(Assignment 1) CHINA: POLITICAL WARRIORS - Padmapriya Govindarajan

This essay attempts to look at the political climate in China in terms of calls for reform and advocacy within the public sphere through three cases and attempts to create a very preliminary argument about forms of corruption in China.

The weiquan movement in China focused on awareness of and exercise in constitutional rights and expressed itself in a strong call for ‘rule of law.’ Of particular importance is the movement’s strategy of aligning their calls with the government’s own calls for policy revision –like Legal Reform and Anti-Corruption drives. This could be attributed as key reason for the proliferation of the movement without too much official censure at the early stages, but the vague lines between acceptable and unacceptable public speech reduced the space for this exercise. An illustration would be the attack on public intellectuals that the People’s Daily published in Nov 2004, in an attempt to rein in some of the Weiquan’s activities. Each successful incident was tempered by some activities of the government – with a view to curb the power that the success bestows upon the activists involved.

In 2003, a university student was arrested for not carrying the required registration permit within the hukou system and brought to a ‘custody and repatriation’ center where he subsequently died. Nafang Dushi Bao newspaper editors examined the autopsy and concluded that he was beaten to death in custody. The general manager, editor and vice-editor of the company were arrested in association with this, sparking off protests from established lawyers. Among them were Xu Zhiyong and a group of other lawyers who took on the case of the journalists, and attempted to secure human rights recourse by working within the constitution. The group even received official praise for the work they did. However, by 2009, when the group began to question the activities of the government at centre, and not just locally - and Xu went onto write an article in support of Tibet, they faced arrest and multiple probes. They reformulated as the New Citizens’ movement (NCM) in 2012 and spread the idea of the ‘Citizen’ and advocated reform. Key leaders of this movement were thrown behind bars and after losing the court appeal, shall remain in prison until 2017.

It is important to read these events in the context of Xi Jinping’s ascension as the President, and the promises made in its wake. Xi rose on a platform that vowed to stamp out corruption, promote judicial fairness and respect for the Constitution. In so many ways, these seemed to mirror the aims of the Weiquan movement and NCM, which use litigation and legal activism to secure the civil and constitutional rights of those facing official injustice. The crackdown on legal activists that followed ended up being extremely inconsistent with this very stand. Several have noted that the new leadership’s crackdown has been strategic. It seems to be a signal that the government will always have the position of power, even if it turns a blind eye to a few protests or buckles to some opinions.

How does one make sense of these distinct but interrelated cases? China specialist at Columbia University sees lawyers like Xu as the most threatening figures in the eyes of the Chinese government. He argues that ‘those who operate within the letter of the law and attract widespread social support’ are riskier than public protestors as their aim is to hold the government accountable by drawing on its own promises. Corruption in China, as these cases suggest, seems to precipitate into this very statement.

References:

1.     Beach, 2005 – China Digital Times (May 25^th; Rise of Rights?)

2.     August 4^th, 2009 – Human Rights in China (Xu Zhiyong in Custody Seven Days; Still no Official Explanation)

3.     Zhiyong, 2012 – Human Rights in China (July 23^rd; China needs a New Citizens Movement)

4.     Zhiyong, 2012 – The New York Times (Dec 12^th; Tibet is Burning)

5.     July 27^th 2013 – The Economist (Bizarrely Consistent)

6.     Beach, 2013 – China Digital Times (July 30^th; Xu Zhiyong and the Future of China’s Civil Society)

7.     January 2014 – China Digital Times (Activists Test Xi Jinping and are Crushed)

8.     Buckley and Jacobs, 2014 – The New York Times (Chinese Activists Test New Leader and Are Crushed)

9.     Wade, 2014 – China Digital Times (January 17^th; Xu Zhiyong and the Trial of the Chinese Dream)

10.  April 11^th 2014 – The Economist (Against the tide of Human Progress)