody history of culture revolution, we Chinese should be proud of ourselves for the fact that we are forgiving people. We can tolerate those who hurt us and now live peacefully with each other as helping neighbors. We are not religious but the human goodness and spirit of Chinese people shined in the post-culture revolution era. The China has gone though those terrible times without collapsing. I believe that our suffering experience has become our spirit wealth to guide us to go through our next monumental challenge when the CCP fades out from the Chinese main political stage. We lived through poor, can’t we live through rich? Do we want to go back to poor? 度尽波劫兄弟在,相逢一笑泯恩仇.
The ultimate goal of all national interests including reunification between main-land China and Taiwan is to create fair, better and dignified life for the people in both sides. We main-land Chinese should realize that it is us that made so many mistakes and put us in such a backward position. Ask yourselves some questions, if you have the living standard and political freedom of Taiwan, do you want to unit with that poor and authoritarian main-land China? Could the common philosophy based on the Chinese culture and language transcends the obstacles for the people in the both sides of the Taiwan Strait to envision a better future for each other to reunite together? Anyway, the key issue for a better united grand China lays on how the main-land China’s improving herself. In order to deserve being loved by the other side, we need to improve ourselves. To become a beloved country, China needs to respect all the common principle on human right and to have a democratic system eventually. That said, but main-land China should not push for a premature adoption of the human right defined by the west. Main-land China also does not need a premature democratic system. No offense to the Russian and Indian if I use your countries as bad examples. In fact, I respect these two great countries very much. I feel sorry that in my opinion these two great countries also made some unfortunate mistakes in their recent history. Russian’s overnight democratization puts millions of people into poor condition and caused tensions and even military conflicts with its original union members. The theory of democratization will bring steak to everyone did not happen until today, more than 15 years later. It reduced bread from poor Russians and created sever billionaires. I hope that those poor Russians agree that their voting right is more important than their bread. Some fat feeded people may argue that those poor Russians can vote now to choose whatever party they like. But the fact is that no party will provide enough bread to those poor. Have you heard that Great Russian democratic achievement, which has produced more billionaires in Moscow than in New York? Overnight, a super power collapsed and become a country relies on exporting its nature resource. Fortunately, Russia has the nature resource not like the poor China. A China’s collapse will create even more serious problem. At the time when USSR collapsed, the West praised Russia for its “courage” of pursuing democratization and celebrated the ultimate victory of Cold War over USSR. Today, NATO comes closer and closer to Russia’s front door. The West created color revolutions around Russia to remove Russia’s influence using Russia’s imperfect democratization as excuses. Keep in mind, the initial Chinese democratization will be imperfect or even worse because China’s worse condition comparing to the USSR. What an excellent lesson that the west is teaching China through their treatment of Russia? Believe me; the west is still having some respect to the Russia, the former super power. The treatment to the poor third world China will be different.
As for the internationally reputable Indian democratic system, Indians may well have the reason to be proud of it. Ironically, the system is artificially imposed on India by colonizing foreigners who claim to have the authority to give the exact definition of human right. The West sincerely hopes that Indians can beat China in any areas to show the greatness of a democratic system. Today, more than 40% women’s illiterate rate and children’s malnutrition rate are really not admirable records for Indian democratic system. I am not sure if I agree that because those illiterate and malnutrition people have the voting right, they have more human right than the Chinese women (less than 10% illiterate and malnutrition rate) who don’t have the voting right. Although, I still feel ashamed of the fact that Chinese women’s illiterate rate and children’s malnutrition rate are too high. The CCP has determined to give free basic education to all poor children. We should give CCP some credits for that although they should have done this sometime ago. Another India democratic achievement may be that its 4 richest persons have the total wealth more than that of the 40 richest persons living in main-land China. Considering that India has only half the per-capital GDP as China, India’s rich people is really rich for me to be jealous. Apparently, the India style democratic system has not done much better to help its poor than the China’s authoritarian system.
