Part 2. A Synopsis of Different Contemporary Political Camps
(First Draft)
In Part 1 of this chapter we have begotten a general picture of the Chinese nation and the vicissitudes of their history, where they come from, who are they, what are some of their virtues as well as vice, glories as well as failures. Although relatively speaking China was always a world superpower up until the threshold of our own modern epoch, nevertheless, since the beginning of 20th Century, China was facing the most critical moment that she had ever encountered. Since the establishment of Qing Dynasty in the 17th Century, she had gone through a period of relative decline, which coincided with the rise of Europe and its expansionism and imperialism. For the last hundred years, China saw the most atrocious experience ever happened to her, the Japanese Invasions and the Red Terror under Mao Zedong, the former of which had greatly devastated the country and exhausted its already strained resources, and the latter' tyrannical rampage nearly decapitated the spirit of our civilization.
Since the establishment of PRC in 1949 on the ruins of decades of war-torn country, Mao Zedong had really assume the role of a slave master, who held under his power, a billion people under his arbitrary despotism. From 1949 to 1976, the year of his death, China was to be experimented with his whimsical programs of socialist and communist policies. The results of which were absolutely horrifying. Millions of people persecuted on the grounds of political impurity or rightist tendency, millions more family broken, tens of millions died of wretched starvation because of man-made famines wreaked havoc across China in order to fulfill the quotas of his Great Leap Forward social planning (1958-1961). Mao, himself, being self-taught under the good-old tradition of Marxism-Leninism, was an able intriguer and a shrewd demagogue, who combined the Prussian tradition of Clausewitz's military theory and Marxist historical materialism, blended with Leninist absolutism and Stalinist totalitarianism, and compounded with his own autochthonous Hunan hooliganism (The home province of Hunan where he came from was famous for producing two kinds of people: politicians and bandits.) and ancient Chinese treachery. A mediocre thinker and a sophomoric intellectual, who dabbled with some doggerels and flaunted his lionhearted ambitions anyway he could, from his poetries, calligraphy, to his all-time favorite sport, swimming; his above average stature, quasi-regal disposition, imposing charisma, and seemingly intriguing intellect had already proved to be all too overwhelming to the ordinary Chinese peasantry, who willingly filled his rank and file as cannon fodders and prostrated themselves as loyal followers. Mao fits perfectly well with the Chinese archetype of self-made tyrant, and he saw himself as matter-of-fact a reincarnation of a more atrocious version of the Qin Emperor some 2000 years before.
Throughout his larger-than-life leadership of CCP and China, he helped founded CCP in 1921, ensured its survival in the next two decades engaging in vendettas against the KMT, and finally inflicted his coup de grace after WWII on the KMT, defeated them to retreat to their final island stronghold Taiwan, established PRC, waged numerous political campaigns rooting out unfavorable elements, entered the Korean War ill prepared, launched the Great Leap Forward with decimating effect, and last but not least, initiated a decade-long most absurd page of Chinese history, namely, the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The detail of which is not going to be expatiated here, for more inquisitive readers, I recommend Jung Chang's Mao the Unknown Story among others, for a further detailed understanding.
Nevertheless, the essence of Mao's legacy was pretty clear for us to deduce, he was an ambitious daredevil who happened to be at the right place and the right time. He was the epitome of all of the vice of the Chinese, and proved to be a disastrous ruler of all time. His ultra-leftist agendas was by far the most radical deviation from the mainstream Chinese character, it is no surprise then to see him ordering his red guards to sack everything that constitute as the tradition of China, and destroy the moral backbone of the classic Chinese. in his three decades of totalitarianism and his CCP's continuing dictatorship, they have utterly transformed the nature of Chinese today, in the words of Deng Xiaoping, the beta-male, the CCP are the "
engineers of the human souls." After Deng's commencement of so-called reformed policies, which was mainly an economic reorientation toward liberal principles, the CCP confided with an official acknowledgment of Mao's legacy as 70% accomplishments and 30% failures. But the detail of which was to be buried in their state sponsored national amnesia and people are now supposed to look forward, i.e. the future. The word "forward" in Chinese,
qian sounds exactly the same as "money" in Chinese, thus this phrase acerbically became the the catch phrase of the post-Mao era, a rather slap-on-the-face for those Mao's proteges who still hypocritically called themselves the Communists who vowed to inherit the proletariat pioneers' legacy.
It is as if the Chinese just had a bad dream and now have woken up to reality and get on with their living. But the reality was always much more complicated. Throughout CCP's reign, they have never let go of their authoritarian principles. Any minute deviations from the hardliners, such as in the case of Liu Shaoqi during Mao's era, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang during Deng's era, are all destined to be sacked. The lyrics of the famous Chinese rock star, Cui Jian satirically captured the condition of China today in his notorious hit-single, Balls under the Red Flag:
The red flag is still flowing 红旗还在飘扬And the old man has more strength 老头更有力量
Metaphorically, red flag, symbolizes the CCP's dictatorship, which is still running the show, and the old man, symbolizes the gerontocracy within the leadership still retains more power. And indeed it was too true for the world to see what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989, when the old man had exhibited his fangs without reserve by ordering a military crackdown on the student demonstrators that resulted in a bloodbath in Beijing.
