Blogger Ignites Debate Over Chinese ‘Revolution’
China which has long suppressed any challenge to the supremacy of the ruling Communist Party – appears to be tolerating a spirited online discussion over whether the nation should have a revolution. Days after residents from the southern Guangdong village of Wukan drew headlines by throwing officials and police out of town and electing their own government, popular Chinese blogger Han Han published several provocative posts examining the prospects for revolution, democracy and “freedom” in China. The pop intellectual, race car driver and general heartthrob argues China won’t witness a Velvet Revolution – a reference to the former Czechoslovakia’s peaceful revolt in 1989 – and that democracy won’t appear in the world’s most populous country anytime soon. Instead, activists should push for smaller, tangible reforms as a means to bring change. (The Chinese versions of the essays are available here and English translations are available here.)
Mr. Han’s posts in some regards stick to the Communist Party’s line: China isn’t ready democracy and that a revolution in China would more than likely be a bloody one. “When Chinese car drivers know to turn off their high beam lights when they pass each other, we can safely proceed with the revolution,” he writes in a post called “On Revolution.” Adding that the middle class would likely suffer, he says, “if you own an Apple iPhone, or you drive a motorcycle, or you know how to use the Internet, or you read newspapers regularly, or you eat at KFC, you are the rich criminal who will be the target of the revolution.” He argues in another post called “On Democracy” that the Communist Party has grown so large that its overthrow would not necessarily cure the country’s ills either. “When the party organization reaches a particular size, it is just the people itself,” he writes. “So the issue is not at all how to deal with the Communist Party. The Communist Party is just a name. The system is just a name.”
Perhaps Mr. Han’s views are unsurprising given the growing pressure writers, artists and others in China have come under in recent months. Over the past week, two veteran dissident writers were sentenced roughly a decade in prison each. Mr. Han confronts these concerns toward the end of his final post, “On Freedom,” where he suggests greater freedom of expression is an area where activists could target reform as opposed to overthrowing the entire system. The posts, which weren’t blocked by Internet censors as of Wednesday, come at an unusual time. In addition to the Wukan revolt, officials are grappling with wide-ranging citizen concerns, from rampant local corruption to air and water pollution. Beijing at the same time is struggling to quell a wildly dissonant online conversation. Microblogs and other new media have given people across China a bullhorn for their concerns, and Beijing worries how local disputes can galvanize national attention online sometimes in a matter of hours.
While it’s difficult to divine what China’s top leaders are thinking, the reaction to Wukan suggests high-ranking Communist Party leaders were concerned. In particular, it has drawn attention from ranking officials in Guangdong, including Zhu Mingguo, the province’s deputy party secretary. Mr. Zhu works closely with party secretary Wang Yang, a relative liberal in Chinese politics. Mr. Wang is vying for a spot on party’s all powerful Politburo Standing Committee during a once-a-decade leadership swap next year, and party leaders in Beijing are no doubt watching how he resolves the Wukan crisis among other bubbling disputes across the feisty province of Guangdong. Mr. Han’s posts have spurred a wide, and relatively rare, discussion online about the benefits and pitfalls of a revolution in China. The debate is particularly unusual given the increasing pressure faced by writers in recent months. A crackdown against writers, lawyers, artists and others perceived as a threat to the state began in February following anonymous online calls for an overthrow of the Communist Party. The crackdown continues alongside ongoing unrest across the Arab world and, more recently in Russia.