Someone may argue that China could get a better, western style or at least Singapore style democratic system. If it is true, it is great for China and Chinese people. But I would not believe that it is true. It is very sad and unfair for Chinese people. But through out the human history and around the world, the fairness hardly comes to miserable people unless they fight for it. For main-land China in its recent history, we did not have any opportunity to build an as good democratic system as Indian’s. At least Indian speaks English and has the nature connection with the West from its colonization history. Even if we learnt English; we speak Chinese-English with Chinese way of thinking. It makes us very hard to communicate with the west. Our national pride requires that we Chinese people live in China use Chinese as the first and daily life language. I am proud of that. Over 2000 years of feudalism history, the strict class division coded in Chinese society and culture and the Chinese frog-in-the-well syndrome have made it is impossible for Chinese to adopt a real democratic system, although both CCP and KMT claimed that they were implementing some kind of democratization.
Indian’s premature democratic system made them ignore the world reality and hard to accept any compromise with its neighbors. The tremendous ability displayed by India’s west trained diplomats made them friend of the most powerful countries on the planet (the West, USSR and Japan) but not its miserable neighbors. The boundary wars and conflicts with her neighbors drained India economically and politically for too long. I think that India has realized this problem and is changing its policy to the right direction. Take India’s past mistake as example, China should make compromise based on fair principle and reality with its neighbors and create more friends. We should try to make friends with developed countries even if our effort is not well received by the opponents. At the same time, we need to make friends with developing countries especially with our neighbors. On the defense area, fortunately, Chairman Mao himself is a great military strategist. His generals knew what they can win and what they can’t, not like some of their Indian counterparts. CCP fought wars with clear politic goal. These wars served China’s politic ambition and security. If its goal can not be reached militarily, CCP knew to limit wars in a controllable range without deeply dragging China in the war, which was what India did for a while. The big Uncle Sam may also have something to lean here. For all the wars CCP fought, China-Vietnam border war should be its worst performance. Anyway, it least this war was limited in a small area and did not affect rest of the China. From that war, CCP also realized the weakness of Chinese army. It paved the path to start Chinese military physical and thinking modernization. China is a third world country. It has a corresponding third world army. Chinese army should feel ashamed for 6/4/89 Tiananmen Square event. But as generals and soldiers what they can do if CCP gives them the order to kill. Bad peace is better than a good war. China should avoid any war unless absolute necessary. But as a large (not so strong) country, China can not ignore the conflicts or potential conflicts close to its boundary or in its neighbors. Chinese army need to be strong enough to protect its national security on its boundary or even preventing the war spreading into China’s boundary if necessary just like what it did in Korean war and US-Vietnam war. Chinese army also played important humanitarian role in China’s domestic disaster. Sending them abroad even for humanitarian help should be very caution. Unless for UN peace keeping effort, the international humanitarian help should be China’s civilian team. We don’t want to see other country’s army on out land; others must have the same feeling. 己所不欲勿施于人 !
Fairly speaking, India’s democratic system has also done many good things for Indian. It greatly alleviated the inhuman India's Caste System. It saved India from making the same terrible mistakes made by CCP in China. Without this foreigner imposed democratic system, India will be in a much worse situation. Today, in certain areas India is ahead of China. Although not all of them can be credited to its democratic system, some of them definitely can. Before reforming, India had slow but stead economic growth without the frequent society turmoil of China. After reforming, not like China, India did not seriously pollute its rivers, lakes and air, India did not destroy all it forest, India does not have so many human loss in the mining or industrial accidents, India has better law system, India has better bank system, India has better private business sector, India has better IT, bio-tech, medical, and service sectors and in India wild animals are still live harmoniously with human. Besides, Indians believe that they have better higher education system. Some of Indians even believe that their best colleges can rival their best US counterparts academically. China should be inspired from these India’s success and make progress in its own economical and political arenas. At this moment, Russia, India and China all have heavily corrupted governments. The premature democratic systems of Russia and India did not do much better than the Chinese authoritarian system.
