A Beautiful China – Twelve – China’s Path
Xu Zhiyong, translated by Joshua Rosenzweig, July 29, 2024
Note From the Editor
Born in 1973, Dr. Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a legal scholar, pioneer of China’s rights defense movement, and a founder of the New Citizens Movement. On April 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of “subverting state power.” Before this, he had served a separate prison term from 2013 to 2017 for his Citizens Movement activities during Xi Jinping’s first wave of crackdowns on civil society after coming to power in late 2012. Between the two prison stints from 2017 to the end of 2019, Dr. Xu wrote A Beautiful China (《美好中国》), a collection of 24 essays. It is a review of his journey and that of his generation’s struggle for a better China in what often appeared to be a hopeful era of rapid economic development and political awakening; it is also a vision for a China free of the totalitarian yoke. Dr. Xu Zhiyong’s imprisonment is a textbook example of how the paranoid Communist leadership deploys its rubber-stamp judiciary to imprison China’s brightest and bravest. Dr. Xu has since early this year been sent to Lunan Prison (鲁南监狱) in Shandong province to serve the remaining 10 years of his sentence – if the communist regime in China will last that long. Late last year, from the detention center in Linyi, Shandong, Dr. Xu wrote to China Change via his lawyers to express his wish that A Beautiful China be translated and published on this website. Honoring Dr. Xu’s work and his sacrifices for the sake of his country, today we begin serializing a translation of his 24 essays.
Yaxue Cao
February 12, 2024
Twelve
China’s Path
No Hope for Reform
No one can stand in the way of historical progress. China will inevitably become a constitutional democracy. But there are questions about the path of transition and the price that citizens will have to pay to achieve that transition. It is high time for Chinese citizens with a sense of responsibility to think seriously about China’s path forward.
Is there any future for the “Chinese Dream”?
Some pin their hopes on “enlightened despotism.” They believe that things like maintaining social stability, fighting corruption, alleviating poverty, and promoting the “Belt and Road Initiative” will develop China’s economy, strengthen its military, and achieve a national rebirth.
Can there be a “Chinese model” that does not lead towards constitutional democracy? What does this Chinese model entail? One-party dictatorship plus market economy. In today’s world of diverse values and interests, how can a single political party and one ideology rule over 1.3 billion people? How is it “scientific” to have all policies, large and small, be dependent on the decisions of person? How can a Party whose ultimate goal is to maintain its monopoly on power forever avoid becoming an organization of privilege and corruption?
After four decades of “Reform and Opening,” China’s economy has certainly developed, but it lacks many elements of a modern culture, such as freedom, justice, and happiness. A changing economic base is bound to come into conflict with a rigid superstructure. Should China follow the tide of history toward constitutional democracy or take the opposite path of strengthening the forces of security and stability? Since 2013, it has followed the latter path. The market has been distorted by power, private enterprise has been marginalized, and social vitality has been lost. Instead of a separation between the Party and the government, the Party now controls everything, and collective leadership has been replaced by one-man rule. They’ve even turned back to the system of life tenure.
The Chinese model is reaching a dead end.
Why do people say there’s a 70-year life cycle to totalitarian regimes? It’s because an ever-expanding system of stability represses the economy and society spirals into contraction. Today, in the era of the global village and its expansion of access to information, 70 years of political monopoly by one party is already too long.
Is there any hope for reform?
We’ve hoped for reform for many years, but the Communist Party is not like the Kuomintang. From the very beginning, the Kuomintang’s goal was to join the ranks of the world’s constitutional democracies. As the Republic of China passed through the three stages of military government, political tutelage, and constitutional government envisioned by Sun Yat-sen, the “suppression of rebellion” meant a temporary curtailment of rights, not a change of direction.
From inception, on the other hand, the Communist Party rejected “bourgeois democracy” in favor of a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and it has always believed that it represents the most advanced forces of development. The genetic makeup of its political culture combines the idea of planned economy and class dictatorship that came from the West with the Eastern despot’s “law of the jungle” — making it incompatible with modern democratic political culture.