It isn't hard to see from a world historical perspective that the CCP was initially the brainchild of the Soviet's Comintern, which was the produce of its own time during the height of imperialism and attempted to create a Marxian proletariat utopia, later took on a life of its own form, and finally took control of power in China and experimented with this socialist theories resulting in scandalous consequences. The post-Mao CCP's only trump card now is its arbitrary authority, and its relentless clenching on universal human rights and people's liberty. It is not a question of whether or not this situation shall be ameliorated, but it's just a question of when and how.
The debate over the current and future affair of China is divided into two camps generally, if one’s to categorize them into left and right, the left goes without saying consists of cultural and intellectual glitterati under the CCP’s official umbrella and postulate a pseudo-patriotism, advocate the CCP’s current role as the leading force that one should pay one’s undifferentiated loyalty to, and embracing the propaganda of economic ascendancy and social stability being the priority overruling all other integral facits of modern society. They keep reiterating a specious claim by the CCP that China is unique and the constitution of the current state is unsuited for western standard, as if this Chinese idiosyncrasy (中国特色) has entitled its regime the license to exercise any arbitrary and abominable policies it sees fit. The reality is that from the start the CCP was a bastard child born out of the wedlock of Marxist-Leninism, and today it import every thing Western, from garbages to LV and Chanel, only blockades the most virtuous elements of the West, namely, fundamental recognition of human rights and liberal democracy. Whereas the CCP affirms its uniqueness and exceptionalism of how it bullies its citizens, it preposterously demands equal treatment and fair-play on all other international engagements, such as participations in the WTO, the UN, the Olympics, the World Exposition, etc.
I tend to find myself in the right camp, whose general intellectual outlook has been totally disenchanted with the CCP and adamantly calling for the dethronement of the CCP as one of the priorities for the modernization of China. Most of the oversea Chinese democratic activists will tend to concur with this immanency. However, given the vastness as the ideological spectrum ran through the right camp, there are still great divide between groups within due to each one’s predisposition and their prior interest and concerns. Unlike the left camp who appear generally homogeneous and harmonious, another catch-phrase to comply with the contemporary motto stipulated by the CCP under president Hu Jintao’s administration, “to construct a harmonious society” (建设和谐社会), the elements within the right camp are by no means “harmonious” and appear on every trace to an ordinary observer as being cacophonous and rowdy amongst themselves. This is sometimes amusing if one has begotten a general education in the virtue of Western tradition that such outlook very much resembles the British House of Common or the Taiwan Legislative Yuan.
Since I am a staunch libertarian and a passionate advocate of a federal and democratic Chinese republic, it is in our best interest to obtain an objective outlook of each of the constituents among the right camp. Let me try to illustrate to the best of my ability what are some of these “interest groups” so that we are prepared once the goddess of Democracy has finally descended onto my beloved country, all sorts of grievances and disputes could be sorted out and accordingly addressed by the incumbent governing institution in the future Chinese republic:
The following enumeration of interest groups is to provide a general comprehension in terms of their ideological platforms as well as their political agendas. The significance of their power is not static and is subject to change due to any circumstantial factors.
I. Pan-Blue camp
The so-called Pan-Blue camp (泛蓝阵营) is by far the largest interest groups for Chinese democracy. Its loosely coined appellation granted almost anyone a member, as long as he sees himself as a true inheritor of the original Republic of China founded in 1912 and advocating, at least in principle, the restoration of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People (三民主义) as the abiding central principle of nation building in China. Furthermore, the pan-blue camp includes, at least in theory, the KMT in Taiwan, whose political leverage in the process of Chinese democratic movement is sure to weigh as a crucial factor in military, social and economic fronts. The reason of it being the primary momentum and the largest constituents lies not only in the fact that it is historically the oldest and still current interest group, but also has to the do with the immensely enticing and patriotic fervor of KMT ideology mainly laid by the modern Chinese hero Dr. Sun Yat-sen and generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to its ardent actual and spiritual adherents. The former being actual KMT members of Taiwan due to the current limited status quo that its membership extends only to the 23 million populace of Taiwan, and the latter encompass all Chinese compatriots regardless their residences as long as their ideological stances fall in line or at least are congruent with Pan-Blue principles, which prepare them in their potential to form alliance with each other in the future.
The adherents of Pan-Blue camp can be generalized as the antithesis of the Left camp. By this I mean they are almost all conservative in their social/political/economic outlook. They advocates a strong attachments to the Chinese tradition, espouses the noblest virtue of being loyal to one’s nation, filial to one’s parents, and assiduous in one’s occupation. In short, he is a Neo-Confucian in every way except being a monarchist and marrying such predisposition with the Western libertarian political and economic principles. They staunchly defend the institution of democracy and republicanism and in many ways acted hawkish toward any forms of arbitrary despotism and communist party dictatorship. Economically they are very much the engine of capitalism and supported the spirit of laissez faire, for most of the rank and files are either the offspring of or themselves being small business people. Majority of them came from the middle class and have obtained a decent higher education. They tend to be versatile, diverse, dynamic, resourceful, energetic, and passionate about the future course of the Chinese nation. Lastly, it is observed that this group has been growing in the past two decades (1980’s – 2000’s) and thereby it is safe to predict that its membership will only swell in the course of next two decades.
Currently we can divide the main trunk of the Pan-Blue Camp into two big subgroups. They are the moderate KMT members of Taiwan who are advocates of a modus vivendi, a catch-phrase coined by the KMT president Mr. Ma Ying-jeou, who seeks a middle path to live next to the heavy-handed CCP of the mainland. The other subgroup are considered to be the far-right irredentists, who despite being amongst the minority, just like their radical Taiwan secessionists counterpart, staunchly defended the legitimacy of the Republic of China and its entire territorial integrity dating back to 1911 as the de jure Chinese nation-state. In spite of its anachronism and rhetoric, it has never fade out from our political vocabulary, and the motto of “United China in Three Principle of People” (三民主义统一中国) has yet to lose its luster.