In the future, as their democratic system becomes mature, India’s system should show advantage over Chinese authoritarian system if we don’t make enough progress on our system. I agree with the predication of many people that China will have some unease at the time when the middle class people (I think that I may be one of them now) requires political power. But is this conflict can not be compromised? Does it worth the violent and the collapse of China? Is it in the best interest of the Chinese people? Chinese people have experienced enough brute, blood and terrible violence in their recent history from culture revolution to 6/4/89 Tiananmen Square event (I was in Tiananmen Square in that fateful evening). I believe that there will be many difficulties for the future China. Chinese people will continue to make silly mistakes. But most Chinese people don’t want China to collapse. CCP and China’s middle class both need a peaceful China. Some people are worrying that China may collapse in the future. We should appreciate their warnings and constantly check if we are really in the danger and looking for a compromise. Some people hoped that China collapse and predicted that the collapse is unavoidable. We should thank them for not letting us to drop the guard.
For Chinese democratic process, China should not yield to any external pressure and take its reasonable pace without losing the government control. China does not need any praise from other countries. China should develop its own system based on the western democratic principles. Every democratic country has its own democratic feature determined by its history, culture and development stage. China’s democratic system will have its distinctive feature too. But I hope that the feature is not premature. China should sincerely welcome help, suggestion and criticizing on its reform process. China needs to learn the success and failure of the democratic process of other countries. The initiative controlled political reform by (VCP) Vietnams Communist Party will be a good example and also put pressure on CCP to take its political reform. Hu Jingtao has publicly praised the reform efforts of VCP. So far, CCP has done remarkable job in economical reform since 1978. If Hu Jingtao wants to leave a statue in Chinese history, he needs to show the Chinese the results on political reform in his 10 years of presidency (two terms). I hope that he will not be the Gorbachev of China. Thanks to the USSR to Russian experiments, we become less emotional, more mature, more patient, more reasonable, more tolerate and more forgiving.
Some countries, such as India, Japan and Germany got their democratic system through different process after WWII. To China’s pity, there was no possibility for China to get a democratic system at that time. CCP claims to be the “people’s democratic governing organization”. Everyone knows what it means now. The other strong party KMT had become essentially a warlord party at that time. China would not get a democratic system either party wins in the civil war.
The CCP won after 3 year of civil war and ruled the main-land China. Fairly speaking, as a main-land Chinese, I think that the CCP has made great achievements and also made uncountable mistakes. Some of its mistakes should be called crimes.
The CCP’s mistakes and crimes have been revealed and criticized by many gentlemen in this forum. I agree with most of them. Here, I would like to play devil's advocate to present some CCP’s achievements. Many of you may not agree with me. But I am quite sure that many main-land Chinese agree with me. Because of the CCP’s achievements and its ability to correct some of its mistakes, I believe that many Chinese people still have a little bit confidence on CCP for improving their life. It also gives me the hope that CCP will one day in the far away future to step down from China’s main political stage without generating significant turmoil in China. I wish that international community will embrace that much more loveable democratic China without creating whatever color revolutions for different part of the China for whatever reasons.
In my option, the CCP made following major achievements since it took power in1949.
The CCP removed all the warlords that controlled different part of the China and united most of the main-land China under one strong government which other Chinese parties such as KMT might not have the ability of doing it.
When the Korean War came to Yalu River, the CCP showed its determination to fight UN army. Backed by USSR, it successfully defended China’s national security with humongous human loss and suffering. The fierce fights presented by CVA (Chinese Volunteer Army) earned China a peaceful environment for developing. The results of the Korean War helped China to acquire 156 projects aided by USSR to establish China’s industrial foundation. The CVA’s fighting in Korean prevented fighting on our motherland. The great contribution of CVA to China should be remembered by Chinese people forever no matter how bad the N. Korean becomes. The son of Chairman Mao was killed in Korean War. He should also be saluted by Chinese people for his ultimate sacrifice. But his death may have changed China’s history to a better direction.
