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This year has been eventful. Around the Chinese New Year period, the Shanghai racing driver Han Han, who was touted as a youth idol, published pessimistic views on democracy and freedom along with comments against a revolution in China. These three articles were strongly criticized and therefore he lost the aura of an idol, as well as a large number of fans.
Soon the issue had a big turn for the better. The criticism against Han’s views evolved into the issue that his articles were a fraud after all, with a threat to bring the issue to court with a settlement in the tens of millions. This farce is continuing to ferment. It seems turning an idol back to what he was would be the best result.
While this show was still going on, another good show has just vigorously started to attract the attention of most people. This one is about one of the central figures of the Chongqing Model: the director of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, Wang Lijun.
Wang was absurdly praised as the “anti-triads hero” during the “sing praises for the red and hit the black society” movement initiated by Bo Xilai, the Communist Party Secretary in charge of Chongqing. Yet Wang Lijun went to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu to seek political asylum.
For a time, this event became the talk of the town and overwhelmed the Chinese Internet with news and comments. The spokespersons for China and the United States talked about it hesitantly and changed back and forward. A director of the Public Security Bureau could pull the strings of big power diplomacy; this illustrates the not-so-simple goings-on behind the scenes.
When Bo Xilai was kicked out of Beijing’s political circles and sent to Chongqing to be its Party Secretary in 2007, he was determined to fight to overcome the setbacks to his rise in the Party.
In accordance with the custom of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), those people who were able to get successfully promoted to high rank, or who were able to run away from the jaws of death, mostly were able to do so due to some unusual achievement or policy recognized by the highest authorities in the Communist Party. Obviously, Bo Xilai wanted to follow this kind of path to reenergize his declining status.
So, against his conformist past, he gradually worked out a shocking “sing praises for the red and hit the black society” movement, which is called the Chongqing Model by others. Bo’s purpose was to win public support—to play the public opinion card—with the intention of squeezing himself into the Politburo Standing Committee during the upcoming 18th Congress of the Communist Party. This move is also the starting point of most commentaries about this affair.
Popular Support
So what is the premise of this “sing praises for the red and hit the black society,” which sings praises to Communism and hits the triad-style gangs, which are traditionally called the “black society” in China?
The crux is that the Communist Party is terminally ill beyond cure: it has lost the recognition and support of the people. The success of the Mao Zedong model and Deng Xiaoping model, or to say the essential backing, was that they obtained the recognition and support of the people, either by deceit or small favors. However, the people’s recognition is rapidly disappearing, while the one-party dictatorship of the Communist Party is rotten from the foundation.
To save the one-party dictatorship, it is necessary to win back popular sentiment. Exactly for this reason Party Secretary Bo designed his “sing praises for the red and hit the black society.”
Red Songs, No Welfare
Singing these red songs of communism was motivated by the fact that nowadays a lot of people at the bottom of society miss the welfare measures during the Mao Zedong era. The new Maoism has broad mass appeal among the people who are at the bottom.
These humble ordinary people who have been deprived the welfare benefits of health care, education, housing, etc. by modern bureaucratic capitalism have a strong rebellious mood. Most of them do not dare to oppose despotism. Thus they have to resort to arguing for the past against the current politics, that is, to praise the welfare policies of the Mao Zedong era in contrast to the current bureaucratic capitalism.
Choosing the reference to older times to mock the current times is an oblique accusation. After all, Mao is still revered by the Party, at least in public. Bo Xilai wants to use this influence of the people to receive some popular support.
However, although red Communist songs were sung, there was no real change in the distribution of wealth. Bo did not dare to change the substance of the existing bureaucratic capitalism. So his sing praises for the red was a mere formality.
Without substantive achievements, he could not have the support of public opinion. The red praises did not meet the design requirements for changing the Communist Party’s mass base. So shortly after his sing praises for the red movement was introduced, it received no more attention from the people and existed in name only.