1. Advocates of modus vivendi
This group (a term Mr. Ma has coined during his election campaign which was to aver his agenda to his constituencies as to the method in dealing with red China across the Taiwan Strait with hundreds of ballistic missiles aiming at the Formosa Island) has by far attracted the largest adherents among the electorate and populace in Taiwan. With the victory of Mr. Ma Ying-jeou as the president of ROC on Mar. 23rd 2008, and the overall failure for an over 50% endorsement for a referendum regarding the official membership of Taiwan in the United Nations, which was an ad hoc political maneuver by the Green camp for an eleventh hour’s effort to mobilize populist solidarity among the Taiwanese, reality has manifested to us that most people wanted to maintain the current status quo and seek a modus vivendi for Taiwan’s co-existence as an independent sovereign entity a.k.a. ROC (not state) besides the "other China" a.k.a PRC. It is safe to conjecture that with Mr. Ma 's administration the relationship between the Taiwan Strait is waltzing into a detente, and most people are content with a closer interaction.
2. Irredentists.
The far-right Irredentists are among a very small minority in the generic category of the Pan-Blue camp. What's interesting about them are the disparate age group among the adherents. They are either very old, like many of the peers and loyal lieutenants of Chiang Kai-Shek's era, or very young adults such as myself. Spiritually we shared something in common. That is we all recognize the original Republic of China of 1912 as the authentic Chinese sovereign entity, we all concur with the basic doctrines of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's
Three Principles of the People and deemed the CCP as mere usurpers; the degree of difference among us is the same division among the original republican pioneers. To wit, the neo-Pan-Blue supporter such as myself advocates for a new republic in the essence of federalism symbolized by the Five Color Flag, while the Paleo-Pan-Blue supporters adhere to the old KMT Nanking administration symbolized by the current ROC flag of Taiwan. Our differences are at least ostensibly irreconcilable, with the progressive minded Neo-Pan-Blue accusing the latter of being anachronistic and prone to fall into KMT autocracy all over again; while the latter, with their advocates old and young, alleging the federalist principles of being tantamount to warlordism of the initial phase of republican China (1911-1928) and aiding the separatists' cause. In reality, the disagreements could be worked out within a parliamentarian system, and the neo-Pan-Blue's agenda shall be further expatiated in the federalists' section below, as well as later chapters to clarify that the Five Color Flag is by no means, a restoration of warlordism, nor aiding substance to the separatists' cause. On the contrary, it only helps to reconcile with the regional stalemate.
II. Taiwan Independence Movement
The Taiwan Independence movement is a peculiar, i.e. spatial/temporal specific, and a regional phenomenon which only gains prominence in the global arena after the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) gained momentum in Taiwan regional politics since the 1980’s and its subsequent victory in the presidential campaign of 2000 and 2004 with the administration of former ROC president Mr. Chen Shui-bian. Nevertheless, even with his two terms of presidency, Mr. Chen soon found himself transfered straight from the presidential residence to the stockade due to the corruption charges against him, the Taiwan Independence cause is facing a bleak prospect, albeit a sympathetic one and a genuine concern for many native Taiwanese facing a redoubtable foe across the Taiwan Strait with its thousand strong missile arsenal aiming straight at the Formosa island. The Taiwan independence movement is an authentic cause with its adherents mainly aggregated in the southern Taiwan, a more rural and native social configuration, who viewed the KMT and their so-called waishenren, or "people of foreign provinces", as overlords who took over the island only after their defeat from the mainland by the CCP and tyrannized Taiwan in its decades long of White Terror, and only wanted their nationhood to be properly recognized as a state of its own.
All of the grievances are due to specific time and cause. The Taiwan Independence movement is nevertheless a minor agenda in the whole annal of republican China. It only props up due to current political strains between the Taiwan Straits, such as the 1996 missile crisis during president Lee Teng-hui's victory, with CCP's charade of missile testing as a way of intimidating Lee for his Taiwan independence advocacy. But as a whole, the movement is parochial, and by and large there is no chance for them to become any significant force against the CCP's tyranny. Over all, the problem of Taiwan's autonomy can only be resolved by a federalist solution in the future.
III. Oversea and Mainland Chinese democratic constituents
This group is also a major player and have surfaced since the death of Mao in 1976. A few prominent events as well as world renowned figures have emerged since then. Such as the very first demonstration of the so-called 4-5 (April 5th) Tiananmen Incident in 1976, which was initiated to commemorate the death of the much beloved prime minister Mr. Zhou Enlai and venting anger and discontent at the hegemony of the Gang of Four, who still held much power due to Mao's exclusive patronage and sought to continue their ultra-left revolution till the end; other prominent events were the Xidan Democratic Wall event at the end of the 1970's which produced a sort of godfather figure of the Chinese democratic movement, Mr. Wei Jingshen, who first introduced the idea of the fifth Modernization after the CCP's state sponsored Four Modernization of Industry, Agriculture, Defense, and Science; he advocated for the modernization of democracy, which essentially was to alter the basic canons of the CCP. Because of his sensational sweeping and progressive ideas, which attracted quite a throng of followers at the time, he was arrested allegedly for "leaking national secrecy to foreigners" and imprisoned for 15 years. He was finally released in the 90's during Bill Clinton's administration, who sought for a more harmonious diplomacy with the CCP, and rescued quite a few political prisoners from them. Then there is the all time celebrated event of the June 4th Tiananmen Incident of 1989, with its riveting image of an anonymous Davidian figure faces off the Goliath motorcade of PLA tanks, which captured the attention of the world at the time, resulting in CCP's perpetual infamy in the international community albeit winning a temporary solution domestically by quenching the demonstration in a massacre, and had many more imprisoned.