The CCP concentrated national resource at that extremely difficult period of time in recent Chinese history and produced “两弹一星” (atomic bomb 1964, hydrogen bomb 1967 and (shooting) satellite 1970). After 48 nuclear tests, China finally got its nuclear power status and legally owns the nuclear weapons. Somehow, I remembered that Chairman Mao invented an English vocabulary “paper tiger (纸老虎)” for some powerful countries and their nuclear weapons (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_tiger). At the same time, China made great effort to build its own “paper tiger”. Here, Chairman Mao beautifully displayed his statue as a great military strategist. China had a Mao Zedong who brought unbelievable success and unimaginable tragedy to the miserable China. I don’t know how to describe him, an epic hero, a worst monster or both. Anyway, he will be a sky high monument, good or bad, remembered by Chinese people. Those who live their life on cursing him will be forgotten soon. But many Chinese people will forever believe that overall Mao Zedong did something good for China. For the Chinese nuclear weapons, no matter how primitive, Stone Age or paper tiger those stuffs are, they perfectly served their purpose. At least, they prevented other country’s open support for Taiwan’s public announcement of its independency. They give time for main-land China to make progress economically, socially and politically. They give time for main-land to conciliate its conflict with Taiwan. They also give time for the Chinese people in both sides of Taiwan Strait to understand each other and find their common ground for a future peaceful reunification. The Chinese national pride requires the reunification. But it is not the most important aspect of the reunification. The most important aspect of the reunification deals with China’s hard core national interest. The India-Pakistan, the Russia-Ukraine, the Russia-Georgia and other uncountable conflicts taught us lessons again and again. The behavior and hatred of the separatists in Taiwan has already showed us again and again what kind of an enemy an independent Taiwan could potentially become. Some one may tell us that an independent Taiwan could be a friend of China if China behaves itself. It will be impossible for anyone to always behave the way that others think that it is OK. China will never be so naive to take this chance on its hard core national interest. I particularly support the “two hand” Taiwan police implemented by the new Chinese (CCP) leaders. The “hard hand” is to pass the “National Anti-Separation Law” in 3/14/2005 that Pre-Declares the War on the Taiwan’s public announcement of its independency. It draws a line for the separatists in Taiwan and prevents the Taiwan’s independence from becoming an internationally accepted irreversible reality. Someone may argue that Taiwan is an independence state just without announcement. That is OK for us. Like it or not, main-land China will not go anywhere but patiently waiting in the opposite side of the Taiwan Strait for a future peaceful reunification. The “software hand” is to make more effort to understand the requirements and pride of the people in Taiwan. CCP leaders are also wisely choosing to keep distance from Taiwan’s internal affairs. Many Chinese people feel hurt in their heart for the non-unification reality between main-land and Taiwan. If we Chinese look at this problem in another angle, we should realize that it is China’s fortune that we have Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau that were not under CCP’s control. These three places avoided all the terrible mistakes made by CCP. They become excellent examples of economic, social and political models for main-land China. They put pressure on the CCP to continue carry out its reforming process and become a relatively better Communist Party. They provided critical initial financial, knowledge and technical helps for main-land China’s reform to take off. They become the main-land China’s initial window to access the international market. They are continuously playing very important roles in China’s development. Today, there is still lot of restrictions for main-land China to access cutting edge technologies from developed countries. But Taiwan is in a much better position and many Taiwan businessmen bring those technologies to main-land as investment. It opens a back door for main-land China to access some of the cutting edge technologies. On the other hand, today, the main-land China has provided a huge economic stage for the businessmen from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to display their extraordinary performance. In the future when the people in both sides become more mature and understand each other to certain degree, I hope that we can provide them with political stage too. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and main-land China create diverse economic, social and political models. If the worst scenario predicted by people at different stage of China’s reforming process becomes reality, the main-land China collapses. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau will become less wounded safe harbors. They will help main-land China to go through a difficult period of time to take off again. Therefore, we main-land Chinese need to sincerely thank the people in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for all their helps. We may even need to ask their future favor for reviving. It is in the best interest of all Chinese to keep Taiwan’s status as it is and to treat Hong Kong and Macau to be special districts. We need to thank Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping for their visions of not reuniting Hong Kong and Macau back prematurely and granting them special district status. Just a thought, if India did not “liberate Goa” in 1961, or treated Goa as a special district, I wonder if Goa could have played a more important role in today’s India miracle. But I doubt that it is possible under the national pride and democratic system of India.
