Ambassadors Abroad: Open House at the CCP Central Propaganda Department

The following is a translation of an article published by People’s Daily (online) on Friday. Quotes from the diplomats, plus their names, are re-translated from Chinese-language quotes within the People’s-Daily  article, and this may or may not reflect what they originally said. — JR

Main Link: People’s Daily online, May 25, 2012, 05:46

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Sincere Openness wins Whole-Hearted Praise — Open House at CCP Propaganda Department

- by Du Rong

真诚开放赢得真心赞许
——“走进中共中央宣传部”主题开放日侧记
本报记者  杜  榕

On May 24, the Central Propaganda Department at W Changan Road opened its doors and welcomed some special guests. At an open-house activity with the theme “Entering CCP Central Propaganda Department”, nearly sixty high-level diplomats stationed in China came in here for the first time, to have a look around, to have discussions and exchanges, and to understand the CCP’s work at theoretical learning, news dissemination, and at the building of ideological virtue.
5月24日，位于西长安街上的中宣部敞开大门，迎来了一批特殊的客人——以“走进中共中央宣传部”为主题的开放日活动在此举行，近60名驻华高级外交官首次走进这里，现场参观、座谈交流，“零距离”地了解中国共产党在理论学习、新闻宣传和思想道德建设等方面的工作。

Just in from their cars, some envoys merrily watched the buildings belonging to the Central Propaganda Department, and what made them even more expectant were the following “close contacts”. How does this department work? How does their work materialize in which fields? What are the qualities of the staff working here? …  This was of interest to all diplomatic envoys, but they also had a common expectation that “the Central Propaganda Department would, with a sincere, open attitude have exchanges with them, to get a better understanding of the CCP in these exchanges, and a better understanding of the relevant work in China”.
刚刚走下车，一些驻华使节就兴致勃勃地观察起中宣部院内的各个建筑，而更让他们期待的，是接下来将近3小时的“亲密接触”。这个部门是如何开展工作的？他们工作的成果体现在哪些方面？工作人员的能力素质如何？……每一个驻华使节都有自己最感兴趣的问题，但他们对于这次开放日活动却有一个共同的期待，“中宣部以一种真诚、开放的态度与我们交流，希望能够在交流中增进对中国共产党的了解，甚至进一步更好地理解中国的相关工作。”

[...]

Arranging and scripting “Theoretical Hot Topics Face-to-Face”, coordinating major news disseminating activities, organizing and implementing “work at the grassroot level, changing the ways of doing things, and changing styles” activities, organizing and implementing activities to build spiritual civilization, organizing and coordinating large-scale art and literature activities, promoting cultural reform … In the central propaganda building, a variety of exhibits was on display and attracted many diplomats’ attention, and some fell over backwards (迫不及待) to take notes while listening and talking. Full of interest, they heard detailed accounts from comrades in the relevant departments, conscientiously dipped into theoretical writings by the Central Propaganda Department, some were interested in the recording of ongoing discussions, and some stopped at the newspaper and periodical showroom.
组织编写《理论热点面对面》、协调重大新闻宣传活动、组织开展“走基层、转作风、改文风”活动、组织开展精神文明创建活动、组织协调大型文艺活动、推动文化改革发展……在中宣部综合楼大厅内，展览内容精彩纷呈，吸引了众多驻华使节的关注，一些使节迫不及待地拿出纸笔，一边听讲解一边进行记录。而在各司局听取了有关负责同志详尽的介绍后，使节们更加兴致盎然，他们有的认真翻阅中宣部组织编写的理论书籍，有的对正在进行录制的座谈节目颇感兴趣，还有的在新闻刊物陈列室里驻足观看。

New Zealand’s ambassador Carl Worker, after watching the exhibition and listening to the introductions, told this reporter that the Central Propaganda Department is a very important department at the CCP, and what’s more, it is in charge of the important work of news dissemination, theory learning, the building of ideological virtue, and “coming here, I hope to understand the institutions at the Central Propaganda Department, the contents of work, how the work is done, so that we better understand the CCP and have better exchanges and interaction”.
新西兰驻华大使伍开文在看了展览、听了介绍后告诉记者，中宣部是中国共产党一个非常重要的部门，而且承担了新闻宣传、理论学习、思想道德建设等方面的重要工作，“这次来我最希望了解的就是中宣部的机构组成、工作内容，看看是如何开展工作的，这对于我们更好地了解中国共产党、更好地交流互动有很大的意义。”