The aforementioned events and figures are all but few highlights of the democratic movement. The reality is that people had been fighting the system all along and just didn't happened to be captured in the limelight, and before anyone had noticed, they had already either sacrificed their wretched lot in some remote prisons or had been outright liquidated, as still is a current practice by the CCP, such as in the case against the
Falungong practitioners. I have befriended many friends exiled in the United States, who had all been imprisoned for years even decade in their lives for simply practicing the rights of free speech or association by forming the Chinese Democratic Party. Such daring practices were all too sufficient for jeopardizing their own well being and even the livelihood of their families, and the situation is still very much the same and current events, we just didn't happened to hear them on the news since so much had gone unreported.
We can generalize a few observation of the activists in the democratic movement. They are all grass-rooted and self-motivated. They are powerless other than using their meager bodies and hushed voices. But their Cause is nonetheless a noble one, and their conscience clean, and they only engaged in their risky business out of an unwitting need for change and improve the current political condition, which is out right suffocating and harsh. They keep on inspiring many more to follow their foot steps, of whom I am proud to be one in them, and their legacy will not be unnoticed in the history of the Chinese. And it should be kept in mind that their fight for civil rights is an on-going activity, and it wouldn't be diminished until either the CCP starts to relent and initiate an overhaul of the whole arbitrary civil system and forestall corruption and the abuse of power by reforming the complete political infrastructure, or the total destruction of the CCP regime and the installation of de facto liberal democracy. It is generally conceded that until the real grievances of those dispossessed and those being cheated and exploited have been properly addressed, this current of democratic movement will be by no means subsided. Below I intend to delineate their political aspirations by dividing them into two major subgroups, which constitute a general picture of the platforms and agendas of these democratic activists.
1.Gradualistic meliorists.
The Gradualistic Meliorists should be understood as a more pacified approach to address civil problems and appeals. They are among the majority in the democratic camp of China, as well as Hongkong, and some oversea China communities. Those who participated in the 1976 and 1989 Tiananmen Incidents could mostly be described as such. That is, even though they were discontent at their current political situations, they still retain the faith in the pure elements within the party, albeit a flimsy one (such as one can easily discern in the people's infatuation with the passing of Zhou Enlai, Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang), but had not adopt a more progressive stance, in which to call for an unequivocal resolution of the problem by dismantling the whole CCP enterprise. They could be understood as political realists, who sought for a quid pro quo bargaining with the the devil in the idealization that the red devil would gradually ameliorate itself and become a more compassionate despot under the roof of China.
The other reason why they've opted such approach, or rather obliged to for some of them, is also one of a realistic appraisal of their potential fates await them. The more radical ones from the '76 and '89 lessons had already taught them that eggs stand no chance against the rock in a head-on approach. Should they staged outright mutinies, riots, strikes, underground associations and mass demonstrations such as the classic examples of CCP's initial revolutionary stunts, they would've been crushed utterly as enemy of the state. Whereas if they bring out appeals and grievances in a more sympathetic manners as victims of social ills and gaining as much domestic as well as international publicity as they possibly could, the CCP would not subdue their justified cause in order to save faces for their already tarnished images in the free world. It could be argued that this approach might be a more profitable way to make ends meet, and indeed for the past decade we've seen a surge of this phenomenon, with millions of so-called fangmin, or appealing folk, most of whom are rural peasants that are impoverished, dispossessed, dislocated, and have been ruthlessly cheated by local authorities for taking over their land and property with meager compensations. In recent years we have seen more and more of these kind of people who travel to Beijing in their hope to appeal to a higher authority. But the results of which are more than often pigeonholed, brushed away, or simply ignored.
It should be added that another factor as to why such phenomenon of grass-rooted democratic activism had taken a stronghold in recent years is that many of them had only received a less-than-mediocre education and simply cannot beget a higher concept of solution. They represent the forgotten mass, the voiceless and the powerless folk who simply cannot scratch an honest living in the post-Mao era's anything-goes Wild-Wild-East, in which CCP corruption and abuses of power has simply become beyond scandalous, with their behemoth bureaucracy of administrative incompetence but an egregious venal appetite, criminal activities are rampant, and political fiascos had become a quotidian banality that people had simply grown to be habituated. This had lead to many disgruntle folk to euphorically idealize a nostalgia of Mao-era egalitarianism, and hopelessly wish a return to that age of draconian and Spartan-like commune lifestyle of communist utopia. And they too, the so-call New Left, are equally being muffled and suppressed by their nominal comrades, the ruling Communists. Thus is a synopsis of the Gradualistic Meliorists.
2.Radical subversionists.
