Ma Ying-jeou, Lost in Tradition

Shortly before the beginning of Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou‘s second term in office, his support and satisfaction rates are at new historical lows, between 15 to 22 per cent. More than 60 per cent of the public have no confidence in Ma’s coming four years of administration, reports Singapore’s Morning News (Lianhe Zaobao).

“These opinion polls aren’t like anything during the past four years”, Zaobao quotes the head of Taiwan National University’s Department of Political Science, Wang Yeh-lih (王業立). “Ma Ying-jeou’s biggest problem is that the decision-making circles are too small, that communication between the government and the [KMT] party is poor, and that the relapse in public opinion was underestimated.”

During the past three months since his re-election, efforts to resolve an ongoing beef-imports dispute with the U.S., oil and electricity price hikes and stock exchange taxes, hadn’t been able to please either farmers, nor workers, nor business people, and had left people boiling with resentment (民怨沸腾), writes Zaobao. Hikes in oil and electricity prices had added to living costs, in terms of food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and all kinds of basic necessities, and stealth price increases in all kinds of products.

Ma Ying-jeou’s traditionally wooden communication skills haven’t been helpful during the recent wave of resentment. The Taipei Times people, of course, loves his exchanges with normal people, but not for the reasons Ma thinks they should:

On May 4, during a visit by the president to National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, a student told Ma in reference to a recent increase in retail prices that he does not feel full now after eating one biandang, or lunchbox. The student said typical lunchboxes these days tend to contain less vegetables even though their prices have remained the same. In response, Ma asked: “You don’t feel full? So now you need to eat one more biandang? Or do you endure being hungry?”

To make things worse, the discussion became distorted in that Ma was later quoted as saying that “Just eat another biandang and you’ll be full” (再吃一个便当就饱了), writes Zaobao.

Ma’s idea of a presidency is traditional – he certainly wants to be seen as a leader who understands what is going on in peoples’ daily lives, but his benchmark – former president Chiang Ching-kuo, who certainly was progressive at his times – when compared to his father Chiang Kai-shek -, is outdated. And each of Ma’s attempts to look like a leader of historic scale is happily ridiculed, whenever opportunites arise. They seem to arise often.

From the early 1980s on, Ma had worked for Chiang Ching-kuo, in several functions. In an interview which was part of a Chiang Ching-kuo documentary, Ma remembered one of Chiang’s last public appearances. Chiang was wheelchair-bound by then, he attended a Constitution Commemorative Conference in 1987, and as he was scurried off the stage, probably to spare him the spectacle that accompanied his exit, civil-rights advocates and democracy activists were standing – but not out of respect. They shouted, and waved posters with their demands. It appeared to be an unpleasant scene indeed – and next in the documentary’s picture was modern-day Ma, worry lines and disgust in his face, telling how ungrateful the activists had been:

It was as if [Chiang] was saying, “I have made all these efforts to promote Taiwan’s democratic reforms. How can they do this to me?”^*)
好像就聽到，他嘴裡在說，他說我這幾年來，大力推動台灣的民主改革，他們怎麼還會這樣子對我呢？

But to compare Chiang Ching-kuo and Ma would be unjustified for a number of reasons. On the one hand, Ma has never been something like a secret-police director. But on the other, he doesn’t have Chiang’s merits either. What are Ma’s achievements? What should people reciprocate for? Or, in the words in which he reportedly complained to his sister, after getting a lot of stick for his administration’s management after the Morakot typhoon: “good people weren’t rewarded” (好人沒好報).

Nanfang Shuo (南方朔), a moderate critic of Ma Ying-jeou, believes that much of the public’s unease stems from an awareness that Ma is free from pressure as he faces no further elections. Reforms and decisions could therefore be taken arbitrarily (or autocratically – 独断独行).

