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Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng. (Gary Feuerberg/The Epoch Times)
The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Jintao, began 2012 by publishing an article in his party journal Qui Shi (Seeking the Truth) about preventing cultural infiltration by the West. He bluntly said “Western culture is now stronger than we are.” He also said things like “the West is doing cultural infiltration in an attempt to subvert China,” and so on.
Overall, it is the old tune of the West working to prevent “peaceful evolution” in China. But at a closer look, it is still different from the arguments of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The first is that Hu finally has more honestly admitted that China’s culture under the rule of the Communist Party is indeed clearly lagging behind Western democracies.
Of course, as usual, he will find a lot of justification such as others bullied us, others want to subvert the socialism of the one-party dictatorship, and so on. Ultimately it boils down to this: while the West, according to this CCP trope, wants to prevent the peaceful evolution, the Communist Party will start from the Cultural Revolution to rail against Western culture and to resist the West. But this time he did not use the word “decadent” preceding “Western culture.”
This omission illustrates that the “decadent Western culture” concept often used by the Chinese Communist Party has long been a joke in the minds of Chinese people. So he might just as well honestly admit the reality. Moreover, Hu’s party colleagues have been sending their children to the West to accept the so-called decadent culture. So if you do not admit this reality, there is not much significance in whatever else you say.
Then again, is not the communist ideology also a thing learned from the West? For over nearly a century, the Communist Party has always been engaged in the destruction of traditional Chinese culture, trying to accept the Western culture wholly in an effort to achieve their one-party dictatorship. For the Communist Party to say something like “decadent Western culture” to stay in power and thus continue destroying Chinese culture, is obviously an act of a thief crying “stop thief.”
For more than one hundred years now, the Chinese people, with lofty ideals, have reached a consensus that the traditional Chinese culture must be transformed to adapt to the historical trend of China’s learning from the West, thus to adapt to the need for China to enter a modern society.
Cultural change naturally accompanies social progress. There is no invariable culture. After being blinded by the Communist Party for decades, the Chinese people are finally returning to the original concept: to use the culture from the advanced societies of the West to enrich themselves in order to meet the needs of modernizing the Chinese society.
But this time it is the Communist Party getting unhappy and charging various things such as Western infiltration, the attempt to subvert, and so on. This is so hard to make people accept. Why can you officials do anything, even burn the houses down with fire, yet you do not let us, the average folks, use fire just to make a light? Why can you introduce communism from the West, yet you do not allow us to learn Western democracy, or even just its culture? It is even declared illegal to watch films and television programs on the Internet, or just some simple entertainment activities. This is unreasonable.
Of course, the dictatorship of the Communist Party defined itself to be unreasonable, which was explained by Mao Zedong long ago. If people could have a good life even when the Communist Party is unreasonable, then there still would be many people willing to accept it. This is the reason that Chinese people have tolerated the Communist Party for decades. The problem is, now people do not live a good life. It’s like when lies by a liar are not borne out, people certainly do not believe the liar anymore.
At this time, the right strategy for this liar is to disappear immediately. However, not only does Hu Jintao not want to disappear, he still repeats the lie that has long been bankrupt. At the least, this is not very smart. So why do they do things that are not that smart? It is because they do not know what to do and what road to take.
From the initial stage of Deng Xiaoping to the unique Asian values of Jiang Zemin, nothing could explain why the Chinese people cannot get the same freedom and prosperity as the peoples in the democratic countries. Therefore, the political counselor Hu Jintao has to pick up the old stuff that he learned when he was a young man, in an attempt to transform the Chinese people’s thinking. Besides making people laugh at how the Communist Party’s limited ability is exposed, it will not produce the effect of leading people’s thinking as it did several decades ago.
This political game is a kind of strategy. When this game was able to lead people onto the wrong path of thought, then they were silly enough to follow the Communist Party and be screws for this big machine. But now, people already see through these lies. So using the lies to excite people is the same as forcing them to accept a blatant lie. This is to tease the people, to be in contempt of people’s intelligence. The inevitable result is that it will make people lose their patience, and break through their bottom line. It is like telling all the people to their face, “I treated you as fools, what can you do?”
People may not be able to respond immediately. However, dissatisfaction will result in anger, distrust will result in hatred. This anger and hatred will brew a revolution. People may accept an explanation, even though unreasonable, if there is room for debate. But blatant contempt for the intelligence of the people, and treating people like fools, is forcing them to resist, as did the heroes in [the famous Chinese fable] Outlaws of the Marsh.
Chinese people are likely the people who most frequently rebel. Chinese people are also the people who most care about their dignity and “saving face.” When any people’s most sensitive nerves are touched, it will only be a moment for them to turn from sheep into tigers. This New Cultural Revolution theory of Hu Jintao is the Communist Party digging its own grave.
Thirty years ago, the generation of Deng Xiaoping tolerated cultural opening, as derived from the theory of the Communist Party. They believed that “the decadent Western culture” could be used as an opiate to intoxicate people; to kill people’s will of resistance, and corrupt people’s spirit in pursuit of freedom and happiness. Of course, they knew that some fresh air would also get in when they let in the flies. In choosing two evils, choose the light. They believed that openness would provide more advantages than disadvantages, which might offer solutions to the urgent problems facing the Communist Party.
Now, they have found bad consequences. Long-term effects of fresh air have been a threat to the one-party dictatorship, so it must gradually return to the closed-door policy. It is an issue related to their survival. So they have made their current policy to give up the open door, with the packaging of a new Cultural Revolution. These are the cards in Hu Jintao’s hands.
Will China return to its era of closed-door policy? The Chinese people will not accept that, nor will the foreign capitalists. As soon as these cards in Hu’s hands are exposed, he will lose his game for sure.
Wei Jingsheng is a prominent Chinese dissident. Human rights prizes he has won include the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award in 1996, the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the Olof Palme Memorial Prize in 1994.
Courtesy Wei Jingsheng Foundation (www.weijingsheng.org). This article first appeared as a broadcast on Radio Free Asia.