The Communist Party carries extremely heavy historical baggage. Democratic politics operate out in the open. During the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries in the 1950s, killings were carried out on the basis of population quotas. Many intellectuals who dared to speak out were persecuted during the Anti-Rightist Campaign later that decade. The “Great Leap Forward” brought unprecedented famine, and the madness of the Cultural Revolution destroyed China’s cultural traditions. Once memories of such terror, absurdity, and shame are out in the open for all to see, the Party will no longer be able to exist.
The totalitarian system began to wane after the height of the Cultural Revolution. The Party began to be made up of a bunch of mediocre bureaucrats with no leadership, no beliefs, no ideals, and no sense of responsibility. The Party used its monopoly of power to reap excessive profits in the unregulated market economy and used those resources to build a massive security apparatus to protect its rule. There is a strong inertia and capacity for self-repair within the system, and any alternatives are pushed aside. Local breakthroughs are impossible, and none of the initiatives, such as village self-government, judicial independence, or competitive elections for people’s congress, lasted very long.
The Chinese Communist Party is no longer a revolutionary party. The revolution established a new order. Neither is it a ruling party in the modern sense, because a ruling party exists within a constitutional order. It should be called an autocratic party, with the goal of staying in power forever and an absolute unwillingness to share power with anyone. Any reform or economic growth must serve this purpose. The Party has neither the motivation nor the courage to make fundamental changes to bring itself in line with the currents of history, and it lacks the ability to turn back the clock and return to the heyday of totalitarian rule. It is simply waiting for the moment when everything collapses.
Will China pass through an authoritarian stage on its way to democracy?
Many people once pinned their hopes on the idea of a top-down revolution and the emergence of an authoritarian strongman who would lift the bans on opposition parties and independent media, leave the Communist Party behind, and get himself chosen as president to complete the transition to constitutional government. Such a person would be a national hero whose reputation would shine in the annals of history.
Authoritarian regimes rely on the existence of a charismatic leader with strong intellectual ability and prestige. Because of the strength of his authority and his deep sense of self-confidence, he can tolerate a certain degree of judicial independence, independent media, social organizations, and even independent political parties. Society enjoys a certain space for free activity, especially space for the bourgeoisie to develop.
Taiwan had Chiang Ching-kuo. Chile had Pinochet. South Korea had Park Chung-hee. Egypt had Mubarak. Authoritarian regimes leave some room for a path to constitutional democracy. More intelligent leaders like Chiang Ching-kuo followed the historical trend and promoted constitutional democracy and peaceful transition.
However, the logic of power under communist systems has inevitably resulted in continuous deterioration of their core leadership from generation to generation. Deng Xiaoping was an outstanding example of the first generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders during the reform era. Under his leadership, the 1980s were a classic authoritarian era, and there was an opportunity to promote China’s transition to democracy. But he lacked the historical vision and missed the opportunity. After Deng, China has not had and will never have another authority figure of that stature.
China is currently a post-totalitarian regime. This is not to underestimate either the regime’s strength or its resilience. It has won over most of China’s elites, it has massive financial resources, and it could still be killing people up to the last minute before its collapse. Nor should we underestimate the regime’s vulnerability to the currents of history and moral conscience. A faithless coalition of interests can collapse overnight, as the Soviet Communists ultimately did.
The Party is seriously fractured. There has been competition between those who supported “Reform and Opening” and those who wanted to return to totalitarianism. There have been contests over whether to rule by a single leader or by an oligopoly. Then there has been much competition between the families of different senior leaders. The only thing they have all agreed on is that stability is paramount. But in the face of a major crisis that cannot be resolved immediately, divisions will inevitably emerge. Regime splits and social movements complement each other.
Some Chinese will remain steadfast in their support, as we’ve seen in Venezuela, where the end of the authoritarian regime has taken twists and turns. Bereft of ideology and leaders, the end of the communist regime will be regretted by almost no one. There will certainly be no “real man” [as Xi Jinping lamented regarding the fall of the USSR] to come to its defense.
The current regime is not in a stage of transition. It will not develop into authoritarianism and then into democracy. No communist state has gone through an authoritarian stage. When communist regimes end, they fall apart abruptly overnight.