In fact, even if one only follows Ma Ying-jeou’s presidential fortunes loosely (as JR does), it is easy to see that Ma is rarely in tune with the public in general, or even in individual chats. During the presidential election campaign, his opponent Tsai Ing-wen (herself not necessarily a folksy type of politician either), came across as fairly presidential (an observation by Nanfang Shuo in October last year), and to beat Ma in terms of communication skills was hardly a daunting challenge either.

All the same, Ma was re-elected – and the public now seems to complain that they got exactly the president they had gotten to know during his first term.

It’s not all the president’s fault. Certainly not in a democracy, where people have choices.

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Note

^*) I can’t find the documentary online, but I seem to remember that Ma basically used the same words to describe his impressions there, as in this quote.

Related

» The Lame leading the Blind, June 3, 2011
» No Shanzhai Chiang, May 20, 2009

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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Redoubled Efforts: how Chinese are the Philippines?

菲律宾是中国固有领土 (The Philippines are China’s inherent territory), CCTV anchor He Jia (和佳) told the audience on May 7 – the expert looked somewhat surprised. Maybe he’s no good patriot. Or maybe he was looking on with horror as the news anchor accidentally revealed a state secret.

Either way, Ms He later apologized to her audience on a microblog, Sina Weibo -   a mistake that shouldn’t have happened had happened (发生了十分不该发生的错误). She would redouble her efforts and take her work even more seriously in the future (今后会“加倍努力、加倍认真”).

A report by Singapore’s UDN (Lianhe Zaobao), quoting an initial report from Sina News, and one by Radio Australia.

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Related

» The Stupid Mermaid, March 12, 2009

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Experts: How to Win Friends Abroad, and to Lose them at Home

Huanqiu Shibao quotes the gist of what ten academics said in a Central Party School discussion on May 5. This post contains translations from four of the quotes, and a few comments from the Huanqiu readership.

Wang Fan (王帆, Professor, Director of the Institute of International Relations, and Assistant President, China Foreign Affairs University):

In terms of power and politics in Asia, the cold-war mentality won’t go away. China should reduce the negative effects of cold-war mentality, manage crises, and take preventive measures against crises. In the framework of the maintained status quo, a consensus with America should be worked out. On the one hand, multilateral security cooperation should be strengthened, on the other, untraditional security cooperation should be strengthened, and the East Asia Kyousei Forum (东亚共生) model be used, to solve issues of balanced development in East Asia.
从亚洲地区权力与政治的现状来看，冷战思维是不可能消除的，中国应减少冷战思维的负面影响，管控危机、预防危机。在维持亚洲现状的情况下与美国达成共识。一方面加强多边安全合作，另一方面加强非传统安全合作，充分利用东亚共生的现象，解决好东亚均衡发展问题。

Zhang Yansheng (张燕生, the Institute for International Economics Research of the National Development and Reform Commission’s academic-commission secretary):

In the next few years, according to the current pace of development, the size of China’s economy will overtake America’s. During this process, there will be competition between China and America, and China  [correction, May 12: America] will do everything in its power to hold China back. This is a critical stage for China as a country. To respond to these unfavorable prospects, China needs to change its development pattern and establish a pattern which lends support to a order and to a legal system. From an export-oriented economy, it must internationalize [in terms of] talent, markets, industry, capital etc., strategically and structurally link China with the international systems, and structural transformation is the core here.
未来几年，按照现有的发展速度，中国的经济规模将会超过美国。在这个进程中，中美会出现竞争，美国会千方百计地阻止中国。因此，对中国来说，这是一个国家发展的关键时期。中国若要应对这一不利前景，必须改变前30年的发展模式，建立一个基于规则和法制的发展模式，由外向型经济转变为人才、市场、产业、资本等的国际化，在体制、战略和结构上与国际制度接轨，其中体制转变是核心。

Shao Feng, (邵峰, CASS Global Economics and Politcs Research Institute’s Strategy Office director):

A country’s overall level of development is the actual embodiment of its soft power. Four international strategic issues urgently need research and solutions:

• the issue of strategic timing, how China should seize its opportunities and solve issues inherited from history
• the issue of China having too few friends internationally, of how to win more friends through the establishment of common values and common benefit
• the issue of raising China’s international image, and
• the issue of building the national economy and society.