Because of the ennui and inertia caused by the gradualists' approach often without much concrete results. More and more people started to take matter into their own hands and resorted to this radical subversionism sometime after the beginning of 21st century. This phenomenon could be divided mainly into three categories: the anarchists, the occultists, and the radicalized democrats. The anarchists are thus far the largest elements within this group, they are mostly composed of spontaneous mobs who have simply been fed up with the tyranny of their local authorities, who engaged in widespread cronyism and nepotism, dispossessed the people by claiming their land for official uses, even using gangster elements to terrorize them into submission, which sometimes results in mortal consequences. All of which had fed fuels into the already flaming rage from the populace, who are forced into mass riots and sometimes even storming the local government. The riots had grown into thousands of cases annually for the past few years, and the prospect of which does not seem in anyway diminishing as long as the CCP continues to exercise its current existing practices. But it should also be keep in mind that this type of anarchistic approach is simply a destructive force, fumed by rampant CCP corruption and fed substance into the growing momentum for social reforms. It is like any other social disruptions in the world, an initial phase of a larger historical context.
The occultist movement is an utter autochthonous phenomenon, most typified by the rise of Falunggong (FLG), which shall be treated as a separate element and relayed in detail later. But the reason of its widespread echoing within the general public lies in the fact of an age-old Chinese superstition, which impressed upon the folk as almost a collective subconsciousness. It believes that with the transferring of different epochs, some sort of unusual supernatural phenomenon would occurred, and that a heavenly Providence shall be delivered in some type of agnostic manner. And many simply keep feed substance into this seemingly absurdity, the FLG being the major contributor, spreading rumors and calling for the end of CCP as a Providence, ubiquitously testified by all kinds of natural and social phenomenons. As incredible as this may sounds, bear in mind that throughout Chinese historical instances, this type of occultism actually took a strong hold in almost every transition of epoch and major historic turbulences. The destruction of the mighty Han dynasty was initiated by the rise of a so-called Yellow Ribbon cult, which heralded a new epoch of the era of Three Kingdoms; the coup de grace of the powerful Qing dynasty laid in multiple factors, with arguably the heaviest blow being the rise and fall of the Heavenly Peace Society, with its leader, Hong Xiuquan who claimed to be the brother of Jesus and the annunciated Chinese Messiah, it wreak havocs in half of the country and was arguably the most brutal war of 19th century. Both cults preached occultist beliefs, and claiming natural disasters, such as famine, social turmoils, floods, earth quakes, etc. as Providence with a new epoch ahead. Being the shrewdest Chinese such as Mao, who knew his people too well and took severe pains trying to root out this so-called fengjianmixing, or feudal superstition, in his decades long political campaigns, such as seen in Cultural Revolution, and the CCP continues the propaganda of his legacy of being the vanguard of science and materialism today, they have nevertheless, largely succumbed to this idiosyncratic cultural tradition. Because most Chinese are still superstitious, believing natural signs, numbers, and mythologies, all of which could be easily manipulated by certain interest groups, who even fabricated supernatural folklores to influence public opinions. In the minds of secular and rational democrats, we have to keep a watchful eye on such phenomenon for its dual effects on history, both constructive and destructive.
The least noticeable, nonetheless a faction of the radicals are the extreme elements among the democratic activists. Most of whom were being labeled as reactionary enemy against the state, and have either been passed away, executed, incarcerated, or exiled. There are still a few inside the CCP prison today, most famous one being Dr. Wang Bingzhang 王秉章, who had been sort of a Dr. Sun Yat-Sen reincarnate during the 1980's, and Mr. Peng Ming 彭明, who started the first Chinese federalist party in the 1990's. The former had been receiving secret funds from the KMT during the 1980's and formed the first Democratic Party of China and was allegedly kidnapped in Vietnam by the CCP secret police when he was trying to sneak into China from the border between Vietnam and China; and the Latter who theorized a so-called Grey road, which postulates a sort of Jack-of-all-trade approach, and was arrested when he formed a peasant organization of a few hundreds strong in China. These are just two typical instances, in which all adhere to a subversive stance toward the CCP. The radicalized Democrats are even though hard to hear, giving the stifling situation of Chinese press coverage, their swift arrests and liquidations from the society, and the lack of participation by the general public, they are nevertheless, a potential major players in the course of Chinese democracy. So many political dissidents are among this group, some testified for the muffled AIDS situation among rural villages by Mr. Hu Jia 胡佳 to the international community, some challenging the CCP's persecution on FLG such as human rights lawyer Mr. Gao Zhisheng 高智晟, or the famous literati activist who continues to call for freedom of speech, Mr. Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波. To name but a few, all have suffered constant threat from the CCP and as of now (2009), are still being imprisoned.
The radicalized democrats are a group we can count on for the road to Democracy. They are absolutely committed to the cause, they are dedicated to the struggle, and will only fan out in the future to come. Their secular vision for a liberal society is the right direction, which is only the contrary to the CCP's so-called Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The two forces are only contradicting each other, and as long as the standoff continues the current shape, more and more people will only join into the democrats' cause, for they're getting richer (than two decades ago) and life standards are getting improved and diversified, by which time their awakening interests and their civil rights are bound to be conflicted with the CCP. Such as million's of urban denizens are being dislocated for their appropriated property and land for some nominal official usage, a surging problem of the day, will only force some of them to take up a diehard struggle for their desperation. The outcome of which are unpredictable and potentially destructive.
IV. Falungong camp
The Falunggong camp (FLG) is a radical quasi-religious cult organization, with their founder Mr. Li Hongzhi 李洪志 who initially started the association as an apolitical meditation society in the 1990's, a quite popular fad at the time especially within the retired CCP cadres and the intelligentsia community. Their membership soon swelled into tens of thousands and growing, it had attracted the attention among the leadership of CCP and received strong denunciation from the then president, Mr. Jiang Zeming, who labeled the organization as an illegal xiejiao, or evil cult, and started the nationwide crackdown in the late 90's. Only then the FLG commenced its political cause advocating the overthrow of CCP, and heralding a new age to come.