Some break apart radically, others moderately. After many years of despotic rule, Romania’s Ceausescu refused to allow progress. When a revolution broke out, he ordered it crushed. The military defected, bringing about his doom. In Eastern European countries like Poland, the Communist Party succumbed to great pressure and changed with the times, abandoning dictatorship and making the transition peacefully.
A Revolution of Urban People
China’s transformation won’t be another “peasant uprising” in which all hell breaks loose.
After four decades of urbanization, China’s villages have been hollowed out and the more prosperous families have moved to the cities. Tax reform and agricultural subsidies have eased the burden on China’s rural population. Add information controls to that, and you are left with a rural population with a great deal of satisfaction with the regime. Rural stability is a good thing, but it means that the basis for China’s democratic transition won’t be found in the countryside.
Revolutions don’t come from uprisings of the desperate masses. That’s a legend perpetuated by textbooks. It’s not the hungry who have risen up throughout history but, rather, intellectuals with political demands. The starving poor may rise up to steal food, but only historical figures like Chen Sheng (陈胜), Wu Guang (吴广), or Li Zicheng (李自成) would try to mobilize and organize such groups to seize power. People like Chen Sheng or Wu Guang no longer exist in China’s countryside. They’ve all gone to the cities and focused their energies on trying to survive as part of the vulnerable “floating population.”
There have been no more large-scale famines in modern societies. Even during an economic crisis as severe as the Great Depression of 1929 didn’t lead to mass starvation. Agricultural technology advanced by leaps and bounds in the 20th century, resulting in a global grain surplus. There were only two types of famine in the 20th century. The first type was at the height of totalitarianism when ways to escape famine were blocked and millions starved to death as a result. The second type was when war temporarily prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Nor will China have a military coup or see military warlords carving up the land and setting up independent regimes.
The 1911 revolution led to a military crisis because powerful local factions had built up local militias at the end of the Qing dynasty, resulting in a hodgepodge of private armies loyal to individual commanders or generals. Syria is in military turmoil because most of the military remained loyal to Assad, leading to bloody crackdowns on peaceful demonstrations that turned into a violent revolution.
Private armies were the source of war and chaos in China. The Communist Party eliminated these local power bases, and the military was united to serve under an abstraction, the Party. Military officers are transferred here and there with such regularity that soldiers have virtually no idea who is commanding them, and vice versa. The military is a single entity, not a collection of private armies loyal to individuals. No military leader has the ability to mobilize a coup. These days, a general cannot even move a single company on his own. But it will also be true that, when the moment of transition does come, no military officer will be able to raise troops to defend the Party.
Believing the invincibility of a strongman dictatorship, military generals will obey any order to crush a democratic movement. But even Yuan Shikai (袁世凯) wasn’t that kind of strongman, his generals defecting en mass when he tried to install himself as an emperor. The mediocre second generation of military officers who have been promoted to their current high positions in China are even weaker. Without a strongman, the Chinese military will hesitate and wait to see what happens. It may even choose to go with the flow of history and side with the people. But hesitating and waiting to see what happens will be enough to force the regime to announce its end. This is an almost universal model of how communist regimes fall.
The course of human civilization has made it clear that a Chinese revolution will not be a traditional transfer of dynastic power. Since 1989, almost all the revolutions that have ended communist regimes have been peaceful. None have led to large-scale warfare. China will be no exception.
China’s future transition will a democratic movement, a revolution carried out by urban people. If the residents of large cities, roused to grief or anger by an emergency situation, suddenly take to the streets all at once, all surveillance and security measures will be useless. Divisions will quickly emerge within the ruling elite, and China will begin its transition.
Such an urban revolution will not be a violent one. After 40 years of enlightened thinking, although there are still some issues on which many people have irrational nationalist reactions, urban people have espoused democratic views on many domestic issues such as social justice, one-party rule, and corruption and privilege. When they take to the streets out of an inner sense of justice, whether stirred by grief or anger, and with a new sense of hope, the main currents will be peace and rationality. In 1989, the people of Beijing didn’t riot. On the contrary, even petty thieves called a halt to their activities in a show of support for the popular movement.