国家整体发展水平才是国家软实力的体现。中国国际战略研究急需研究解决以下四个课题：一是战略时机问题，中国应如何抓住时机，解决历史遗留问题；二是中国在世界上朋友太少，如何通过建立共同价值观和共同利益，在国际社会争取更多朋友；三是提升中国国际形象；四是加强国家经济、社会等建设。

Wang Hongxu (王红续, Central Party School International Strategic Research and Chinese Diplomacy Research Office director):

In the definition of international strategies [an international strategy], the domestic environment and the international environment are equally important. China’s current unbalanced development and cultural soft power stays far behind its economic development, and its position in international public opinion and  discourse dominance [also: the right to speak - 话语权] is weak. In view of that, China still needs to practise, on the global stage, the basic strategy defined in the 1980s. Obviously, there need to be adjustments in accordance with new situations and new characteristics. China hasn’t yet achieved an international cultural strategy, and that has to change.
在制定国际战略时，国内环境和国际环境同样重要。中国目前的发展不平衡，文化软实力大大滞后于经济发展，在国际舆论和话语权方面处于弱势地位。鉴于以上情况，中国在上世纪80年代制定的基本战略还需要继续实行。当然，要根据新形势和新特点，进行适当调整。目前，中国还没有成体系的国际文化战略，这一情况需要改变。

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Comments from the Huanqiu Shibao readership:

It only takes very small numbers of troops to regain ones territories and territorial waters! Why all the pondering? In the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, and the self-defense strike against Vietnam, it took very few troops! These so-called experts are apparently all women! — There is no masculine disposition here! This becomes especially apparent in the ideological methods. Take these [experts] and put them next to Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping to compare their ideological methods would do too much honor [to these experts].
收复自己的领土领海而动用非常少量的军队!用得着这样思前想后的吗?和在抗美援朝战场及对越反自卫击战投入的兵力比 真的只需动用非常少量的军队!这几位所谓的专家应该都是女性!—没有男子汉的气质与胆量!特别是体现在思维方式上更是如如此 当然啦 拿这几位和毛泽东,邓小平去比较思维方式确实是太高看其人了.
– 21 minutes ago

This bunch of traitors is misleading the citizens! Stomp [them]!
这群汉奸又在误导国民。脚踩！！！
– 26 minutes ago

In reply to the previous comment:
Correct. 正确
– 13 minutes ago.

[A rather sophisticated comment - and too sophisticated for JR to grasp its first line (谁想打仗让谁上好了)]:

[...] A bunch of screaming and chattering lunatics. Do you know the cruelty of war?
谁想打仗让谁上好了,－群哇哇乱叫的疯子,知道战争的残酷吗?
– one hour ago

I can’t translate the replies to the latter comment, but neither of them appears to be friendly, but one of the three (possibly all the same person) writes:

In the past, territory was given away in exchange for peace, but in the end, there was still war. Cruelty? I would rather die than live without dignity, sovereignty is fought for, it’s not resistance with each passing day.
你就是一sb，以前用领土换和平还不是最后要打仗，残酷？情愿死也不要无尊严的活着，主权是打来的，不是天天抗议
– one hour ago.

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Related

» First School Lesson: Patriotic Essays, Sept 1, 2009
» Concerning Traitors, Aug 25, 2009
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Update/Related

» Orgasm is Easy, Rectified.Name, May 12, 2012

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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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The Weeks before June 4 – Hu Yaobang’s Funeral

« An explanation of this 1989 series

» Previous post in this series

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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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Saturday, April 22, 1989

At ten a.m., the officially arranged mourning ceremony for Hu Yaobang in the Great Hall of the People is held. State chairman Yang Shangkun (杨尚昆) chairs the ceremony, CCP general secretary Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳) delivers the eulogy. Fifteen minutes before the ceremony, Deng Xiaoping has arrived, and Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng, Wan Li, Qiao Shi and other leaders are also arriving. Beijing’s communist leaders have turned out in full strength.

