Free speech: China's big Olympic challenge
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Victor Mallet while Mure Dickie
EVERY writer on China knows that even mild public criticism of the middle kingdom generates vitriolic and sometimes deranged responses from Chinese nationalists. Among the more printable reactions to one of my previous columns was an e-mail suggesting that I had an ingrained hatred of China and asking whether I had been castrated or my ancestors bullied by Beijing.
Such anger, erupting spontaneously in messages from people who can rarely be drawn into a reasoned debate, illustrates a problem lying at the heart of Chinese foreign policy: the absence of vigorous public debate inside China on the important international issues of the day.
The crisis in Darfur and its impact on this year's Beijing Olympics is one example. The announcement by Steven Spielberg, the US film director, that he was withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the Games because of China's feeble response to human rights abuses in Sudan was couched in conciliatory terms. Far from advocating sanctions, Mr Spielberg still wants to see the Olympics.
Beijing's response to the criticism, however, was characteristically confused. First, there were nearly two days of official silence in China while the story led the news bulletins abroad. Then a foreign ministry spokesman accused "some people" of having "ulterior motives". It does not seem to have occurred to the Chinese authorities that Mr Spielberg -- like the Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Olympic athletes and politicians who signed an open letter calling on China to change its attitude towards Sudan -- might feel genuine concern about genocide in a distant corner of Africa.
Kosovo is another foreign policy issue on which the Chinese Communist party does not want a free debate, for the straightforward reason that Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia and Beijing fears that Taiwan may one day follow suit and secede from China.
Taiwanese independence is unthinkable to almost all mainland Chinese, largely because decades of fierce propaganda have led the Chinese to be convinced by their own rhetoric. They assume that any move towards independence is a plot by foreigners or by a clique of unpatriotic Taiwanese politicians.
The reality is more complicated, and disturbing for those few mainland Chinese who are ever exposed to it. Taiwan already enjoys democracy and de facto independence and, while it is true that most Taiwanese do not want to provoke a Chinese invasion by declaring independence formally, they are also adamantly opposed to being absorbed by communist China.
The lack of free and public debate in China mirrors the situation in eastern Europe during the cold war and has a similarly distorting effect on people's perceptions. Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia and his rivals in the Soviet Union were credited with at least having promoted national unity when in fact authoritarian rule merely papered over ethnic divisions that re-emerged with sometimes catastrophic results after their deaths.
An absence of public participation does not mean that China has failed to produce rational policy. In fact, the lack of participation is part of the policy: Chinese leaders argue that economic growth in a climate of stability and harmony should take precedence over the noisy distractions of western-style democracy.
But there is a dawning realisation in Beijing that debate and discussion between opposing points of view make for better policies, whether in domestic or foreign affairs.
Two remarkable events in China make this clear. First, a book has gone on sale in Beijing in which researchers at the Communist party's leading think-tank call for democratic reform to curb corruption, reduce media censorship and make parliament more representative. They advocate the building of a "modern civil society".
Second, on the foreign policy front, a group of senior retired military chiefs met some of their US counterparts in the city of Sanya recently on a free-ranging and officially sanctioned debate aimed at reducing tensions between Washington and Beijing and fostering a long-term improvement in relations between the two powers.
These are useful first steps. The next stage should be to broaden such debates on politics and foreign policy and allow facts and ideas to flow freely to and from the Chinese public.
China is unusual among authoritarian states in controlling discussions on foreign affairs with at least as much stringency as it applies to domestic matters, and possibly more. Most Chinese policy papers, even those by nominally independent academics, are too obviously produced in the service of the state rather than in the service of the truth. The result is that millions of Chinese firmly believe in falsehoods, including the assertion that modern China has never attacked its neighbours or been an expansionist power.
Another perverse consequence of the paucity of debate in China is that there is a more vibrant discussion of Chinese affairs -- whether the topic is Darfur, democracy or dirty air -- in Washington, London and Paris than there is in Beijing or Shanghai.