The motivation for change won’t be about subsistence, but rather about rights. People desire change not because they are hungry or oppressed, but because they feel wronged and angry and rise up in revolt for freedom, justice, and dignity. Privilege, corruption, the gap between rich and poor, bureaucratic arrogance, judicial unfairness — people’s anger at injustice and inequality has been building in their hearts and accumulating energy for change.
The main force behind the movement will not be the vulnerable populations who have experienced the most injustice. These “low-end” people have been cast out, left in the streets in the middle of the night, silent. The hardships of life at the bottom of society, the sense of alienation of being far from home, wear away their courage to resist. Trying to rid cities of this “low-end” population in an effort to prevent revolution is a misreading of history.
It’s not about any particular class or interest group. A minority of the various groups seeking redress for violations of their rights and interests make political demands. The majority have only demands concerning specific interests. Only a limited number of people will be drawn to participate out of self-interest, and they will either be crushed or neutralized by the regime. At the end of the Qing, collective incidents were called “popular uprisings” that depleted the regime’s resources to suppress them but did not involve demands for regime change. But any incident can presage such a change — just look at the Railway Protection Movement of 1911.
It’s true that people act only when they believe it’s in their interest. But interest is not limited to worldly material gains. It also includes spiritual interests. When people get angry about sexual abuse in a nursery school and repost stories about it, it isn’t because their own children are potential victims. It is because their own innate sense of justice cannot accept such things.
Material interests are always concrete and limited, so it’s hard for them to arouse widespread anger. But an incident like the death of a street vendor only mobilized Tunisian society broadly and led to a democratic movement because it offended the spiritual beliefs of the “disinterested.”
The main force of the movement, the first to take to the streets, isn’t the democratic camp. Rather, it’s ordinary city dwellers with a sense of justice. They are educated and enjoy a comfortable life and social position. They have a sense of justice. They aren’t targets of surveillance. Often they are the silent majority who, on the surface, do not seem to care much about politics. But when the environmental activist Lei Yang died after an encounter with the police or when there is a case of fake vaccines, they suddenly rise up in protest.
Whether it’s the “harmonious society” presented on the nightly news broadcast, middle-aged women singing and dancing beneath a pedestrian overpass, or crowds of people jammed into the subway — all of this is the real China. There is life everywhere. Hitler’s Germany also had vegetable markets and concerts. The silent ones are destined to be the majority. People’s concern for politics isn’t shown at work or in their daily lives. That would be extremely unusual. A society’s political sentiments are revealed in their reactions in moments of unforeseen events, the angry passions of the “disinterested.”
Historical moments, events that serve as triggers, are enough to awaken ordinary people’s sense of justice, ignite embryonic rage, and inspire long-accumulated resentment against tyranny. The tipping point for change is when the anger of the masses overwhelms their fear and reason and when the silent majority suddenly steps up.
There has been one incident after another that has triggered popular outrage. No one knows what China’s “death of a Tunisian vendor” will be. It is not that the silent people do not care about politics; it is just that the time has not yet come.
Change does not wait for the majority to awaken. Even the most powerful movements for change involve only a small percentage of the population. In China, one percent participation would be 13 million people, enough to change history.
Revolutions aren’t planned. They erupt suddenly, unpredictably, and in ways that cannot be prevented. Revolutionary mobilization in the age of the internet costs almost nothing. An emotional consensus triggered by an unforeseen event can spread quickly and lead to spontaneous collective action.
This is why, no matter how imposing the “stability maintenance” system might be, it can only deal with typical incidents and has no way to stop unanticipated consequences or respond to atypical situations.
Food safety, environmental pollution, nuclear power . . . this opaque regime has left us with countless time bombs waiting to explode. In a society with such a huge gap between rich and poor, a growing conflict between the people and the government, and a cruel and arrogant bureaucracy, the fuse of revolution can be lit at any moment.
Our Mission as Citizens
It wasn’t until 2016 that I became convinced that the reform path was dead. Today, the most important thing we can do for China is to encourage the growth of civil society so that the country has hope for a brighter future when the regime collapses, rather than descending into chaos.
Will the revolution of urban people lead to chaos in China? Many people are pessimistic and believe that once the dictatorship ends, the road to democracy will be very long. In the 21st century, with the eyes of the whole world on China, it’s impossible for there to be bloody large-scale conflict. And it won’t end in tragedy like the Paris Commune of 1871.