There is news that Hu Yaobang’s family has refused to let the central advisory commission vice director Bo Yibo (薄一波) and central commission for discipline inspection of the CCP deputy secretary Wang Heshou (王鹤寿) attend the ceremony. Bo and Wang had been stricken by the “61 Traitors” case. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Hu Yaobang, then the CCP central committee organization department ‘s director, had overturned the verdicts against them despite facing strong pressure [not to do so], but at the end of 1986, when Hu Yaobang was removed as secretary general, Bo and Wang, ungratefully (忘恩负义), were the main villains [people who worked against Hu]. At about 11.40 a.m., the ceremony ends, and Qiao Shi, Hu Qili, Song Ping, and head of the party’s general affairs secretariat Wen Jiabao (温家宝), with Hu Yaobang’s wife Li Zhao (李昭), accompany Hu’s coffin to Babaoshan crematorium. Babaoshan Cemetery is some 15 kilometers from Tian An Men Square, people crowd along Chang An Lu and on the buildings next to it, many wave to the car. Hu Yaobang’s son Hu Deping (胡德平) puts his two hands in front of his chest, expressing his thanks to the crowds in a traditional way. Some three-thousand police and military are deployed at Tian An Men Square and Chang An East Road.

Li Peng notes in his “June-4 diary”^*) that Beijing police representatives talked with students’ delegates at 3 a.m. and asked them to move eastward on the square, so that the cars at the eastern gate of the Great Hall of the People could get through, and that the students agreed.

A request by the students to dispatch delegates to attend the mourning ceremony was declined. Yuan Zhiming (远志明), a co-author of the “River Elegy” documentary movie, and other writers and authors are on Tian An Men Square, too.

At ten, as the live broadcast announces the beginning of the ceremony, tens of thousands of students fall silent, and stand as a mark of respect. They sing along the national anthem, some are in tears, and the atmosphere is solemn and respectful. Students on Chang An Street (West) who hadn’t been able to enter the square are wearing black armbands, white flowers, and raise banners with inscriptions like “Hu Yaobang, Beijing University mourns you” and “the University of Political Science and Law pays its respect”.

Tens of thousands hope to accompany Hu Yaobang on his last path. As they learn that the car with the coffin has already left, they become excited and angry. Three demands are made in a petition:
(1) that the car with the coffin drives once around the square, (2) a dialogue with Li Peng, and (3) open coverage of the students’ mourning activities on this day.

At 12.50, Beijing University students Guo Haifeng (郭海峰), Zhang Zhiyong (张智勇), and University of Political Science and Law student Zhou Yongjun (周勇军), holding the petition [Correction, May 2: the previously written seven-point petition, in fact], kneel on the entrance stairs of the Great Hall of the People, and for a long time, there is no response. Tens of thousands of students and onlookers express deep sympathies, and once in a while, shouts are heard. A great number of military police and PLA troops encircle the entrance area, and the square is full of people. Among the comments among the crowd, there are lines such as “this is what the officials’ fear has turned into” (当官的怕学生怕成这样). The crowd begins to mock the troops, some students and other people begin moving forward, and frictions with the officers on duty occur. The pushes, back and forth, lasts for about fifteen minutes.

Nobody emerges from the hall to take the petition, which angers the students, and University of Political Science and Law, Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强), hits his own head with the megaphone he carries until blood runs across his face.

Taiwan TV coverage, April 22, 1989 (click picture for video).

After 13.50, more than ten-thousand students from Beijing University, University of Political Science and Law, Bei Hang University, People’s University etc. disperse in an organized way to return to their universities. According to a leading student from Beijing University, the students’ representatives haven’t been met, and nobody was prepared for a dialog with them. To maintain the students’ safety and the national situation, they had decided to return to the university strikes.