If China could open up even a little in the months ahead, its officials and citizens would be better prepared for the onslaught of criticism and political activism likely to be directed at Beijing's domestic and foreign policies ahead of the Olympic Games. And Chinese internet users might be more tolerant and polite in their e-mail attacks on those who comment on Chinese affairs.
Meanwhile, another FT Syndication Service item by Mure Dickie adds: China's foreign minister late last month scornfully waved aside criticism of his country's human rights record, suggesting local police would be more likely to give dissidents a cup of tea than to arrest them.
The comments by Yang Jiechi come amid what human rights groups have called a crackdown on dissent ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August, including the recent detention of several high-profile social activists.
Yang Chunlin, a dissident, was tried last month on subversion charges after he organised a land rights petition entitled "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics". His lawyer said prosecutors had argued that the petition stained China's image and so amounted to incitement to subvert the government.
But Mr Yang dismissed as "impossible" the suggestion that anyone might be arrested for putting rights before the Beijing games.
"The Chinese people enjoy extensive freedom of speech," he said recently at a joint press conference with David Miliband, Britain's foreign secretary.
"You could ask 10 people on the street to stand in front of public security officers and freely say 'human rights are far more important than the Olympics' 10 times or even 100 times and I'll see which officer arrests them," Mr Yang said. "If they get tired, the public security officer would probably offer them a cup of tea."
In spite of Mr Yang's tough talk, China has recently appeared keen to soften international criticism of its rights record ahead of the Olympic games. Mr Yang late last month announced at a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, that Beijing was willing to resume a human rights dialogue with Washington from which it had withdrawn in 2004.
Ms Rice said that during the meeting she had raised a number of human rights cases with Mr Yang, including that of Hu Jia, a well-known rights activist who was detained in December and has been charged with inciting subversion.
However, the US and Britain have made clear that they are unwilling to link human rights issues too closely with the Olympics, which George W. Bush, US president, and Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, both plan to attend.
Mr Miliband said "no opportunity" had been wasted to raise human rights issues during his six-day visit to China.
FT Syndication Service
EVERY writer on China knows that even mild public criticism of the middle kingdom generates vitriolic and sometimes deranged responses from Chinese nationalists. Among the more printable reactions to one of my previous columns was an e-mail suggesting that I had an ingrained hatred of China and asking whether I had been castrated or my ancestors bullied by Beijing.
Such anger, erupting spontaneously in messages from people who can rarely be drawn into a reasoned debate, illustrates a problem lying at the heart of Chinese foreign policy: the absence of vigorous public debate inside China on the important international issues of the day.
The crisis in Darfur and its impact on this year's Beijing Olympics is one example. The announcement by Steven Spielberg, the US film director, that he was withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the Games because of China's feeble response to human rights abuses in Sudan was couched in conciliatory terms. Far from advocating sanctions, Mr Spielberg still wants to see the Olympics.
Beijing's response to the criticism, however, was characteristically confused. First, there were nearly two days of official silence in China while the story led the news bulletins abroad. Then a foreign ministry spokesman accused "some people" of having "ulterior motives". It does not seem to have occurred to the Chinese authorities that Mr Spielberg -- like the Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Olympic athletes and politicians who signed an open letter calling on China to change its attitude towards Sudan -- might feel genuine concern about genocide in a distant corner of Africa.
Kosovo is another foreign policy issue on which the Chinese Communist party does not want a free debate, for the straightforward reason that Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia and Beijing fears that Taiwan may one day follow suit and secede from China.
Taiwanese independence is unthinkable to almost all mainland Chinese, largely because decades of fierce propaganda have led the Chinese to be convinced by their own rhetoric. They assume that any move towards independence is a plot by foreigners or by a clique of unpatriotic Taiwanese politicians.
The reality is more complicated, and disturbing for those few mainland Chinese who are ever exposed to it. Taiwan already enjoys democracy and de facto independence and, while it is true that most Taiwanese do not want to provoke a Chinese invasion by declaring independence formally, they are also adamantly opposed to being absorbed by communist China.
