Expatriate Chinese democracy activists in San Francisco have been stimulated by the recent democracy uprising in North Africa and the Middle East, and they wonder: is China ready for her own color revolution?
In mid-February they called together a panel, calling it the “National Affairs Salon,” and sat down to hash it out. Among the participants were student leaders and survivors of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. They were at ground zero demonstrating against government corruption when the Chinese regime called on the army to open fire on them. Many have spent time in prison and later left China or were expelled.
They have been waiting for another opportunity, trusting that, someday, the Chinese people would gain their constitutional rights and democracy.
That moment may be here now, they said—or at least, closer than it has been since 1989. The successful ousting of Tunisia’s and Egypt’s former dictators, and the wide spread of demonstrations in the Middle East and Northern Africa, suggest that there may be another window of opportunity for democracy spreading to more countries, including China, they said.
Participants at the forum agreed that the Chinese regime is extremely fearful that the Jasmine revolution will also happen in China, and that there are fuses everywhere in China ready to explode. So why has there not been any activity in China so far?
The consensus among the overseas activists is that the Chinese democracy movement lacks focus and organization.
Fang Zheng, who lost both his legs when a Liberation Army tank ran him over, said: “All the [social] issues in China haven’t led to an explosion. The fuses are everywhere, but are being diverted or disintegrated.”
Feng Congde, a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square democratic movement told New Tang Dynasty (NTD) TV : “During the 22 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese democratic movement has lingered on [a platform of] reform and rights protection, and didn’t call for a revolution in a straightforward manner as Egyptians have done.
“This lack of direction will never reach anywhere,” Feng added.
Feng gave the Qian Yunhui incident—the village chief allegedly murdered by local officials for defending villagers’ land from being seized—as an example to illustrate his point.
“If people, instead of protesting to protect their rights, demanded a change of government, Qian’s case could have been the fuse for an explosion,” Feng said.
Lan Shu, a China commentator, pointed out that the Egyptian revolution is a movement without leadership, but with a clear goal to oust the government.
Lan said the Chinese democracy movement has long been troubled by the assumption that the conditions for democracy are immature in China, and China would be in turmoil without the Chinese Communist Party.
“If the Egyptians had asked, ‘what will happen to the country if the Mubarak government falls; no one will take care of us; won’t the country be in turmoil?’ then, Mubarak would still be in power,” Lan said.
Lan reminded Chinese people to ask for their rights granted them by the constitution, such as freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion.
“Do you deserve all these? If so, then go and ask for them, no matter what the results might be,” Lan said.
Next: The Gun
The Gun
Another point of discussion was the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control of the military.
The fact that Tunisian and Egyptian armies did not open fire on the demonstrators has been inspirational to Chinese people who wonder how the Chinese army might respond under the same circumstances today.
Wu Renhua, another participant at the forum, and a witness of the Tiananmen massacre, brought up the difference in mindset of military officers in Egypt and in China. Wu said many Egyptian military officers are West Point graduates; their background and worldviews are entirely different.
China’s military officers are educated at Liberation Army Defense Universities. A core component of this education is indoctrination in the theories of the CCP and unswerving loyalty to the diktats of the Party.
Wu also brought up the problem of how to organize the masses to take to the streets. He said it was a key issue considering the media and Internet control in China.
The uprising in Egypt is also being called the “Facebook Revolution.”
China is the world’s biggest Internet market, with over 400 million users. But the Chinese regime’s Internet firewall is also the most extensive in the world, blocking Chinese Internet users from the rest of the world and deleting comments the regime deems threatening.
Facebook is blocked in China, and China has its own Facebook-type social websites which closely follow censorship directives. Renren.com and Kaixin Network are the most popular, boasting over 260 million users, according to a Feb. 15 report by Voice of America (VOA).
The close cooperation these sites are forced to participate in with the regime in censorship and filtering out politically sensitive terms makes them difficult vehicles for promoting political change. A marketing manager of Renren.com revealed at a social media forum in Hong Kong recently that the company has a censorship department of 500 people. The regional general manager of Sina Hong Kong, Li Wanming, also admitted that Sina.com too has a team to censor and monitor sensitive political information on its website.
Industry observers say the regime’s “outsourcing” of its censorship objectives is part of its diabolical success.
However, new Internet media software, including Facebook , is attracting more and more Chinese netizens, who use it as a new channel for information sharing.
According to statistics from Socialbakers.com, there were 300,000 Facebook users in China last December. Since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg visited China, Chinese Facebook users have more than doubled, to over 700,000.
Increasing numbers of Chinese netizens also make use of software to circumvent the censors.
Anchor Free Inc., a California based start-up, provides a free Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, which allows Chinese users to set up a secure connection to the outside. Over 1.5 million users from China have made use of this service this January—a 25 percent increase from last December, according to a Feb. 17 Bloomberg report.