Apart from the Beijing municipality military police on duty around the Great Hall of the People, the 13th regiment of the 3rd Capital Garrison had been dispatched to the scene. During the 1989 movement, there will be three times for them to enter Beijing, and after June-4, the central military commission will be awarded a Collective Merit Citation Class One (集体一等功).

A growing number of posters emerges on the campuses, reacting to the events of the day, emphasizing the need to work out strategies and to find effective ways of organizing petitioning, and statements like “Today’s China is too dirty, and this is the time for a great clean-up”.

Li Peng’s “June-4 diary”:

This morning, a serious clash occured in Xi’an. Criminal elements pounded the provincial government compound, the procuratorate, and the court building. Cars, garages and oil depots were arsoned and a clothing shop on a main street looted. The Shaanxi provincial party committee sent a telegram to the central government: Shaanxi police isn’t sufficient, we request support from the center. Four-thousand PLA troops are going to assist Xi’an.

To be continued, probably on Saturday.

Continued here »

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Notes

^*) I heard about the “diary” in 2010, but I don’t know if that document can be considered authentic.

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Related

» April 22, 1989, Under the Jacaranda, April 22, 2012
» Cultural Revolutions, Great and Small, April 1, 2012

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The Weeks before June 4 – Asserting Authority

« An explanation of this 1989 series

« Previous post in this series

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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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Friday, June 21, 1989

The authorities feel humiliated by the petitioning students at Xinhua Gate. “People’s Daily” publishes an editorial titled “How we Shall mourn Comrade Hu Yaobang”, and a Xinhua newsagency journalist’s report is titled “Several Hundred Crowd around Xinhua Gate and Create Trouble”. Many university students in Beijing believe that these comments and reports aren’t seeking the truth in the facts and that they are hard to accept.

People’s Daily’s editorial says that a small number of people act the mourners, but do in fact level illegal activities against the party and the government, and even brazenly pounded Xinhua Gate. There was no way to allow this. Whoever used the mourning of Comrade Hu Yaobang to level vandalism at the party and the government would become a historic criminal. Those of them who insisted on having their own ways would reap what they had sowed.

In the morning, University of Political Science and Law students call for a student strike. A responsible at the university informs about that three students who had taken part in mourning activities on Tian An Men Square on the evening of April 19. At about 11.30 p.m. they were about to return to the campus and encountered a large number of military police on the southern side of the Great Hall of the People. Wang Zhiyong (王志勇, see previous post) had been beaten unconscious with leather belts, and the Beijing Hospital No. 3 (北医三院) had confirmed lacerations on his head, light cerebral concussions, and eye injuries.

The strike notice demands
(1) two days of strike, on April 21 and 22 to protest the illegal police behavior;
(2) demands that the government severely punish the perpetrators¹⁾
(3) the police must, in its report, publicly apologize for this kind of behavior, and report in accordance with the facts
(4) if item (2) and (3) are not replied to by April 23 at 5 p.m., further action will gradually be taken.

Strikes at Beijing University begin before noon, some students at the entrances to the rooms dissuade classmates from attending lessons, and a strike notice is written on some blackboards. Beijing University Student Steering Committee publishes a strike notice.

At about twelve, students at the University of Political Science and Law campus burn Xinhua newsagency’s “Safeguarding Social Stability is the Current Big Picture” and “People’s Daily’s” editorial. Small bottles are smashed²⁾.

In the afternoon, fifty students from Tianjin arrived at Beijing University as scheduled [see previous post], as a petition delegation.

At Beijing University, Wu’erkaixi‘s  (ئۆركەش دۆلەت / 吾尔开希•多莱特) notice emerges:
(1) scrap the (official) Students’ Union’s and Postgraduates’ Union’s responsibilities;
(2) participate in the Beijing Universities’ Provisional Students’ Association;
(3) from April 22, the entire university announce a student strike and a stop to all examinations;
(4) at ten p.m., all universities take a pledge at Beijing University, and all students, without fail, must participate, prepare bread and drinks to express appreciation for fellow students from (other) universities.