The grand effort of reforming China by Deng Xiaoping and a controlled transition toward market economy may also give CCP some credits although this is just the CCP correcting its early mistakes. Through all kind of struggling, suffering, humiliating, mistake, crime, defeat, blood, tear and hard work, China revived from its death bed and today finally reached her best time since its Opium War defeats (1834-1843 and 1856-1860) by English (India). Today, China is a third world developing country. We should not be fooled by our outstanding progress since 1978. We are still far far away from a developed country in almost all areas. China will be a third world country for long long time. Our generation should forget the dream of China’s world class power status and work hard and smart for our future generations to realize that dream. Some people are talking about China’s joining the G-8 group. I am glad that CCP new leaders refused exploring the possibility to join G-8. Look at the pity status of Russia in G-8. Let India join it first if she wants. With China’s increasingly closes cooperation with African countries, with the China’s relationship with the “Axis of Evil” countries and with its CCP government status, you can image how uncomfortable the Chinese seat could be in front of G-8. Self-portraited as a third world leader, G-8, the rich people club status does not fit us. However, without the support of China, the 4th largest economy and UNSC veto member, some of policy that G-8 or future G-9 (with India) produced could well be undermined. I think that as a responsible country, China should always make its effort to be ready for possible compromise with all countries and all international organizations based on win-win principle and respect with each other. China should cooperate with G-8 or future G-9 (with India) as an outsider in the foreseeable future.
Another great contribution of Deng Xiaoping is that he adopted a conciliating policy after he took the power. He did not ask for revenge. The wrongly accused people and politic victims got back to their original positions. My father (an engineer of a small factor in the western rural China, now retired) is one of them. Those people who carried out terrible policy were forgiven. Only those who carried out clear personal crimes were convicted. Chinese people live through post-culture revolution era peacefully. Considering the brutal and bloody history of culture revolution, we Chinese should be proud of ourselves for the fact that we are forgiving people. We can tolerate those who hurt us and now live peacefully with each other as helping neighbors. We are not religious but the human goodness and spirit of Chinese people shined in the post-culture revolution era. The China has gone though those terrible times without collapsing. I believe that our suffering experience has become our spirit wealth to guide us to go through our next monumental challenge when the CCP fades out from the Chinese main political stage. We lived through poor, can’t we live through rich? Do we want to go back to poor? 度尽波劫兄弟在,相逢一笑泯恩仇.
The ultimate goal of all national interests including reunification between main-land China and Taiwan is to create fair, better and dignified life for the people in both sides. We main-land Chinese should realize that it is us that made so many mistakes and put us in such a backward position. Ask yourselves some questions, if you have the living standard and political freedom of Taiwan, do you want to unit with that poor and authoritarian main-land China? Could the common philosophy based on the Chinese culture and language transcends the obstacles for the people in the both sides of the Taiwan Strait to envision a better future for each other to reunite together? Anyway, the key issue for a better united grand China lays on how the main-land China’s improving herself. In order to deserve being loved by the other side, we need to improve ourselves. To become a beloved country, China needs to respect all the common principle on human right and to have a democratic system eventually. That said, but main-land China should not push for a premature adoption of the human right defined by the west. Main-land China also does not need a premature democratic system. No offense to the Russian and Indian if I use your countries as bad examples. In fact, I respect these two great countries very much. I feel sorry that in my opinion these two great countries also made some unfortunate mistakes in their recent history. Russian’s overnight democratization puts millions of people into poor condition and caused tensions and even military conflicts with its original union members. The theory of democratization will bring steak to everyone did not happen until today, more than 15 years later. It reduced bread from poor Russians and created sever billionaires. I hope that those poor Russians agree that their voting right is more important than their bread. Some fat feeded people may argue that those poor Russians can vote now to choose whatever party they like. But the fact is that no party will provide enough bread to those poor. Have you heard that Great Russian democratic achievement, which has produced more billionaires in Moscow than in New York? Overnight, a super power collapsed and become a country relies on exporting its nature resource. Fortunately, Russia has the nature resource not like the poor China. A China’s collapse will create even more serious problem. At the time when USSR collapsed, the West praised Russia for its “courage” of pursuing democratization and celebrated the ultimate victory of Cold War over USSR. Today, NATO comes closer and closer to Russia’s front door. The West created color revolutions around Russia to remove Russia’s influence using Russia’s imperfect democratization as excuses. Keep in mind, the initial Chinese democratization will be imperfect or even worse because China’s worse condition comparing to the USSR. What an excellent lesson that the west is teaching China through their treatment of Russia? Believe me; the west is still having some respect to the Russia, the former super power. The treatment to the poor third world China will be different.