At the Theory Office, to give the diplomats a deeper and intuitive impression, producers of the Theoretical Hot Topics Face-to-Face television special reports explained how they centered their programs around hot and difficult issues that concerned society. The books produced during the past few years, television recordings, were there not just to be read by the diplomats, but also to take them home for closer studies. Vietnam’s Minister Counsellor Hoang Ngoc Vinh took more than ten books right away, saying that “in Vietnam, we have similar departments. These books and theories are significant and worth to learn from”.
在理论局，为了让驻华使节留下深刻且直观的印象，“理论热点面对面”电视专题片的制作修改团队来到了现场，直接展示如何围绕社会关注的热点难点问题制作电视专题片。同时，现场还摆放着近年来理论工作的数10套书籍、电视节目光盘，让驻华使节不仅可以翻阅，还可以带走作更深入的研究。越南驻华使馆公使黄玉荣一口气拿了十多本书，他说：“在越南我们也有类似的部门，这些书籍、理论很有借鉴意义，中宣部工作的方式、内容也值得学习。”

“May I ask who Lei Feng is”, Ethiopian deputy ambassador Ababi Demissie Sidelel asked the person in charge, after having listened to an introduction at the education department and feeling a bit confused. [...] After listening to the detailed and correct answer, the deputy ambassador’s doubts had been cleared, and he noddingly said: “Every country needs this kind of heroic person; this work is really important!”
“请问雷锋是什么人？”埃塞俄比亚驻华副大使阿巴比·德米思在宣传教育局听完介绍后感到有些困惑，向该局负责人提出了这个问题。  [ “雷锋是中国家喻户晓的全心全意为人民服务的楷模，他作为一名普通的中国人民解放军战士，在短暂的一生中助人无数，他的精神也代表着中国人的精神，因此我们广泛组织向雷锋同志学习的活动，希望他的精神能够代代传承。”]  详实准确的回答解开了副大使的疑惑，他频频点头说：“每个国家都需要这样的英雄人物，这项工作确实非常重要！”

After reading at the News Office’s The Party’s Historical Papers and Periodicals  and The Party’s Historical Papers and Periodicals at the newspaper and periodical showroom, an ambassador said with emotion: “Thank you very much for today’s activity, this was of great help to our understanding the Chinese media”. Seeing the public-opinion supervision work explanations, an envoy said: “In the past, we thought that food safety issues only existed in some small companies, but from the results of China’s public-opinion supervision we can see that  it is a universal issue, one of which the whole world must be vigilant and responsive. China’s public-opinion supervision has played a particularly important role.”
在看完了新闻局的“历史上的党报党刊陈列室”、“当代党报党刊陈列室”后，一位驻华使节感慨地说：“非常感谢今天的这个参观活动，这对我们了解中国的媒体有很大的帮助。”而看到对舆论监督工作的介绍后，有驻华使节说：“过去我们以为食品安全问题在一些小公司才有，但是从中国舆论监督的结果来看，这是一个具有普遍性的、全世界都需要警惕和应对的问题，中国的舆论监督确实发挥了特别重要的作用。”

[...]

To let the ambassadors truly understand the CCP’s propaganda work wasn’t only about the exhibition, but about the diplomats’ own queries: “Can the CCP make use of the new media to better understand the popular will?”, “Which challenges do you encounter in the fields of ideology and public opinion?”, “How does the Central Propaganda Department increase China’s cultural soft power?” ……. These questions, without exception, got a very good answer and explanation. Bangla Desh’s embassy’s Minister Counsellor 阿卜杜尔·莫塔拉布·沙克尔 said: “This visit to the Central Propaganda Department was impressive. The department does very good work in the fields of ideology and culture, news dissemination, theoretical research, etc.. It has also brought along a lot of convenience and service for the public, and displays a ruling party’s democratic, open, and progressive image. We are touched, and also very inspired, and hope that similar activities will follow.”
真正让驻华大使了解中国共产党的宣传工作的还不只是这些现场参观的内容，在最后的座谈交流环节，许多驻华大使提出了自己的疑问：“中国共产党是否会利用新媒体更好地了解民意？”“在思想舆论领域遇到了哪些挑战？”“中宣部是如何提升中国文化软实力的？”……这些问题无一例外都得到了很好的解答。孟加拉国驻华使馆公使阿卜杜尔·莫塔拉布·沙克尔说：“今天的中宣部之旅让人印象深刻，中宣部在思想文化、新闻宣传、理论研究等方面做得很好，同时也为民众带来了很多便利的服务，展现出一个民主、开放、进步的政党形象，我们很受感动，也很受启发，希望类似的交流活动能继续保持下去。”