In the afternoon, Chen Ku-ying (陈鼓应 / 陳鼓應), a guest professor for philosophy from Taiwan, and 143 more professors and scholars sign and publish an open letter (“Teachers’ Urgent Call”) to the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, calling for maintaining the principle of consultations and dialogue, and the restoration and development of the Three Forms of Broad-Mindedness (三宽: 宽松、宽宏、宽厚). Violence against students should not be allowed.

At about 6 p.m., an open letter to the party’s central committee, the state council, and the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee emerges at Beijing University. It is signed by Bao Zunxin (包遵信), Bei Dao (北岛), Su Xiaokang (苏晓康) and 47 more authors and states that the students’ mourning activities’ demands are positive and constructive, and that healing the popular feelings (收拾民心) and weathering the crisis together would be a fundamentally wise policy.

Beijing Municipal government publishes a notice saying that because of the mourning ceremony for Hu Yaobang at the Great Hall of the People, Tian An Men Square needed to be evacuated by dawn, and that cars and pedestrians will not be allowed to enter the square. In fact, this is a measure to prevent the students from gathering there and to participate in the mourning ceremony. All universities in Beijing decide to let the students assemble on the square during the preceding evening, i. e. today evening.

After 8 p.m., some 40,000 students are on their way, from one university after another. It is the first united demonstration by all universities in Beijing.

The masses, in their tens of thousands, applaud the demonstrators from the roadsides. The students, their spirits high, call slogans like “Long live the people!”, “long live understanding!”, and “What are we doing? We are speaking the truth!” Hot water and cups provided by the public, along the roads.

The demonstration is tightly organized. Also along the roads, students screen the demonstration on the road from outsiders slipping in. At 22.40, the first students arrive on Tian An Men Square, and by 1.30 a.m., everyone is there. Around midnight, the numbers are somewhere between 200,000 and – according to some reports – 400,000 students and onlookers. Every university has dispatched overseers.

In the evening, a student, Zhen Songyu (甄颂育), rushes in and asks us (Wu Renhua, Liu Su and Chen Xiaoping) to help getting order into messy demonstration preparations. I’m taking to the demonstrators’ front rows, Chen Xiaoping walks behind the formation, and Liu Su keeps us connected. Late at night, Wang Juntao (王军涛), to be classified by the authorities as a vicious manipulator (literally: “black hand”, 黑手) after the end of the movement, and Zhang Lun (张伦), who has just returned from Yan’an, appear among our  University of Political Science and Law demonstrators, seeking for me. I’m meeting Zhang Lun, from Beijing University, for the first time.

In the afternoon, after reading reports from the education commission, Beijing municipal government, the public-security ministry, Xinhua, and other departments, party secretary general Zhao Ziyang makes a phonecall to politbureau member and the national education commission’s director Li Tieying (李铁映) with a proposal to keep communication with all universities and to make sure that effective measures are taken to maintain guidance and to prevent conflicts (contradictions, 矛盾) from intensifying. In the afternoon, Zhao also has discussions with permanent politbureau member Hu Qili and the secretariat of the Communist Party Central Committee secretary and politbureau member Rui Xingwen. Zhao says that the news and public opinion should emphasize some correct things, and while affirming that the students are patriotic, the importance of social stability also needs to be pointed out, and intensified contradictions be prevented.

Permanent politbureau member and chief state councillor Li Peng (李鹏), after reading the public-security ministry’s “Concerning some illegal organizations emerging at Universities” report, adds a comment to the original document: “Comrade Tieying [Li Tieying, see previous paragraph], this issue must be closely watched, and immediately be communicated to the universities in question, to curb this in accordance with the law.”