The lack of free and public debate in China mirrors the situation in eastern Europe during the cold war and has a similarly distorting effect on people's perceptions. Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia and his rivals in the Soviet Union were credited with at least having promoted national unity when in fact authoritarian rule merely papered over ethnic divisions that re-emerged with sometimes catastrophic results after their deaths.
An absence of public participation does not mean that China has failed to produce rational policy. In fact, the lack of participation is part of the policy: Chinese leaders argue that economic growth in a climate of stability and harmony should take precedence over the noisy distractions of western-style democracy.
But there is a dawning realisation in Beijing that debate and discussion between opposing points of view make for better policies, whether in domestic or foreign affairs.
Two remarkable events in China make this clear. First, a book has gone on sale in Beijing in which researchers at the Communist party's leading think-tank call for democratic reform to curb corruption, reduce media censorship and make parliament more representative. They advocate the building of a "modern civil society".
Second, on the foreign policy front, a group of senior retired military chiefs met some of their US counterparts in the city of Sanya recently on a free-ranging and officially sanctioned debate aimed at reducing tensions between Washington and Beijing and fostering a long-term improvement in relations between the two powers.
These are useful first steps. The next stage should be to broaden such debates on politics and foreign policy and allow facts and ideas to flow freely to and from the Chinese public.
China is unusual among authoritarian states in controlling discussions on foreign affairs with at least as much stringency as it applies to domestic matters, and possibly more. Most Chinese policy papers, even those by nominally independent academics, are too obviously produced in the service of the state rather than in the service of the truth. The result is that millions of Chinese firmly believe in falsehoods, including the assertion that modern China has never attacked its neighbours or been an expansionist power.
Another perverse consequence of the paucity of debate in China is that there is a more vibrant discussion of Chinese affairs -- whether the topic is Darfur, democracy or dirty air -- in Washington, London and Paris than there is in Beijing or Shanghai.
If China could open up even a little in the months ahead, its officials and citizens would be better prepared for the onslaught of criticism and political activism likely to be directed at Beijing's domestic and foreign policies ahead of the Olympic Games. And Chinese internet users might be more tolerant and polite in their e-mail attacks on those who comment on Chinese affairs.
Meanwhile, another FT Syndication Service item by Mure Dickie adds: China's foreign minister late last month scornfully waved aside criticism of his country's human rights record, suggesting local police would be more likely to give dissidents a cup of tea than to arrest them.
The comments by Yang Jiechi come amid what human rights groups have called a crackdown on dissent ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August, including the recent detention of several high-profile social activists.
Yang Chunlin, a dissident, was tried last month on subversion charges after he organised a land rights petition entitled "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics". His lawyer said prosecutors had argued that the petition stained China's image and so amounted to incitement to subvert the government.
But Mr Yang dismissed as "impossible" the suggestion that anyone might be arrested for putting rights before the Beijing games.
"The Chinese people enjoy extensive freedom of speech," he said recently at a joint press conference with David Miliband, Britain's foreign secretary.
"You could ask 10 people on the street to stand in front of public security officers and freely say 'human rights are far more important than the Olympics' 10 times or even 100 times and I'll see which officer arrests them," Mr Yang said. "If they get tired, the public security officer would probably offer them a cup of tea."
In spite of Mr Yang's tough talk, China has recently appeared keen to soften international criticism of its rights record ahead of the Olympic games. Mr Yang late last month announced at a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, that Beijing was willing to resume a human rights dialogue with Washington from which it had withdrawn in 2004.
Ms Rice said that during the meeting she had raised a number of human rights cases with Mr Yang, including that of Hu Jia, a well-known rights activist who was detained in December and has been charged with inciting subversion.
However, the US and Britain have made clear that they are unwilling to link human rights issues too closely with the Olympics, which George W. Bush, US president, and Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, both plan to attend.
Mr Miliband said "no opportunity" had been wasted to raise human rights issues during his six-day visit to China.
FT Syndication Service