As for the internationally reputable Indian democratic system, Indians may well have the reason to be proud of it. Ironically, the system is artificially imposed on India by colonizing foreigners who claim to have the authority to give the exact definition of human right. The West sincerely hopes that Indians can beat China in any areas to show the greatness of a democratic system. Today, more than 40% women’s illiterate rate and children’s malnutrition rate are really not admirable records for Indian democratic system. I am not sure if I agree that because those illiterate and malnutrition people have the voting right, they have more human right than the Chinese women (less than 10% illiterate and malnutrition rate) who don’t have the voting right. Although, I still feel ashamed of the fact that Chinese women’s illiterate rate and children’s malnutrition rate are too high. The CCP has determined to give free basic education to all poor children. We should give CCP some credits for that although they should have done this sometime ago. Another India democratic achievement may be that its 4 richest persons have the total wealth more than that of the 40 richest persons living in main-land China. Considering that India has only half the per-capital GDP as China, India’s rich people is really rich for me to be jealous. Apparently, the India style democratic system has not done much better to help its poor than the China’s authoritarian system.
Someone may argue that China could get a better, western style or at least Singapore style democratic system. If it is true, it is great for China and Chinese people. But I would not believe that it is true. It is very sad and unfair for Chinese people. But through out the human history and around the world, the fairness hardly comes to miserable people unless they fight for it. For main-land China in its recent history, we did not have any opportunity to build an as good democratic system as Indian’s. At least Indian speaks English and has the nature connection with the West from its colonization history. Even if we learnt English; we speak Chinese-English with Chinese way of thinking. It makes us very hard to communicate with the west. Our national pride requires that we Chinese people live in China use Chinese as the first and daily life language. I am proud of that. Over 2000 years of feudalism history, the strict class division coded in Chinese society and culture and the Chinese frog-in-the-well syndrome have made it is impossible for Chinese to adopt a real democratic system, although both CCP and KMT claimed that they were implementing some kind of democratization.
Indian’s premature democratic system made them ignore the world reality and hard to accept any compromise with its neighbors. The tremendous ability displayed by India’s west trained diplomats made them friend of the most powerful countries on the planet (the West, USSR and Japan) but not its miserable neighbors. The boundary wars and conflicts with her neighbors drained India economically and politically for too long. I think that India has realized this problem and is changing its policy to the right direction. Take India’s past mistake as example, China should make compromise based on fair principle and reality with its neighbors and create more friends. We should try to make friends with developed countries even if our effort is not well received by the opponents. At the same time, we need to make friends with developing countries especially with our neighbors. On the defense area, fortunately, Chairman Mao himself is a great military strategist. His generals knew what they can win and what they can’t, not like some of their Indian counterparts. CCP fought wars with clear politic goal. These wars served China’s politic ambition and security. If its goal can not be reached militarily, CCP knew to limit wars in a controllable range without deeply dragging China in the war, which was what India did for a while. The big Uncle Sam may also have something to lean here. For all the wars CCP fought, China-Vietnam border war should be its worst performance. Anyway, it least this war was limited in a small area and did not affect rest of the China. From that war, CCP also realized the weakness of Chinese army. It paved the path to start Chinese military physical and thinking modernization. China is a third world country. It has a corresponding third world army. Chinese army should feel ashamed for 6/4/89 Tiananmen Square event. But as generals and soldiers what they can do if CCP gives them the order to kill. Bad peace is better than a good war. China should avoid any war unless absolute necessary. But as a large (not so strong) country, China can not ignore the conflicts or potential conflicts close to its boundary or in its neighbors. Chinese army need to be strong enough to protect its national security on its boundary or even preventing the war spreading into China’s boundary if necessary just like what it did in Korean war and US-Vietnam war. Chinese army also played important humanitarian role in China’s domestic disaster. Sending them abroad even for humanitarian help should be very caution. Unless for UN peace keeping effort, the international humanitarian help should be China’s civilian team. We don’t want to see other country’s army on out land; others must have the same feeling. 己所不欲勿施于人 !