Li Peng notes in his “June-4 diary”³⁾ that

This evening at seven, Zhao Ziyang held a standing committee meeting and discussed the wording of the eulogy for Comrade Hu Yaobang. It gives high appraisal to the life of Comrade Hu Yaobang, but according to Comrade Xiaoping’s [i. e. Deng Xiaoping] advice, it doesn’t give Comrade Yaobang the title of a great Marxist. At eight p.m., 50,000 students, in the name of taking part in the mourning ceremony for Hu Yaobang, have entered Tian An Men Square – in advance – to make sure that the measures that had been taken to keep them out next day can not be put into practice. In the evening, I kept watching the developments from [my] Zhongnanhai office. Comrade Qiao Shi, in direct command of the scene, [says that] the measures to keep the square clear cannot be carried out.

Continued here »

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Notes

¹⁾ the dominant translation would be murderers – xiongshou (凶手), the term used in the strike notice quote, is basically a stronger word than just perpetrators.
²⁾ see footnote 2 there. The smashing of little bottles, however, was most probably targeted at Deng Xiaoping.
³⁾ I heard about the “diary” in 2010, but I don’t know if that document can be considered authentic.

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Related

» April 21, 1989, Under the Jacaranda, April 21, 2012
» Detective Li’s Diary, June 30, 2010

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The Weeks before June 4 – a Trip to North Korea

« An explanation of this 1989 series

« Previous post in this series

____________

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

Wednesday, April 19, 1989

Some two thousand students stay in front of Xinhua Gate overnight, even after three in the morning. But it is quite a reduction from the peak of the evening before, when there were more than twenty-thousand students and onlookers. At 4.20 a.m., a loudspeaker announcement warns of bad elements trying to create trouble, and wanting to use people for their own ends. This was no longer a normal mourning activity, says the message. A great number of police cars arrive, plus two buses, which take students who still stayed on at Xinhua Gate back to their campuses without incidents. In the afternoon, the slogans, besides praise for late Hu Yaobang, begin to include calls for unfolding the May-4 tradition¹⁾.

At 9 p.m., several ten-thousand people have gathered on Tian An Men Square again. Public security authorities inform the public by loudspeaker messages that wreathes may be taken to the Monument of the People’s Heroes, but not to Zhongnanhai. Around 10 p.m., police stops students from flying seven hydrogen balloons which carry the inscription “Hu Yaobang isn’t Dead”. Xinhua Gate is out of reach for demonstrations, as it has been sealed off by police.

In the evening, the Democratic Salon holds a session at Beijing University’s San Jiao Di [explanation here, underneath the seven demands]. It is initially moderated by the university’s history department student Wang Dan, and then by Wu Yunxue (武运学), as Wang Dan’s voice is getting hoarse. Ding Xiaoping (丁小平), Xiong Yan (熊焱), Feng Congde (封从德), Yang Tao (杨涛) and others give speeches. The students present at the session decide to depose the [official] Students’ Union and to establish a Steering Commission for an Autonomous Beijing University Students’ Union.

The CCP Central Committee announces that a mourning ceremony for Hu Yaobang will be held in the Great Hall of the People on April 22, at ten a.m.. The ceremony will be broadcast live by China National Radio and CCTV.

Fang Lizhi (方励之), researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories (北京天文台) at the time, is interviewed by a Hong Kong reporter on the phone. The students have the right to make demands, and to express them peacefully on demonstrations, he says. He supports the students, and so do intellectuals and public opinion in general. He has no direct links with the students; the students strife for democracy and freedom is spontaneous, with views of their own. He isn’t directly participating in their actions.

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Thursday, April 20, 1989

At midnight, at the Democratic Salon at Beijing University, Wang Dan announces the foundation of the “Beijing University United Students’ Union Steering Committee”, which is to replace the officially-controlled Beijing University Students’ Union. The steering committee’s seven members are Ding Xiaoping, Yang Tao, Wang Dan, Yang Dantao (杨丹涛), Xiong Yan, Feng Congde, and Chang Jin (常劲, sometimes also spelled Chang Jing). The committee recommends that students from every university organize themselves and elect delegates to ensure a unified leadership for the movement.