Their methodology is worth mentioning because as stated in the previous section, they are the most prominent occultist subversionists today. Boasting memberships in some millions strong worldwide, they have carried out a most systematic and dynamic campaign against the CCP enterprise thus far. The central cannon of which could be manifested by the titles of their two organ medias: the newspaper Epoch Times, or Great Epoch literally in Chinese, and the multimedia program, New Tang Dynasty TV, both originated in some occultist Chinese collective subconsciousness intimated by the idea of a forthcoming new epoch and the reincarnation of the much glamorized and idolized age of the Tang Dynasty. They conveniently co-opted everything deemed noble and virtuous of classic China, also exemplified in their much celebrated international performance Shenyun 神韵, or Devine Harmony, to contrast the CCP's diabolical evil practices, one of which was the relentless and brutal persecution of the FLG practitioners in China.
Their central slogan could also be revealing for their purist and absolutist disposition: Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, contrasting with the ostensible ugliness of the CCP's falsehood, evil, and licentiousness. The feud between the FLG and the CCP is thus commenced since the late 90's with each denigrating and demonizing the other without regard to objectivity and facts. Much fictions and exaggerations had been practiced in both camp, both adherents and followers of the respective camps are being equally brainwashed for their undivided obedience in accordance with the fuhrerprinzip. With the real objectives among the leadership of the FLG still ambiguous, they nevertheless resembled something in common with the Yellow Ribbon cult and the Heavenly Peace Society mentioned before. It seems to me that both have been pretty cunning and studious on the "revolutionary cookbook", and in turn both resembled each other with only disparate polarization on the political spectrum, the CCP on the far left and the FLG on the far right. Both fabricated rumors and propaganda, both engaged in cultural wars, and both practices absolutism rather than liberalism. Therefore, while tolerating the freedom of religious beliefs and practices are a priori for democratic activists, the FLG is still somewhat equivocal as to their real intent, and one hypothesis is easily plausible, that is should the democratic cause be finally victorious under the sway of FLG, the prospect of a free China under the patronage of so-called New Tang Dynasty will be equally grim.
V. Free Tibet Movement
The Free Tibet movement has been receiving the most spotlights in the world with regard to CCP's human rights abuses, and much sympathies toward the lost cause of Tibetan sovereignty since 1951 and the exile of his holiness the 14th Dalai Lama since 1959. Much sensation and fervor had been devoted to the Free Tibet Cause in the West with rock concerts, movies, books and other memorabilia, spurring up this relatively recent phenomenon of Tibetan fad and aficionados within the cultural realm as the last endangered cultural species of humanity, overshadowing all other forgotten or neglected people and their extinct culture. Having said that, the Tibetan cause isn't without its own rewards, its pacifist Buddhist teachings shed new lights to us about universal philanthropism, and its ancient culture offers us some glimpse of ideals of an Arcadian way of life. But all of this has been ceased to exist and largely destroyed by the CCP's occupation of Tibet since 1951 and its decimating effect under the Maoist revolutionary campaigns. Thousands of temples have been destroyed, tens of thousands of Tibetans have been persecuted, millions have been displaced and exiled, and even though the nominal TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region) has been established since 1959, the Tibetans have lost their de facto sovereign rights of their own land. All powers were transfered to the committees of the CCP, even the designation of the second hierarchy of the Order of Tibetan Buddism, the Panchan Lama, who is largely a powerless puppet.
Even though the situation has been improving on the social level since the 1980's during Deng Xiaoping's era, and economic conditions have been promoted to top of the agenda; monasteries renovated and tourism encouraged; welfare among the Tibetan peasants and nomads somewhat addressed; regional tension remains on a high alert partly due to the large influx of Han immigration since the Mao era, once a state-sponsored policy, now a self-motivation of an entrepreneurial nature. Assisted by much improved transportations of roads, railways, and airplanes, Tibet is on the process of being assimilated with the rest of China, thus ironically ceased to retain any of its so-called "autonomy". Because of this, ethnic hostility between the Han and the Tibetans has been surging most prominently for the past two decades, and resentments among the natives toward the CCP has been fomenting all along. We have seen an abortive mutiny broken out in 1959 with complicated causes and ended with the exile of the Dalai Lama, riots have been sporadically erupting most prominently in 1989 and 2008, both of which ended in military crackdown and heavy casualties on the Tibetans themselves.
As the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama himself repeatedly stated, with the premise that he does not seek independence, he wants to regain Tibet's authentic autonomy, and denounce the CCP's systematic persecution of the Tibetans and the obliteration of Tibetan culture (other than a convenient ostensible tourist attraction). However, some more radical elements within the Free Tibet movement have grown increasingly impatient since they know too well that the CCP will never take them seriously. Some of them have resort to violent means to make ends meet, and this prospect is in the least to be subsiding in the future to come with CCP's continue practice of authoritarianism in Tibet and "cultural genocide", as the Tibetans deem it. It is reasonable for us to conjecture that the more radical anti-CCP wing of the Free Tibet Cause can only be getting stronger as all other windows of opportunities are getting dimmer. If the CCP continues to ignore the realistic situation in Tibet and continues to fanfare some economic achievements as their legitimacy in Tibet, a more devastating consequence such as that of the Kashmir or Chechnya can no longer be some fictions in Tibet.