Sincere communication, heart-to-heart talks, and frank encounters during this open-house activity, an open, transparent, harmonious and democratic Chinese Communist Party won the diplomats’ whole-hearted praise.
真诚沟通、倾心交流、坦诚面对，在中宣部的这个开放日，公开、透明、和谐、民主的中国共产党赢得了驻华使节的真心赞许。

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Related

» An Inconvenient Truth, Febr 28, 2012
» 怎么看房价过高 (How to view excessively high house prices), 理论热点面对面 (Theoretical Hot Topics Face-to-Face), television program

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Confucius Institutes: Göttingen University, for Example

Tai De is (kind of) corresponding with German authorities, concerning Confucius Institutes in Lower Saxony. Either a guest post by Tai De, or an interview with him, is in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

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Related

» State Department Directive, May 24, 2012
» No Communists at Deutsche Welle, March 11, 2012

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Zhou Yongkang, the University of Political Science and Law, and the Central Committee’s Warm Care for Law Research

The following is a partly direct, partly indirect translation / reflection of Zhou Yongkang‘s speech at University of Political Science and Law, on May 9, 2012, in front of teacher and student delegates – as (far as) published by People’s Daily online. The PD publication may or may not contain Zhou’s speech in full.

I will start with the direct translation of several paragraphs, to catch some of the speech’s “mood” or “atmosphere”. After that, I’ll turn to more indirect reflections of Zhou Yongkang’s speech. Links within blockquotes added during translation. Subtitles are not part of the original People’s-Daily publication.

Zhou Yongkang is the CCP’s Politics and Law Committee’s secretary, member of the CCP politbureau’s standing committee, and oversees China’s security forces and law enforcement institutions.

Translated off the reel, and posted right away.

Main Link 1: Opening Remarks and a General Description

On the occasion of the China University of Political Science and Law’s 60th anniversary, I, together with comrades in charge at the CCP Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, the ministry of education, the ministry of justice, and Beijing City, have come to this university especially to meet teachers and students.
在中国政法大学60周年校庆即将到来之际，我和中央政法委、教育部、司法部、北京市的负责同志一起，专程来学校看望老师和同学们。

In 1952, to respond to New China’s need for the construction of a rule by law^*), the China University of Political Science and Law came into being. For sixty years, under the warm care of the Central Committees’ collective leadership, led by Comrades Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin at the core, the University of Political Science and Law acted in accorance with the university’s spirit of “rich ethics, clear law, and principles, commitment to the public”, constantly improved educational quality, made great efforts to develop law research, actively participated in national legislation and popularization of law, served the practice of administration of justice on its own initiative, successively educated more than 200,000 law talents of all kinds, produced lots of noted academic masters, outstanding talents of politics and law, created a set of values, influential legal research achievements to promote government of the country in accordance with the law, to serve the economic development with outstanding contributions, thus developing into a domestically famous, internationally noted institution of higher eductation for legal education, becoming known as “the cradle of the People’s Republic’s cadres of politics and law”. The University of Political Science and Law’s course through the past sixty years of history reflects the colossal development of our country’s cause for legal education and research, and proves the colossal progress of the building of socialism-with-Chinese-characteristics rule by law. I herewith, on behalf of the Central Committee, the State Council, and Secretary General Hu Jintao, express warm congratulations on the occasion of the university’s 60th-anniversary celebrations, and sincere greetings to the entire university’s teachers, students, staff, and friends at home and abroad!
1952年，为适应新中国法治建设的需要，中国政法大学的前身北京政法学院应运而生。60年来，在以毛泽东、邓小平、江泽民同志为核心的党的三代中央领导集体和以胡锦涛同志为总书记的党中央亲切关怀下，中国政法大学秉承“厚德、明法、格物、致公”的校训精神，不断提高教学质量，大力开展法学研究，积极参与国家立法和普法宣传，主动服务执法司法实践，先后培养了20多万名各类法律人才，涌现出一大批学术名师、政法英才，创造了一系列有价值、有影响的法学研究成果，为推进依法治国进程、服务经济社会发展作出了突出贡献，发展成为国内著名、国际知名的法学教育高等学府，被誉为“共和国政法干部的摇篮”。中国政法大学60年来走过的历程，折射了我国法学教育和研究事业的长足发展，见证了中国特色社会主义法治建设的巨大进步。在此，我代表党中央、国务院和胡锦涛总书记，向中国政法大学60周年校庆表示热烈祝贺，向全校师生员工及海内外校友表示诚挚问候！