However, in this country, which has been shrouded in the gloom of despotism for millennia, the territories on the frontiers could be seeking independence. The general population will also become fed up if the democratic forces are scattered and the establishment of a new system takes a long time.
Responsible Chinese citizens are pursuing democracy for a better China. They must avoid social unrest and endless political conflict to the point of pitting the legislature against the presidency, and a resurgence of Russian-style authoritarianism. All citizens must make it their mission to develop a mature civil society in order to complete the democratic transition at minimal cost and lead the country to a better future.
The walls will eventually come down. The inherent logic of dictatorship, manifested as ideological atrophy, the degradation of leadership, and the rotting away of social governance, makes its end inevitable. At some point, it will suddenly awaken the people and bring itself to an end.
When that change suddenly arrives, will we be prepared?
There are at least three areas where we need to make preparations: ideological consensus, team building, and crisis management.
Where is China headed? Only when there is a direction can there be hope and strength. Ideology is what guides the direction. The transformation of China’s political culture is a reconstruction of social order and a rebirth of civilization. We must find ideas and a direction for our fellow democrats and citizens.
Our ideal is a better China of freedom, justice, and love. It is not only about ending dictatorship or building a democratic constitutional system, but also about new core values, belief systems, and national spirit.
Our path is a nonviolent citizens’ movement. When we begin to take seriously the status, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, a healthy civic force will emerge from this society of servile people on their knees. Citizenship is the common identity around which democratic forces can coalesce. Citizenship is our shared ideal. When everyone becomes a true citizen, China will change. A citizen movement can only choose non-violence — not only for strategic reasons, but even more as a conviction.
Team building is based on a process of individual perfection. We must bid farewell to the “rule of the jungle” culture of the past and lift the people of this ancient nation from the abyss of despotism and elevate them to the peak of modern civilization. To accomplish this, citizens must have a strong moral force, and their spirit of righteousness must be deeply motivating to others. This power will come from faith, service, and commitment.
Persevering in the struggle and being willing to pay the price is the source of our strength. The sacrifices of those who have gone before us have been worthwhile. Through commitment to service and willingness to help those who need it most, citizens become rooted in their communities. Service to society begins with those around them, starting with the small things that win people’s hearts and minds.
The “team” is not an organization in the traditional, tangible sense. Nor is it a “plate of loose sand” that can be easily scattered. It coheres around a common set of ideas: self-governance and action, individual freedom, democratic rules, helping others in the same area, and civic community. New ideals, discourses, and forms create the conditions for maximizing risk avoidance in accordance with the ideals of modern civilization. From the beginning, civic communities have been a healthy force in modern civilization and serve as the foundation for constitutional democracy.
Crisis management involves responding intelligently to major issues that may arise in the course of political transition. These include the problem of territorial unity, economic crisis, transitional justice, and the nature of constitutional institutions.
The problem of territorial unity
The first test we will face in the transitional period is the question of national unity. It will not be a matter of theorizing about whether unity or division is better. Politicians will have to face reality – a majority of the nation does not want China to be divided, and our nascent democracy will be fragile if we cannot preserve China’s unity.
National unity and order must be maintained. Questions of independence can only truly be decided when democracy has reached a mature stage, such as the British Parliament’s approval of a Scottish referendum. A mature democracy will fully guarantee free choice, and only choice in a mature democracy ensures that rational and healthy choices are made at the lowest possible cost.
Taiwan is already a political entity, and whether or not it declares independence has little impact on the situation on the mainland. Reunification is a matter to be dealt with after the mainland has democracy. Inner Mongolia has basically been Sinicized where Han Chinese make up the majority there. After 40 years of urbanization, most of Guangdong’s residents are new immigrants from other parts of the mainland, so there is more support for unification there than for independence. The real danger is in Xinjiang and Tibet, where historical grievances run very deep.
