Vincent Wang speaks with reporters about speaks about the political imperatives of the Chinese Communist Party after the forum at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York on Oct. 28. (NTDTV)
The forum was hosted by Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York on Oct. 28. Participants of the forum included American scholars and researchers from Freedom House.
Freedom House has published Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties since 1972. The Freedom in the World 2009 has examined 193 countries and 16 strategic territories, of which 89 were considered free, 62 were partially free, while 42 were not free countries.
China accounts for 59 percent of the world population who live in a not free country.
China’s middle class only cares about their own interest, according to Dr. Vincent Wei-Cheng Wang, Chair of Political Science at the University of Richmond, adding that there are up to 100 million Chinese in the middle class, but that they do not necessarily sympathize with the democracy movement.
Wang commented that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempts to play an important role in the lives of average people, and to tell them that nearly everything is allowed, except for a few “sensitive political issues” that are deemed taboo. The regime then continues to attract foreign investment, using it to push economic growth.
“The legitimacy of the CCP is now based on economic performance. If the economy deteriorates, there will be social chaos and discontent, and possible division between the elite class and higher levels of the regime. Therefore, what happened in 1989 might happen again. Besides, the biggest lesson the CCP has learned from what happened in 1989 is to avoid creating division in the Party no matter what,” he said.
Speakers at the forum argued that Taiwan’s democracy does not contradict Asian traditions, as is sometimes argued when discussing whether democracy is a viable political system in Asia.
What China needs most now is structural reform, according to Thomas Kellogg, a Program Officer at the Open Society Institute in New York. The CCP is afraid of change, however, he commented.
The ideal scenario is “Having each of government branch perform separately, independently, and performing checks and balances on the other branches of government, and that legislators will play their role in legislating independently from party influence,” according to Kellogg.
Kellogg also touched on the 53 Chinese rights lawyers who had been denied their licenses to practice law in July. He said that countries that want to follow Beijing’s model of development should examine the problems that have come with economic development in China. For example, corruption is worst than 20 years ago, he said, and the gap between the rich and the poor is the greatest in the world.
Read the original Chinese article.