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In mid-February they called together a panel, calling it the “National Affairs Salon,” and sat down to hash it out. Among the participants were student leaders and survivors of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. They were at ground zero demonstrating against government corruption when the Chinese regime called on the army to open fire on them. Many have spent time in prison and later left China or were expelled.
They have been waiting for another opportunity, trusting that, someday, the Chinese people would gain their constitutional rights and democracy.
That moment may be here now, they said—or at least, closer than it has been since 1989. The successful ousting of Tunisia’s and Egypt’s former dictators, and the wide spread of demonstrations in the Middle East and Northern Africa, suggest that there may be another window of opportunity for democracy spreading to more countries, including China, they said.
Fuses Everywhere
Participants at the forum agreed that the Chinese regime is extremely fearful that the Jasmine revolution will also happen in China, and that there are fuses everywhere in China ready to explode. So why has there not been any activity in China so far?
The consensus among the overseas activists is that the Chinese democracy movement lacks focus and organization.
Fang Zheng, who lost both his legs when a Liberation Army tank ran him over, said: “All the [social] issues in China haven’t led to an explosion. The fuses are everywhere, but are being diverted or disintegrated.”
Feng Congde, a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square democratic movement told New Tang Dynasty (NTD) TV : “During the 22 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese democratic movement has lingered on [a platform of] reform and rights protection, and didn’t call for a revolution in a straightforward manner as Egyptians have done.
“This lack of direction will never reach anywhere,” Feng added.
Feng gave the Qian Yunhui incident—the village chief allegedly murdered by local officials for defending villagers’ land from being seized—as an example to illustrate his point.
“If people, instead of protesting to protect their rights, demanded a change of government, Qian’s case could have been the fuse for an explosion,” Feng said.
Lan Shu, a China commentator, pointed out that the Egyptian revolution is a movement without leadership, but with a clear goal to oust the government.
Lan said the Chinese democracy movement has long been troubled by the assumption that the conditions for democracy are immature in China, and China would be in turmoil without the Chinese Communist Party.
“If the Egyptians had asked, ‘what will happen to the country if the Mubarak government falls; no one will take care of us; won’t the country be in turmoil?’ then, Mubarak would still be in power,” Lan said.
Lan reminded Chinese people to ask for their rights granted them by the constitution, such as freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion.
“Do you deserve all these? If so, then go and ask for them, no matter what the results might be,” Lan said.
Next: The Gun
The Gun
Another point of discussion was the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control of the military. The fact that Tunisian and Egyptian armies did not open fire on the demonstrators has been inspirational to Chinese people who wonder how the Chinese army might respond under the same circumstances today.
Wu Renhua, another participant at the forum, and a witness of the Tiananmen massacre, brought up the difference in mindset of military officers in Egypt and in China. Wu said many Egyptian military officers are West Point graduates; their background and worldviews are entirely different.
China’s military officers are educated at Liberation Army Defense Universities. A core component of this education is indoctrination in the theories of the CCP and unswerving loyalty to the diktats of the Party.
Wu also brought up the problem of how to organize the masses to take to the streets. He said it was a key issue considering the media and Internet control in China.
Social Media
The uprising in Egypt is also being called the “Facebook Revolution.”
China is the world’s biggest Internet market, with over 400 million users. But the Chinese regime’s Internet firewall is also the most extensive in the world, blocking Chinese Internet users from the rest of the world and deleting comments the regime deems threatening.
Facebook is blocked in China, and China has its own Facebook-type social websites which closely follow censorship directives. Renren.com and Kaixin Network are the most popular, boasting over 260 million users, according to a Feb. 15 report by Voice of America (VOA).
The close cooperation these sites are forced to participate in with the regime in censorship and filtering out politically sensitive terms makes them difficult vehicles for promoting political change. A marketing manager of Renren.com revealed at a social media forum in Hong Kong recently that the company has a censorship department of 500 people. The regional general manager of Sina Hong Kong, Li Wanming, also admitted that Sina.com too has a team to censor and monitor sensitive political information on its website.
Industry observers say the regime’s “outsourcing” of its censorship objectives is part of its diabolical success.
However, new Internet media software, including Facebook , is attracting more and more Chinese netizens, who use it as a new channel for information sharing.
According to statistics from Socialbakers.com, there were 300,000 Facebook users in China last December. Since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg visited China, Chinese Facebook users have more than doubled, to over 700,000.
Increasing numbers of Chinese netizens also make use of software to circumvent the censors.
Anchor Free Inc., a California based start-up, provides a free Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, which allows Chinese users to set up a secure connection to the outside. Over 1.5 million users from China have made use of this service this January—a 25 percent increase from last December, according to a Feb. 17 Bloomberg report.
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