When change comes and we are confronted with the problems of the populations in China’s border regions, we must hold fast to the following beliefs:
First, the direction is toward more freedom. Legislatures and governments will be directly elected, and language, writing, beliefs, and culture will be fully respected. Like China’s other provinces, Xinjiang and Tibet will have local autonomy, which is the basic political system of a civilized nation. A free and better China belongs to all of China’s people, whether they are Han Chinese, Tibetan, or Uyghur.
Second, national unity and order are our firm bottom line and we must be firm in stopping violence. We must be clear and firm in this belief, without any ambiguity, because any ambiguity will cost people of all ethnicities more. We must tell the radicals that violence will not be tolerated and will be stopped at all costs. A resolute commitment to spare no effort and bear any cost is precisely the least costly approach we can take.
Third, love heals trauma. We must listen to the positions of the most radicalized, communicate openly, and engage in open dialogue. We must honor and compensate everyone for the sacrifices they have made for freedom. The families of all victims should be compensated, whether Han Chinese, Uyghur, or Tibetan. We should have no enemies. Every sacrifice in the name of faith is honorable.
I am not a nationalist. My goal is the freedom and happiness of human beings, not the existence of a nation-state. The nation-state will eventually fade away, and a single human family is my lifelong dream. But we cannot be too idealistic. We must respect the beliefs and decisions of the majority of our citizens. We must avoid war and genocide, and we must be responsible for the long-term future of the people of this country.
Economic crisis
We’ve had 30 years of extensive development that has ignored scientific and technological investment and intellectual property protection. Our science and technology cannot keep up with developed countries, and our products lack high-end competitive advantages. China’s labor costs are not as low as in India or Africa, so its products lack price advantages. The only thing that can get China out of this trap is high technology, and that will take a long time.
At the moment of transition, years of accumulated economic problems will explode in a concentrated way, with massive unemployment and inflation, the rapid contraction of wealth accumulated over several decades, sudden currency devaluation, and a widespread panic. We need to have scientific countermeasures. This is the real Chinese problem and the worthiest topic of research for eminent scholars today.
Regarding exchange rates, debt, hyperinflation, and other problems, we will have to work with developed countries and international organizations to get help to overcome temporary difficulties. Pension deficits and financial problems in certain localities will have to be addressed through bonds and, in the long run, through a decentralized economic system.
Confidence must be restored if we are to avoid a vicious cycle of panic and depression. China’s people will move forward with renewed faith and hope. An economic slump is inevitable, but it will also be temporary. China’s advantage over Russia is that, after 40 years of reform and opening up, it already has a market economic base, so production will recover quickly once the political order is stabilized.
Transitional justice
Confronting and overcoming the past will lead to a better future. The revolution will be profound, ushering in constitutional democracy and a rebirth of civilization. But it won’t be a violent upheaval that turns the world upside down. Many officials, police officers, and judges will remain in office. They will also be able to transform themselves, participate in democratic politics, and run for public office.
There will be legal accountability. Perpetrators of evil will be held accountable under the law. It is a common feature of law in human society that violence that results in injury or death to civilians is subject to the crimes of homicide or assault. Judges who have made unjust and unconscionable judgments should be held criminally responsible for twisting the law.
Those who embezzled or took bribes under the dictatorship won’t be prosecuted unless there is sufficient evidence and the actions caused significant damage to the public interest. The end of the dictatorship will already be a form of punishment, and the people’s anger will already have been vented.
There will also be political accountability. The people and processes responsible for political decisions that have caused great harm to the nation will be exposed to public view, so that evaluations can be made and lessons learned.
There will also be historical accountability. The truth about the Cultural Revolution, Anti-Rightist Campaign, and the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries will offer both the best punishment and also the best chance for redemption. It will be impossible to hold someone accountable for all the evil deeds that were committed, but what we can do is to remember our history. There should be a museum commemorating the Cultural Revolution in Tiananmen Square. True history should be restored to textbooks instead of avoiding the ugliness and sadness our nation has experienced.
We must provide comfort to those who have been persecuted under successive political movements. Those who have been wronged by the judicial system, the Falun Gong practitioners and other religious believers who have been tortured and sentenced to prison, the Muslims in Xinjiang who have suffered oppression, and every citizen who has experienced injustice and wrongdoing should receive fair compensation for themselves or their close relatives. Too many historical grievances lie deep in our national memory, and that’s why we must move beyond the barbaric cycles of authoritarian politics. Historical transition requires truth and justice, tolerance and reconciliation, and a new civilization.