VI. Uighur radical MuslimsIt should be bear in mind that while the saying goes: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", it is certainly not the case in reality, and it is sure not the case in some of the political camps listed in this chapter, the least of which will be the radical Uighurs of the Xingjiang Autonomous Region. Even though they have an authentic case of grievance to present, that is they have been pretty much alloted to the status of second-class citizens in their own country and stripped of the rights to freely practice Islam, their subversionist methods is that of the identical to the Al Qaeda. They strive for terrorists means to fulfill their national independence, an already unrealistic platform, and to erect a so-called East Turkestan in today's Xinjiang under the theocracy of Islamic rules.
While we can easily see that their mindset is still somewhat on par with the medieval concept, and a Jihad seems imminent to them, and to their Muslim brethren worldwide in this Huntingtonian civilizational struggle, their group have been by and large marginalized and universally condemned by the international community, including the West and the United States. Thus we shall not devote too much energy to their anachronistic cause and fanatical religious zeal, and simply consign their grievances and religious freedom as to part of the general struggles for human rights in China, that is including the rights of the minorities, such as that of the Uighur's. The detail of which shall be discussed in later chapters.
VII. Underground Christian groups
The underground Christian groups in China is a recent phenomenon of religious fervors that took place since the 1990's. With the economic condition and the welfare of people's livelihood improved beginning from the Reform era of 1980's, people naturally seek for spiritual fulfillment as the bankruptcy of the CCP's ideological enterprise has become an open secret since Mao's totalitarian era ended with his passing. On the social level, folks' constant satire, jokes, and burlesques of the CCP's bizarre and often contradicting ideology had already become a banality, they still on the other hand, search for some religious teachings to fill in their spiritual vacuum. Since the Deng's reform era, the CCP has somewhat relented on its policies on religions, as long as all are under the dominions of the committees of religions in the party. Since then, Buddhism and Taoism are among the first to attract people's craving for spiritual salvation, and a mini-revival of national tradition has seen a new season of blossom.
Nevertheless, the party has continued to keep a wary eye on the ones that is more obstreperous to contain, or outright contradicting to the party principles; such as the FLG, which has been labeled as an outright evil cult, and others have also received a similar lot. The Christians are among one of those less fortunate ones. The Catholics have to be rounded up under the party sponsored Church of Chinese Patriotic Catholics, a deviation from the Vatican, and those who are still loyal to the Pope are obliged to go underground. Sharing their fates are the numerous protestant groups, who start from the beginning took a grass-rooted approach amongst the people, and have been gaining momentum for the past decade. With the progressive ideas of evangelicism, a whole variety of different protestant churches have taken a stronghold in the so-called "family churches" all over China, with more still to come, such as the Mormons or the Jehovah Witnesses, who have yet to venture into the great mass of herds in China. According to some Christian group statistics, it is safe to say that there are a hundred million Christians in China, almost 1/10 of the whole population, and 1/3 of the American population, spearheaded China as the number one missionary hot-spot, besides its manufacture and consumer capacity.
Because of such high stake being involved, the CCP has been relentlessly trying to stem the growth of Christianity in China. Illegal bibles brought to China have been confiscated, missionaries often detained and pastors being thrown in jails, and family churches being disrupted for "illegal congregation". The current situation of the underground Christian groups is a tough survival game, but not without hopes. With some millions of strong church members, the Chinese Christians are among the best candidates to initiate a new era of free China rid of Communist authority.
VIII. Constitutional Monarchists
To mention the monarchists today might sounds a bit out of whack in the light of current affairs to begin with, but if one is to dig deeper among the whole political spectrum out there, we might still encounter some sympathizers with this lost cause, I personally have befriended one and known several. At least during the onset of 20th century, there were a whole range of different monarchists out there, from the loyalists to the court of Aisin Gioro of Qing dyansty, most prominently the godfather of modern Chinese constitutional monarchism Mr. Kang Youwei, and the monarchist supporters who put Mr. Yuan Shikai, the first president of the Republic of China briefly to the throne of the Empire of China in 1915. All of which, including the contemporary ones, are sure to be the most ardent opposing force against the CCP, who calls the monarchists reactionaries and restorationists. Restoration or not, the idea of a monarchy in China has never died out for the simple reason that China has been living under a monarchy for well over thousands of years albeit the perennial vicissitudes, and it has given China a prosperous and thriving civilization, so there is no reason to all of the sudden dismiss the idea for good and plunge into the new wave of proletariat revolution, after all, Japan retains its emperor after its modern reforms in the 19th century, there are many who thinks that China is better off with a monarchy.
The monarchist cause might sounds anachronistic by now in the whole context of modern republicanism and democracy, but it was once still a lively idea had it not been suffered from a whole range of historic traumas, from the storms of republican fervor which put the Qing court out of business in 1911, and again in 1917 when it staged an abortive coup by proselytizing one of the republican generals; finally the defeat of Japanese militarism who restored the last emperor of Qing dynasty in Manchuria from 1931 to 1945, the monarchist cause was finally dumped into the ash heap of history. Today even though once in a while there are still some avid sympathizers to the theory that monarchism might be better off in China, the only problem is that there is a lack of legitimacy for any potential candidate to ascend the throne and be accepted by the whole Chinese nation. Even though occasionally there wasl some regional back country self proclaimed peasant-turned son of heaven stormed a local hospital and declared himself the new monarch while commandeered all of the nurses into his harem, the idea was utterly ludicrously and the perpetrator was soon captured and apparently treated as a psychiatric patient. Thus, as of right now, there has not been any considerable monarchist movement, and the subject shall be succinctly mentioned.