At present, our national economy maintains its steadily rapid development, the society’s is generally harmonious and stable, and the overall situation is good. Having gone through more than sixty years of construction and development since the establishment of New China, and especially during the more than thirty years of reform and opening, our cuntry’s socialist modernization and construction has achieved successes which have caught the eyes of the world, has strengthened our country’s comprehensive strength, our international influence has rapidly risen, socialism with Chinese characteristics has been tested in the sudden global changes, and shown strong vitality. At the same time, we have to see clearly that our country remains in the initial stage of socialism, that there are imbalances, uncoordinated and unsustainable problems that keep emerging within development, with existing substantial factors which affect social harmony and stability. Especially under the conditions of all the aspects of opening to the outside world and social informationalization, domestic and international issues influence each other, economic and social issues and political issues are interlinked, and supposed and real society interrelate with each other. We are facing unprecedented challenges, and we are shouldering colossal tasks.
当前，我国经济保持平稳较快发展，社会大局和谐稳定，总的形势是好的。经过新中国成立以来60多年的建设发展特别是30多年的改革开放，我国社会主义现代化建设取得了举世瞩目的伟大成就，综合国力显著增强，国际影响力大幅提升，中国特色社会主义在世界风云变幻中经受了考验，展示出强大的生命力。同时，我们要清醒地看到，我国仍处于并将长期处于社会主义初级阶段，发展中不平衡、不协调、不可持续的问题依然突出，影响社会和谐稳定的因素大量存在。特别是在全方位对外开放和社会信息化的条件下，国内问题与国际问题相互影响，经济问题、社会问题与政治问题相互关联，虚拟社会与现实社会相互作用，我们面对的挑战前所未有，肩负的任务艰巨繁重。

Government in accordance with the law is our party’s basic strategy to lead the people and to rule the country. To build a country with socialism-with-Chinese-characteristics under rule by law is the goal the entire people is unswervingly striving for. In history, the Chinese people suffered more than two-thousand years of despotic feudalist rule, in more recent times, they bore the misery of Western great powers’ bullying and humiliation, and even the most basic rights to life were not guaranteed, not to mention exaggerated talk about democratic and lawful rule. [...]
依法治国是我们党领导人民治理国家的基本方略，建设社会主义法治国家是全体人民坚定不移的奋斗目标。历史上中国人民遭受了两千多年的封建专制统治，近代又饱受西方列强的欺凌，连基本的生存权都保证不了，更不用奢谈什么民主法治了。 [.....]

Zhou describes “the road of socialist rule by law, found through the efforts of several generations of people” after 1949, as the answer to the “national conditions” (and implicitly, probably, the past).

Main Link 2: Emphasizing Legitimacy inherited from Previous CCP Generations

But building a socialist country ruled by law is a long-term and formidable, major, historical task which cannot be accomplised at one stroke. Comrade Deng Xiaoping said that “Old China bequeathed many feudal, despotic traditions on us, but very few democratic and legal traditions”. Our country, with many inhabitants but uneven economic and social development, inevitably has to face difficulties and challenges in the process of building a legal system. Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized that “socialist democracy must be broadened step by step, and a legal socialist system, a country ruled by law, a socialist country ruled by law, must be built step by step. This goal must unswervingly be implemented. Secretary general Hu Jintao demanded that we must “adhere to the basic strategy of a country ruled by law, establish a socialist concept of rule by law, and realize the rule by law, and safeguard the citizens’ legal rights. Comprehensive implementation of the basic strategy of rule by law and the acceleration of a socialist rule-by-law country is the party’s and the state’s established policy, striven for by the entire people. We must insist on these goals without letting our guard down, and unremittingly maintain forge ahead.
同时，在我国建设社会主义法治国家是一项长期而艰巨的重大历史任务，不可能一蹴而就。邓小平同志指出：“旧中国留给我们的，封建专制传统比较多，民主法制传统很少。”我们国家大，人口众多，经济社会发展又很不平衡，在法治建设进程中必然会遇到各种困难和挑战。江泽民同志强调：“要进一步扩大社会主义民主，健全社会主义法制，依法治国，建设社会主义法治国家。这个目标，我们要坚定不移地加以落实。”胡锦涛总书记要求：“坚持依法治国基本方略，树立社会主义法治理念，实现国家各项工作法治化，保障公民合法权益。”全面落实依法治国基本方略、加快建设社会主义法治国家，是党和国家的既定方针，是全体人民的共同追求，我们必须咬定目标不放松，坚持不懈地扎实往前推进。

In the following paragraph, and the first of three enumerations, Zhou points out the importance that the party and the state council had attached to legal education of the young, and refers to a speech Hu Jintao held during the CCP Youth League’s 90th anniversary celebrations. The style of the very long paragraph following that mirrors the less informative passages of central party documents, in that it describes the steps of strengthening socialist legal construction, but without actually specifying such steps.