Constitutional institutions
It is important that a system of constitutional democracy be scientific. Should there be a presidential system or a responsible cabinet system? Should there be a constitutional court? How should power be divided between the central and local authorities? Answers to these questions should be approached rationally, not decided as a result of competition between various forces during the transition process. As a latecomer to democracy, China can benefit from all the lessons and experience accumulated by the rest of humanity. We can design our institutions rationally, taking into account China’s cultural traditions and practical realities. We need constitutional consensus to serve as the institutional framework for the future China.
The Only Path Forward
China’s path of transition will be different from that of the Soviet Union. The political reforms initiated by Gorbachev led to the rapid end of dictatorship. The Soviets didn’t have a market economy or mature political opposition in place. In the absence of a strong civil society and civic spirit, Russia soon regressed to authoritarianism.
By contrast, China has been preparing for forty years.
The growth of private property and a market economy has taken place outside of the political system. And independent political forces are also growing.
Many citizens have already awoken. They are scattered in all professions and social strata. They include university teachers who spread ideas of freedom, media personalities, NGO practitioners, public intellectuals, Christians, lawyers with a sense of righteousness, citizen rights defenders, freedom-seeking film directors, artists, entrepreneurs concerned about society and the public interest, the middle class, and those in the privileged groups who share our values. They form a community of values and can act as agents of social progress.
Generations of Chinese people have fought for democracy and freedom. Look at the prison sentences handed down to members of the China Democracy Party or Liu Xiaobo’s “I have no enemies” declaration and his personal sacrifice. These are examples of the citizen’s spirit of righteousness and integrity, and they are our nation’s precious spiritual assets. We have failed many times before, but the people of our nation are learning and gaining experience.
Now, what China needs most is a union of civic forces. We have found the way to unite.
Citizenship is our common identity. Each person begins with himself or herself as a true citizen, taking the identity, rights and responsibilities of citizenship seriously. We share a common identity as citizens. We share the core values of freedom, justice and love. We share the common goal of a better China. Under our common identity as citizens and the rules of democratic politics, civic communities everywhere will manage themselves and begin to develop spontaneously into one big community of citizens.
With economic change, a market economy grows out of the old system; with political change, a community of citizens grows out of the old system, and the constitutional and civilizational transformation is completed at minimal cost. This is China’s path forward.
We hope that the transformation of China’s political culture and system will involve Polish-style negotiations. We want to see consensus between the government and the opposition, rational constitution-making, proper handling of border issues, and fair general elections. If those in power have such a vision and such a mindset, it will be good for China. There is no such thing as a ruling dynasty that lasts forever. One day, we will say goodbye. The only difference is whether it will relinquish its power voluntarily or otherwise.
Second, we hope that those in power for the time being will realize that a rational political opposition is necessary to achieve China’s bright future and that stifling civil society is counterproductive.
We are persistent in our efforts to awaken our fellow Chinese to become true citizens and to stubbornly grow themselves in the cracks of this repressive system. Through our struggle, sacrifice, and love, we are telling every citizen that political opposition is not something sensitive and taboo. Rather, it is the hope for China, the bright and beautiful future of this nation. It is the destiny of our generation to emerge from 2,000 years of dictatorship. We mustn’t leave this responsibility to the next generation.
A nonviolent citizen movement. Strong civil society. Peaceful democratic transition. A beautiful China of freedom, justice, and love. This is the only path to a brighter future, and it is our sole option.
We’re not bystanders trying to guess which way to go. We’re not opportunists following the path that promises to most satisfy our self-interests. We are citizens and activists who believe there is only one path. This is our faith. If we fail, then China and its people face great misfortune.
I believe that Heaven won’t allow the Chinese people to waste another century. It has endowed us with love, wisdom, and courage. At a moment of great political transition, China will not collapse or descend into chaos. Having bid farewell to the dark days of dictatorship, China will inevitably usher in a bright and wonderful future.
Chinese original 许志永《美好中国之十二：中国道路》
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