Fairly speaking, India’s democratic system has also done many good things for Indian. It greatly alleviated the inhuman India's Caste System. It saved India from making the same terrible mistakes made by CCP in China. Without this foreigner imposed democratic system, India will be in a much worse situation. Today, in certain areas India is ahead of China. Although not all of them can be credited to its democratic system, some of them definitely can. Before reforming, India had slow but stead economic growth without the frequent society turmoil of China. After reforming, not like China, India did not seriously pollute its rivers, lakes and air, India did not destroy all it forest, India does not have so many human loss in the mining or industrial accidents, India has better law system, India has better bank system, India has better private business sector, India has better IT, bio-tech, medical, and service sectors and in India wild animals are still live harmoniously with human. Besides, Indians believe that they have better higher education system. Some of Indians even believe that their best colleges can rival their best US counterparts academically. China should be inspired from these India’s success and make progress in its own economical and political arenas. At this moment, Russia, India and China all have heavily corrupted governments. The premature democratic systems of Russia and India did not do much better than the Chinese authoritarian system.
In the future, as their democratic system becomes mature, India’s system should show advantage over Chinese authoritarian system if we don’t make enough progress on our system. I agree with the predication of many people that China will have some unease at the time when the middle class people (I think that I may be one of them now) requires political power. But is this conflict can not be compromised? Does it worth the violent and the collapse of China? Is it in the best interest of the Chinese people? Chinese people have experienced enough brute, blood and terrible violence in their recent history from culture revolution to 6/4/89 Tiananmen Square event (I was in Tiananmen Square in that fateful evening). I believe that there will be many difficulties for the future China. Chinese people will continue to make silly mistakes. But most Chinese people don’t want China to collapse. CCP and China’s middle class both need a peaceful China. Some people are worrying that China may collapse in the future. We should appreciate their warnings and constantly check if we are really in the danger and looking for a compromise. Some people hoped that China collapse and predicted that the collapse is unavoidable. We should thank them for not letting us to drop the guard.
For Chinese democratic process, China should not yield to any external pressure and take its reasonable pace without losing the government control. China does not need any praise from other countries. China should develop its own system based on the western democratic principles. Every democratic country has its own democratic feature determined by its history, culture and development stage. China’s democratic system will have its distinctive feature too. But I hope that the feature is not premature. China should sincerely welcome help, suggestion and criticizing on its reform process. China needs to learn the success and failure of the democratic process of other countries. The initiative controlled political reform by (VCP) Vietnams Communist Party will be a good example and also put pressure on CCP to take its political reform. Hu Jingtao has publicly praised the reform efforts of VCP. So far, CCP has done remarkable job in economical reform since 1978. If Hu Jingtao wants to leave a statue in Chinese history, he needs to show the Chinese the results on political reform in his 10 years of presidency (two terms). I hope that he will not be the Gorbachev of China. Thanks to the USSR to Russian experiments, we become less emotional, more mature, more patient, more reasonable, more tolerate and more forgiving.
i'm sure a collapse of government and anarchy in china would have done wonders for investment.
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