The second item of three is about innovation, solid (academic) support for socialist rule of law, and correct political direction. This bit could be meaningful:

[...] Currently, our national economy’s and society’s development and legal construction encounters many practical problems, and there is an urgent need for answers from theory. For example:
how to maintain the party’s leadership, the people as the masters of their own matters, governance of the country in accordance with the law with organic unity, the acceleration of building a country under the rule by law, how to continuously perfect the legal system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, to provide more powerful legal guarantees for ecomomic and social scientific development and improved livelihood of the people, how to strengthen and innovate social management, [...]

Main Link 3: Outlook

Zhou’s third point refers to the future roles of today’s students, and their future responsibilities to achieve the described goals. At the second paragraph on the third online page of Zhou’s speech as published by People’s Daily, there is another reference to Hu Jintao’s CCP Youth League 90th anniversary speech (this time, Zhou refers to it as Hu’s May-4 speech), and points out the need for talented lawyers not only in China’s more developed regions, but its western regions, too.

Finally, I want to express my heart-felt wish that the University of Political Science and Law will maintain Deng Xiaoping’s Theories and [Jiang Zemin's - name not mentioned here] “Three Represents” as major ideological guidance, at the thorough implementation of scientific development, under the leadership of the Central Committee with Hu Jintao as the Secretary General. From these celebrations of the university’s 60th anniversary, and at the starting point of another sexagenary cycle, keep working for a strong, globally first-class socialist law university with Chinese characteristics!
最后，衷心祝愿中国政法大学坚持以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指导，深入贯彻落实科学发展观，在以胡锦涛同志为总书记的党中央领导下，以60周年校庆为新的历史起点，努力在新的一个甲子中建设成为中国特色、世界一流的社会主义法科强校！

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Note

^*) “Rule by law” is only one of many possible translations – I chose this option  in previous translations, too. “Rule of law” would be another.

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Related

» Where art Thou, Zhou Yongkang, March 27, 2012
» Social Management, Febr 21, 2011

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Helping Dissidents: When People Die for Wealth, and Birds Die for Food

Main Link: He Qinglian’s BBC article

He Qinglian is a Chinese economist and author who has lived in the U.S. since 2001. In an article published by the BBC‘s Chinese website (last updated on May 9, 2012) [ this account of it based on the May-7 updated version], she argues that in terms of national interest, America is rather selling benefits, than gaining them, to act in accordance with its values. There was no economic benefit to be gained by focusing on human-rights issues in its talks with China. Accusations that America was using human rights issues as a “tool” to serve its national interest, as claimed both by the CCP and by a number of dissidents, too, therefore made no sense.

It’s the case of Chen Guangcheng and his family which prompted her article. But her advice on how to help with human-rights issues goes beyond the current situation.

The efficiency of Metternich-style diplomacy had become very limited, she writes. Global decisions sought by America depended on China’s cooperation, and Europe was busy with its sovereign debt crisis (and was seeking cooperation from China, too). America’s best diplomatic “weapon” now was to apply its “soft power”, to influence China by persuasion (劝说, quànshuō) and by exchange of benefits. Otherwise, the inevitable result of situations like the current one was international humiliation of China – it would either turn a deaf ear to the matter, or fight back.

The idea that America “used human right criticism as a tool to pursue its national interests” had been an educational and propaganda line which had become deeply rooted in China – a country with a popular saying of “peole die for wealth, and birds die for food” (人为财死，鸟为食亡). CCP propaganda which kept using the concept of natonal interest was therefore highly efficient, exactly for the situation as it was at home, within China.

He Qinglian sums up why, she believes, the American-Chinese talks didn’t get derailed while secretary of state Hilary Clinton was in Beijing:

I don’t believe that China could be inspired by American soft power, and I can only guess what China got [from America] so that the good “partnership” continued.

Taking refuge in the American embassy was therefore – probably – no regular approach Chinese dissidents could take, writes He Qinglian. Each of them would have to seek international help in some ways, to different extents, in accordance with their individual situations.

One may agree or disagree with her, but I seem to sense the soulsearching and the trouble she felt when writing her article. One of the commenters underneath, under the pseudonym of Grief and Resentment (哀怨人), commenting from the U.S., suggests that there is a kind of helplessness (一种无奈感) in it.

Basically, if anything, He Qinglian seems to endorse the U.S. State Department’s approach, rather than calls from Capitol Hill, from news comments and elsewhere, to do more than what has been done so far.