IX. Anti-China zealots
The anti-China Chinese are a relatively recent occurrence with largely a group of self-loathing, marginalized, and radicalized Chinese living abroad, who attributed the culprit of all of the problems in China to not only the CCP, which they view as a mere product of the larger ill, namely, the Chinese civilization itself. This morbid and radicalized vision lends them to believe that the very nature of the Chinese civilization to be diabolical, such as that of the Aztec or the Mayan, which shall all be destroyed, conquered, and repackaged by a whole new system, to wit, that of the West or Japan. While many share with their vehement hostility toward the CCP, hardly any could concur with their fanatic treatment of the whole Chinese civilization, which according to their theory, shall cease to exist and either nipponized or anglicized into something by the name of either Japan, or the United States of East Asia, or the likes. Every trace of Chinese culture, tradition, and language shall be declared hostile and evil and resolutely put to a death sentence, and every Chinese shall become either the subject of Japan or a English speaking east Asian.
While they have vented every possible hatred and racial derogative one can think of toward their compatriots, their cause is by every plausible speculation to be that of a doomed one. With the passing of Japanese militarism under the ash heap of history, and a universal acceptance of global diversity, their group looks more and more like a wretched cabal of self-ashamed bipolar megalomaniacs. Being the unwanted child and the shadowed orphan in the Right camp, their destiny is ill-fated, which barely deserved a remark, and the root cause of which shall be assigned to future examination by a more inquisitive sinologist.
X. Federalists
Last but not least, there are the Chinese federalists, among whom I am a proud adherent. The group is currently the least noticeable one but by no means an insignificant force. The advocates are largely composed of senior political theorists and prominent thinkers, who albeit the lack of physical activities, have nevertheless come up with much textbook concrete substances. Most important of which are an exclusive entries by the name of Federalism in China on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_federalism), and a draft version of a federal constitution of a future democratic China available in English.
(http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7288/fedconn.htm)
The advocacy was generally conceded as first proposed by a prominent political theorist, Mr. Yan Jiaqi sometimes around the early 1990's, who introduced a whole new political concept in resolving much of China's political obstacles and defects, namely, a federal system with confederal characteristics. Mr. Yan himself being a former cadre among the top brass leadership in the CCP during the 1980's, has only found his fate in the party to be a unbefitting one especially after that watershed event of the June 4th Tiananmen Incident of 1989. After which he has proselytized himself into espousing a brand new and yet old idea of federal republicanism in China. By old I meant that federalism is actually a long forgotten idea which saw its emergence in the initial stage of republican China. During the much defiled and denigrated era of so-called warlordism, one prominent warlord named Chen Jiongming, among others, have actually introduced federalism in the attempt to peacefully resolve the sectarian conflicts and Dr. Sun Yat-sen's unrelenting antagonism toward the then Beijing government. The concept became a stillborn after Sun's heir, Chiang Kai-shek led his troops in his Northern Expedition(1926-1928), and federalism has been hopelessly stigmatized with sectarianism and warlordism thanks to the good grace of KMT's much exaggerated propaganda in the 1930's, and its painstaking apotheosis of the late founder of KMT, Dr. Sun into being a godlike figure of the founding father of the republic, thus federalism is ditched and superseded by KMT's authoritarianism, and after 1949, forever burned under Mao's Red Terror of Totalitarianism.
Having said that, it is by no means that the cause for federalism in China will be forever lost, it is just that it has never been given a chance to try out and has been largely forgotten. Nevertheless, with China's comeback into the world arena and the commencement of the reform era since Deng Xiaoping's grand leadership, the reunion of Hongkong and Macau with China, the unresolved issue with Taiwan, and more poignant conflicts domestically and the surging ethnic tension in Tibet and Xingjiang, to mention only but a few, more scholars started to take interest in this long lost political theory and substantiated its theories. I myself, is also one of the many humble servants dedicated for this once lost Cause, and endeavor for its reincarnation to be born in future China.
I will expound in details its tenets and doctrines in the later chapters , and will only focus on the tw0 essential characters of its nature to comply with this section's thesis, namely, being a group in the Right camp. One. I speculate that Mr. Yan introduce the concept as a somewhat center-right position, with myself leaning more toward the right, it is nevertheless, an anathema in the context of contemporary CCP's state decreed orthodox socialism with Chinese characteristics. Therefore, the Chinese federalists' prerequisite lies in the fact that he is opposing the current political system, and therefore by default, an anti-communist. Two. He is a staunch advocate from democracy and liberty, and thus also by default, approves freedom of speech and expression, which of course includes the subject of communism. The federalists are calling for a new way of political structure to be built in China, so that the new system will better accommodate all of the existing problems. To wit, a federal republic of China under the original banner of the first republic of China, the Five Color flag.
Having expatiated a brief rundown of all of the existing anti-CCP opposition groups within the politically Right, some of them more moderate while others more extreme, and some of them potential allies while others persona non grata, we have now begotten a big picture of the whole situation in Chinese politics as well as a general idea of the Chinese history in this chapter. Now it is time for us to carry out an in-depth analysis of the modern state in which the Chinese find themselves in, and attempt to probe some of the ultimate root causes of the contemporary problems in Chinese society, which lends itself two fundamental characteristics I have coined in the following chapter, namely: ossification and stagnation.