At peak times, there are now up to fifty- or sixty-thousand people on Tian An Men Square.

Zhongnanhai is sealed off [apparently to prevent further demonstrators to get to Xinhua Gate], and loudspeaker messages at 3.45 in the morning warn the about 300 students who are still in front of Xinhua Gate that if the “small minority of people” still hold out there, the consequences will solely be their own responsibility. At about 4 a.m., military police disperses the several hundred students and forces them on buses. Some don’t want to get on the buses and for the first time, there is fighting.

Hong Kong’s Express (Kuai Bao) reports that student delegates from Beijing University, the People’Äs University and the University of Political Science and Law who had regular talks with the authorities, but there hasn’t been news from them since they had entered Zhongnanhai at two a.m.. Students are losing patience.

At 3 p.m., protests emerge at Beijing University, against the beating of a University of Political Science and Law student, Wang Zhiyong, at Xinhua Gate early that day. The student’s bloody clothes are put on display at Wang’s university.

Deng Xiaoping, in his capacity as the CCP’s central military commission, decides to call troops into Beijing to reinforce the police and military police in Beijing. Troops dispatched are from the 3rd Capital Garrison Division (Police), and from the 38th Army (belonging to the Beijing Military Region).

In the morning, vice chief state councillor Tian Jiyun (田纪云) meets party secretary general Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳) and suggests that Zhao should change his plan to leave for a visit to North Korea on April 23. Tian is the only cadre Zhao brought with him to Beijing²⁾, from Sichuan. Zhao says that he has thought about that, too, but he believes that to change his plans would suggest to the world outside that the political situation was unstable. He therefore sticks with his travel plan.

Students come in from Tianjin, by train, fifty on them this Thursday evening. More than one-hundred have bought train tickets and will arrive on Friday to take part in a demonstration in Beijing.

Demonstrations are reported from Anhui Province, and in Nanjing, at 10.30 p.m., more than three-thousand students leave the Nanjing University campus for demonstrations at the Jiangsu Province government buildings.

In Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, some 2,300 people charge ahead for the entrance of the provincial government building. More than 200 are arrested by military police. An official statement says that very few organized students had been among the troublemakers, and that the majority had been “young people waiting for work”³⁾, workers, people without fixed duties, and mostly young.

Continued here »

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Notes

¹⁾ See last paragraph – a quote from the Hong Kong Standard – there. The May-Fourth movement of 1919 is canonized in Chinese history recording, as a starting point for national renewal and for patriotism, and to invoke this tradtion usually helps to add legitimacy to ones own actions.

²⁾ 待业青年 (young people waiting for employment) remained a euphemism for youth unemployment in the 1990s. Basically, the Shaanxi provincial government communique distinguished between “good-for-nothings” and students – in the early days or weeks of the 1989 movement, there seemed to be a wide-spread reluctance among officials to condemn the students’ agenda, not only among cadres close to Zhao Ziyang. This initial sacrosanctity was possibly owing to the glorification of the May-19th movement in China’s official history records, and also to a switch in the CCP’s coalition-building, away from the peasant and working class towards the intellectuals, as (particularly explicitly) described by Chinese academic Kang Xiaoguang – cited there.

³⁾ It probably goes without saying that Zhao Ziyang, general secretary of the CCP at the time, was rather sympathetic towards the students’ movement, and certainly not willing to unleash the army on them. Wu Renhua, who wrote the Tian An Men 1989 records I’m quoting from in these posts, sees a particular degree of trust between Zhao and Tian, because they worked together in Sichuan Province, before Zhao was promoted to Beijing.

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Related

» April 20, 1989, Under the Jacaranda, April 20, 2012
» April 19, 1989, Under the Jacaranda, April 19, 2012
» Zhao Ziyang’s Memoirs, New York Times, May 14, 2012

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