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Related

» A Division of Labor that Can’t Work, Febr 23, 2010
» He Qinglian about Deutsche Welle (interview in German), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nov 11, 2008

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Dharamsala,

by Ankur Aras.

The Weeks before June 4 – Role Allocations

« An explanation of this 1989 series

» Previous post in this series

I won’t be able to describe Wu Renhua‘s entire document on the 1989 movement, at least not during this spring. I never planned to achieve such an ambitious goal anyway, but in the process of reading and roughly regiving the document’s content, I do feel some regret that I don’t have as much time for this as I would like to have. It might be a different story if I was more familiar with the weeks when a civil society in Beijing seemed to develop, and all the people and organizations involved. But in fact, the series on this blog is a process of making myself more familiar with the weeks prior to what we often narrow down to that one bloody night in June, 1989.

Wu’s document is a who-is-who, and a collection of locations in Beijing. Rather than trying to go through every day recorded in his tweeted today-in-history collection, I’m adding to a project, as suggested by C. A. Yeung a few weeks ago.

This also means that I may be dwelling on events in early May 1989 even in a few weeks, when the actual day in the year 2012 will be June 4. And in that case, I will simply continue this series with the events in May 1989, as described by Wu, in another batch of posts next year.

But at least every few days, I will keep adding posts to this series, until June.

We must restitute to past generations what they once possessed, just as every present tense is in its possession: the abundance of a possible future, the uncertainty, the freedom, the finiteness, the inconsistency (…), Thomas Nipperdey, a German historian, once wrote.

That’s what commemoration is probably about. Before the bloodbath and the great dispair, there had been weeks of frustration, hope, and self-determination. If history came out of the gun barrels (as certain people appear to suggest), there would be nothing to read, nothing to remember, and nothing to expect.

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Main Link: 八九天安门事件大记 (Major Daily Events, Tiananmen 1989), by Wu Renhua.

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Sunday, April 23, 1989

In the morning, Zhao Ziyang meets with Hu Qili and Rui Xingwen, and emphasizes his three opinions on how to handle the students’ protests, and that “the news-related public opinion must be in accordance with the guiding principle of correct reporting”. In the afternoon, he leaves for North Korea by special train, as scheduled. Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Tian Jiyun, see him off at Beijing Train Station. At about 14 h, the People’s University Doctoral Candidates’ Declaration emerges. It states full support for the Seven Demands, and all patriotic movements from all students and people of all walks of life in society; calls a complete student (and doctorate candidates’) strike; demands the resignation of the collective leadership’s and collective mistaken decision-makers’ collective resignations [or be obliged to resign] (Li-Peng language), later referred to as “collective responsibility” (Li-Peng language); strongly demands all cadres in the party, government and army who are older than 75 to resign; to oppose violence, to protect human rights, and the military forces should not take part and interfere in state affairs; CCP activities should not be paoid for by the state; and censorship to be removed, press freedom be established, and private press, radio and television be allowed; anti-corruption commissions be established, corruption on all party levels be investigated and removed, and business activities of cadres’ relatives be examined, and the results be reported to the public. Science and Technology Daily, under deputy chief editor Sun Changjiang (孙长江), is the first press publication to break into the censored field of covering the movement’s activities, which is commended by the students and from all walks of life. A number of young professors at the University of Science and Technology Beijing (北京科技大学) and other universities announce a strike; some university posters call for a general university strike or for “we won’t attend class unless we achieve our goals”, and some call for a nation-wide general strike. Between ten a.m. and around eight p.m. or after, students at Beijing University and Tsinghua University unsuccessfully try to take control of their respective universities’ broadcasting stations. Shen Tong (沈彤)¹⁾ takes a different approach – he runs a broadcasting system of his own from his dormitory, near the San Jiao Di (explanation for San Jiao Di here, underneath the list of the seven demands). Liu Gang (刘刚) is an organizer of a Universities’ Interim Committee (高校临时委员会), to be renamed Independent (or autonomous) Federation of Students from Universities in Beijing (北京市高等院校学生自治联合会), at which delegates of a number of Beijing Universities – if not all universities – are to participate. In the afternoon, Liu and Dai Zizhong (龚自忠) sees Wu Renhua at Wu’s place at the University of Political Science and Law. Wu hasn’t known them personally before. Liu asks Wu to attend the students’ assembly scheduled for that evening, at Yuanmingyuan or Yuanming Park²⁾. Wu Renhua declines, because participation in the Yuanmingyuan assembly or meeting wouldn’t correspond with his role as a professor. If he played such a role, this would also provide a handle for the authorities. Liu Gang, in search for a candidate to chair the conference, approaches Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强) [the student who hit his own head with his megaphone, during Guo Haifeng's, Zhang Zhiyong's and Zhou Yongjun's kneeling petition at the entrance of the Great Hall of the People a day earlier], but Pu doesn’t believe that he has the abilities it takes to become chairman. Probably more crucially, he points out that his parents by adoption, who live in a rural area, are relatively old people who depend on him³⁾.

