Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Christmas Debate re: Chinese Democracy on Weibo Heats Up

2
The Chinese blogosphere is abuzz this Christmas season. Anyone who is anyone has offered their two cents on the fierce debate started by Han Han’s blog entry “On Revolution.” The article, which seems to question the Chinese masses’ “fitness for democracy,” caused an uproar in the blogosphere among those with liberal leanings and earned approving mentions from Editor Hu Xijin of the Global Times, a popular government mouthpiece (which may have done irreparable damage to Han Han’s street cred). Han Han wrote two more blog entries “On Democracy” and “I Want Freedom” in quick succession to dig himself out of the hole with little success, but the cat is out of the bag and the debate is on.

At least hundreds of verified accounts on Weibo chimed in but the heaviest punches on Han Han were landed by Li "Big Eyes" Chengpeng, a soccer columnist turned novelist/blogger/social critic, who has more than 4.1 million followers on Weibo. Mr. Li’s blog entry (excerpts below) strikes an optimistic note on the prospects for democracy in China, observing that “democracy is a strange thing; once you make a real effort, the situation on the street always moves much faster than you imagine” and citing Taiwan as a shining example. In response to Han Han’s conjecture that the CEO of Tencent, the provider of a popular social network service, could buy 200 million votes with QQ money in a hypothetical election, Li believes that “if the people make it a habit to value their ballot, they would not sell out their dignity for QQ money.” Mr. Li, unlike most Chinese intellectuals, puts his money where his mouth is by trying to run for the People’s Congress as an independent candidate in his home city. He refuses to believe that the effort to join that rubberstamp institution and all the harassment that comes with it is a fool’s errand, insisting that the “exercise of running for an election is more important than whether you are actually elected.”

Many have defended Han Han’s pessimism and/or commended him for starting this debate to get people thinking about democracy and revolution, yet others scoff that the whole debate is completely out of touch with reality, pointing out that “while the intellectuals are debating ‘democracy’ and ‘revolution’ online, people in Haimen are facing the riot police.”

Excerpts from “Democracy Means No Nepotism” by Li Chengpeng

"If you talk about revolution, he will say revolution means violence; so you start talking about democracy, but he says our size is not right for the foreign chick named “Democracy,” so we’d better continue the mutual masturbation with 'Chinese Realities'; then you talk about reforms, he is slightly happier, but tells you to wait for orders from above…

The Chinese people want the freedom to live a good life, to do their own thing; is that wrong? Everyone in the world is selfish. Democracy is not about pretending to be sacred and virginal. Democracy is about wanting basic protections and rational distributions. The Crowd by Le Bon uncovers the dark side of all humans, not just Chinese people. The ancestors of the Americans also have the same fucked up human nature. A bunch of puritans, laborers, peasants, fishermen and indentured servants on the Mayflower [could take America] from the Mayflower Compact to the Declaration of Independence; the quality of the Chinese people today is not worse than those exiles. Why can’t we have democracy?

If there is a popular election, I’m not worried that the Communists would still win. Having one person one vote itself is a groundbreaking event. There is a big difference between holding no elections and continuing to rule after holding an election. If people still vote for the Communists, that means they are still the party that commands the faith of the majority of people in this country, but if not… if I continue, I will say censored words, but please see the example of the KMT’s history in Taiwan starting from 1996." [Ed: The KMT, the longtime ruling party in Taiwan, opened up general presidential elections in 1996 that it won, but the party lost the following presidential election in 2000.]