There were many times in China when the question was posed to me, “What do you like about China?” The answer to that was always easy for me. I love the people, the food, the culture, and the history. When I am feeling generous and am not beating my head against the wall in frustration, I can even admit to loving the language and its place – valued in ways both the same and different than I value my own mother tongue. As I said, this question was easy as I loved and love China. It was the inverse question that always made me uneasy, for it was always inevitable. I had a response, of course, but how does on say it tactfully in place where tact is an utmost virtue. However, I must answer honestly. What do I hate about China? The Government and the Party.
Whatever good intentions the Party may have been created for, the reality of the last 60 so years have obliterated it. The economic opening up of China has merely underscored the criticism of Communism that existed from the very beginning – the inability to destroy social classes and class conciousness. When the aristocracy was overthrown, the Party ran the nation. Party membership is now so limitied in society that it benefits mostly the few with status – something either granted by birth to a high ranking official or wealth or both. The great weight of the nation suffers – what matter if it is under feudalism or communism? The Party aspires to rise above both, but fails completely by having the worst aspects of both systems.
Chen Guangcheng, in his first US address, shines a light on these issues with the Party. It would be amusing to watch if it wasn’t so sad. As he stated in his op-ed, “The fundamental question the Chinese government must face is lawlessness. China does not lack laws, but the rule of law.”1 With no real means of oversite or internal reform, it is beginning to seem as if the Party exists for its own perpetuation.
1http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/opinion/how-china-flouts-its-laws.html
In Remembrance of 6.4.89.