The Yuanmingyuan conference meets in the evening, with delegates from Beiing’s twenty-one university. Each university dispatches ten delegates. Zhou Yongjun (周勇军),  of the University of Political Science and Law, and one of the three kneeling petitioners on the previous day, is elected chairman. Wang Dan, Wu’er Kaixi, Ma Shaofang, and Zang Kai (臧凯) become standing-commission members.

According to what are believed to be Li Peng’s diaries, the CCP Politbureau Standing Committee holds a meeting at eleven a.m.. Li Tieying, in his capactiy as national education commission’s director, calls Li Peng to inform him that the mood at all universities in Beijing is very emotional, that student strikes are brewing, and that he hopes that Zhao listens to / reads the reports. Beijing Municipal Party secretary Li Ximing calls Zhao Ziyang on the phone and asks him to put his trip to North Korea off. Zhao tells the national education commission’s director Li Tieying see this post, footnote 3 that he had already authorized Li Peng to chair the standing commission’s work and to report to him.

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Notes

¹⁾ According to this online story, Shen was extremely lucky after the Tian An Men crackdown:

Fortunately for Shen, he had already been accepted to Brandeis University and had been issued a passport to study in the U.S. Six days after Tiananmen he went undisguised to the airport and boarded a flight for the United States though the state security police had put him on their most wanted list. Some have taken this as a sign that even many in China’s military had secretly been in sympathy with the democracy movement.

²⁾ Yuanmingyuan or Yuanming Park (the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, 圆明园) belongs to Beijing’s Haidian District. It is also referred to as the Old Summer Palace. The actual palace was destroyed in the Second Opium War.

³⁾ Wu Renhua writes in his document that he doesn’t remember having warned Pu Zhiqiang against chairing the Yuanming Park meeting in principle, but he does remember that he did warn Pu to mind his safety, for the sake of his adoptive parents.

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Related

» April 23, 1989, Under the Jacaranda, April 23, 2012

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Chen Guangcheng, Rebiya Kadeer, and Chinese Tradition

Chen Guangcheng and Rebiya Kadeer have something in common: they seem to embody what the CCP itself likes to sell to foreigners as “the Chinese people’s strife for a better life”. Chen became a lawyer of sorts, despite his blindness. Kadeer, an Uyghur, became a successful business woman. That was how she was portrayed by CCP propaganda, anyway.

Lu Zhishen pulls a willow tree. (Click picture for source.)

Both, at some time during their careers, found themselves at odds with the Chinese Communist Party. They still are.

A too idealistic view? Maybe – but that’s what narratives are about. That’s probably why the Water Margin, one of the Chinese classics, came to my mind when I heard about Chen Guangcheng’s escape from his “house arrest” in Shandong Province. Mount Liang, where the novel is set, is located in Shandong Province, too.

The narrative here is this (more or less): 108 outlaws form a sizeable army (officials at the time would refer to them as a gang, of course), the outlaws become pretty convincing (illegal) military personalities, they teach the imperial armies lesson after lesson, and are then – as usual with successful rebels – granted an amnesty, and coopted to defend the Chinese empire.

The rebel idealism is one narrative – the one of co-option is another. They seem to complement each other. That China’s intellectuals have been co-opted by the CCP has been frequently said. Kang Xiaoguang suggested in 2007 that the CCP had replaced farmers and workers as the country’s elites, and chose the intellectuals instead:

However, the relationship between the intellectual elite and the CCP has gone through twists and turns. There were constant conflicts between the two in the 1980s, which gradually died out after the 1990s. Why did the intellectuals stop making noise? Some say it is due to heavy-handed suppression while others say that the intellectuals have been bought off. Indeed, suppression has never stopped, and has been dreadful, too. In the mid-1990s, the government started a policy of massive buy-off. For instance, there has been a marked increase in the outlay for education and research, and much better working and living conditions for teaching and research staff. However, suppression and buy-off cannot fully explain the change in the intelligentsia. Otherwise the intelligentsia would not be the intelligentsia any more. No, there are deeper reasons for this change of attitude. First, the Chinese government continued the reform and opening-up policy in and after 1992, which was what the intelligentsia wanted. [...] »

Kang’s explanation goes beyond Wu Renhua’s description of how CCP cooption works. Wu, in his Tian An Men 1989 tweets of 2011, wrote that the CCP learned its lesson from 1989, and bought the intellectuals off, with 1,800,000,000 Yuan RMB allocated to Tsinghua, Beijing University, as teacher subsidies which were spent within three years.

