One dry wit observed he had not seen the People’s Daily publish such an article for 20 years—this would be a reference to the five days in which freedom of speech was almost allowed in the People’s Daily before the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
The attitude of caution behind this remark is worth observing.
Who Is Behind the Article?
The title of the article as published on the People’s Daily does not have a subject: “Concerning the Social Mentality of Tolerating Heterogeneous Thinking.” Moreover, the article itself, except for one sentence, does not say who should be tolerant.
Most of the official media that republished the article used the title “The Rulers Should Tolerate Heterogeneous Thinking,” which at least is a little clearer.
But who is behind this call for tolerance is not at all clear.
The article is signed by the “Commentary Department of People’s Daily.” The People’s Daily is one of two newspapers that directly belong to the CCP Central Committee. The other is the Guangming Daily, which now focuses more on reaching academics.
The People’s Daily has a long history of representing the Communist Party’s voice, although the signatures of important articles change from time to time. During the Cultural Revolution, when the decisions and policy were made by Mao or his gang, the Cultural Revolution Leading Group, the article to reflect the policy was always marked as the “Editorial of Two Newspapers and One Journal,” the short name for the People’s Daily, the PLA Daily, and the Red Flag Journal.
In 1999 and the early years of persecuting Falun Gong, the most commonly signed name for articles attacking Falun Gong was “Special Commentator of People’s Daily.”
On the one hand, the signature used on this article calling for tolerance leaves unclear whether it represents the point of view of the top Party leaders, such as the Politburo or its Standing Committee.
On the other hand, we can be almost sure that the Commentary Department couldn’t come up with the idea for this article by itself. The idea definitely came from the top level, a powerful group or even a powerful leader.
NEXT: Heterogeneous Thinking
Heterogeneous Thinking
The phrase “heterogeneous thinking” is not commonly used in Chinese literature. It refers to ideas that do not belong to the mainstream ideology.
Of course, in today’s China, the mainstream ideology is the ideology of the Communist Party. The question is, what is the Party’s ideology? According to official doctrine, the Party’s ideology consists of Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong thought, Deng Xiaoping theory, Jiang Zemin’s three represents, and Hu Jintao’s scientific-development concept.
However, these different ideologies are not the same, and sometimes they even conflict with each other. They themselves are “heterogeneous thinking.” Theoretically, there is no way to tell what are the different ideas that make up mainstream ideology, and, if there is a mainstream ideology, what thought does it differ from?
The issue of “heterogeneous thinking” is not about what the thoughts are, but who is doing the thinking. If the authorities have the option of tolerating, they surely have the option of not tolerating. As long as the power to make the decision is in the hands of the officials, it’s useless to discuss tolerance.
Recently, many activists, including the famous artist Ai Weiwei, have suffered enforced disappearance, detention, or harassment for their different thinking. Who is behind these abuses?
The decision makers could be the Party’s theorists or the notorious Domestic Security Police. Looking at the current situation, the decision maker has been the police: The muscle did the brain’s job.
There is a real story that can explain the situation very well. The police found that a farmer was distributing a pamphlet. They found the words in the pamphlet offensive and decided to detain the farmer.
The farmer explained that he was just distributing a copy of the Chinese Constitution. Well, the police didn’t know what had been said in the Constitution, so they found a copy and made a comparison. They were exactly the same.
The Magic Word ‘But’
To make the point that there should be greater tolerance, the article quoted Mao, Deng, and the current leaders’ words that the Party leaders should let others speak freely. Ironically, those who are quoted are the ones who established the system that silences people.
In 1957, Mao encouraged the intellectuals to make suggestions to or even criticisms of the Party, and then he cracked down on those who spoke up. Mao called it “luring the snakes out of their holes.”
NEXT: Who Defends
The enforced disappearance of Ai Weiwei has nothing to do with economic crimes, as the Party now claims. It’s only because he has been outspoken in ways the Party dislikes. In the Party’s history, it has never tolerated speaking truth and criticizing the Party—and it never will tolerate such speech.
Even though most of the article talked about how the rulers should tolerate different ideas, voices, and thinking, it did make an exception, using the word “but.” The article said: “The critics may be correct or wrong, and the critics may even sound extreme. BUT as long as it’s out of good intention, without violating the laws and regulations, without damaging public order and good customs, it should be treated with tolerance, not be treated as confrontation.”
Since the good intention is only the subjective feeling of the rulers or officials who have been criticized, we haven’t seen any criticism that they consider to have been uttered out of “good intentions,” and we don’t expect to see any in the near future.
As for the laws and regulations, the officials have already invented the charge of “libel against the government” to be used against those who dare to criticize regime officials. Anyway, since the power of interpretation is in the hands of the criticized, the critics don’t have much of a chance so long as this “but” puts a limit on tolerance.
Who Defends
The author of the article highlights one of the sentences to stress its importance. The sentence says, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This famous quote, which is usually attributed to Voltaire but was actually penned by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in summing up Voltaire’s thought, is most inappropriate, given the circumstances.
The person who needs to be defended is being silenced by the more powerful party, either the government or, formerly, the church. In China, the officials are the ones who silence others. They don’t need to defend against others’ actions, not to mention “defend to the death.”
When faced with criticism, the best reaction would be for the authorities to do nothing. Unfortunately, one has hardly ever, if at all, seen the authorities choose to do nothing in the face of criticism.
In the past several months, the world has witnessed a fast deterioration of the already deplorable human rights situation. This makes the People’s Daily article more interesting.
There is an old Chinese saying: drawing cakes to stave off hunger. Whoever drew the cakes in this article didn’t want to raise people’s expectations too high. That’s why this article only appeared on page 14 of the People’s Daily print edition and was not designated as an editorial or an article by the special commentator.