That may create stability, at least superficially. But it also rots civil society.

Soft power comes from values, Chinese intellectuals keep stating. But when values begin to resist state power, they seem to become irreconcilable, in China.

Many people who allow the party establishment to buy them off will hate Chen Guangcheng. Others will silently admire him – after hours, and without consequence.

That’s tradition.

The Weeks before June 4 – Towards the Sun

Main Link: 八九天安门事件大记 (Major Daily Events, Tiananmen 1989), by Wu Renhua.

« previous post in this series, and an explanation of my approach to regiving Wu Renhua’s document

Monday, April 17, 1989

From the afternoon on, larger-scale activities than before to mourn Hu Yaobang spread from the university campuses to Tian An Men Square. In big and medium-sized cities nationwide, mourning activities are also becoming larger. At about 1 p.m., more than 600 teachers and students from China University of Political Science and Law move towards Tian An Men Square, along the Second Ring Road, led by young teachers like Chen Xiaoping, Xiong Jining, and Wu Renhua. It is the first demonstration by the 1989 popular movement. More details [in Chinese] here.  Some of the participating China University of Political Science and Law students later become a backbone of the students’ movement, like Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强), Xiang Xiaoji 项小吉, head of the Beijing Universities’ Students’ Dialog Delegation), Zhou Yongjun (周勇军, Beijing Students Autonomous Federation chairman), the Students Autonomous Federation’s first secretary Wang Zhixin (王志新, listed by the Ministry of Public Security as one of the 21 student leaders), Wang Zhiqing (王志清, also listed as one of the 21 student leaders by the public security ministry, and unaccounted for ever since the end of the June-4 movement).

At 5 p.m., there are nine wreathes in front of the Monument to the People’s Heroes, signed by a number of students from Beihang University (aka Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), teachers and students from Beijing University, teachers and students from Beijing Normal University, by all post-graduates from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and by a cadre from the China University of Political Science and Law.

By 7 p.m., some two- to three-thousand people have assembled at the Tian An Men Square monument, and mostly students read out memorial speeches. After midnight, there are still between two- and three-hundred students who don’t want to leave the place.

In Shanghai, more than one-thousand (mostly) Fudan University students have moved to the government buildings and demanded talks with city leaders. They disperse by about 4 a.m. next morning. The authorities, led by Shanghai party secretary Jiang Zemin, issue a notice, stipulating that memorial activities for Hu Yaobang have to be conducted within the respective work units (danwei), to safeguard normal work and studies, stability and unity. The notice also calls for vigilance, concerning bad elements who could seize the opportunity to instigate disturbances. On Monday evening, more than one-thousand students from Tianjin’s Nankai University also leave their campus for a demonstration, singing the Internationale, the national anthem, plus the military anthem of the PLA (我们的队伍向太阳)¹⁾, and calling slogans like “Down with dictatorship”, “long live democracy”, and “long live liberty”. Demonstrations are also reported from Hunan Province.

At People’s University (aka Renmin University) in Beijing, the “Some Suggestions from Beijing University, Tsinghua University, People’s University, and Normal University” document emerges, with the following main content:

• making Tian An Men Square the focus of elegiac couplet and wreaths
• the establishment of a new, democratic order
• review of major mistakes that emerged during the ten years of reform, and
• the removal of those responsible for the mistakes from office.

The Hong Kong Standard, in a news report headlined “Hu Yaobang’s death believed to revive reformist faction”²⁾, writes that

The movement for democracy and human rights is growing by the day, and following the May-Fourth 70th anniversary, its momentum will only expand further [...] The students from Beijing’s universities, in their activities to mourn Hu Yaobang, may spontaneously organize activities to make demands for broadening democracy.

Continued here »
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Note

¹⁾ PLA performing the song on August 1, 2007 (video), lyrics in English (“Facing towards the Sun”, Wikipedia).
²⁾ The Standard (HK) most probably published this report in English – the above is my English translation from the way Wu Renhua quoted the report in Chinese.

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Related

» “Our Opportunity had Arrived”, Under the Jaracanda, April 17, 2012
» Hu is Popular, April 17, 2010

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