Ding Xueliang: We May Expect A Lot Of Surprises From China's President Xi Jinping        

Heng Shao, the Forbes, 08/29/14

“Crossing the river by feeling the stones” was Deng Xiaoping’s approach to economic reform. But it can also capture the essence of China watchers’ attempt to grasp the true intention of President Xi Jinping.

Reform-minded or leftist? The next Deng Xiaoping or the next Mao Zedong? To say nobody has a good answer isn’t too much of an exaggeration. If the former, then why the revocation of Mao-era language or the tightened control over the media and dissidents? If the latter, then why the maiden trip to Shenzhen, or the relentless clampdown on corruption?

Ding Xueliang, a professor of PRC history and contemporary Chinese politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, attempts to find clues to Xi’s motivation from his younger and formative years. The exposure to Mao-era tactics has left its deep imprints on the president’s approach to handling challenging issues such as corrupted officials, Ding argues, but that isn’t equivalent to intending to become a paramount leader with unrestrained power.

Ding also suggests that the corruption clampdown come to a temporary halt to avoid economic damages. See below for our conversation.

When President Xi Jinping first took over, few fathomed that he had the weight or resolve to bring down a former Central Committee Standing Committee member (Zhou Yongkang) or a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (Xu Caihou), not to mention both. But now the tables seem to have turned. In what ways, if any, have China Watchers’ opinions of Xi changed in light of these events?

I’d say China watchers have been constantly surprised by Xi. Bringing down Xu Caihou was quite a shock. Getting rid of former Chongqing Party Chief Bo Xilai was already a big surprise because it was very, very difficult.

China watchers overseas have become more critical of Xi because they believe he’s handling politics in the Mao fashion, going down the route of power struggle and purges. But that doesn’t mean he’s trying to become the next Mao Zedong.

When analyzing Chinese leaders, we have to know the type of information they were exposed to when they were in their younger, formative years– the books they read and the environment where they grew up in, for example. These elements would determine what skills and strategies would come to their mind when the leaders face a certain challenge, such as wide-spread corruption.

Xi is part of the 50s generation – he was born in 1953. I’m from the same generation. Our characters are pretty much fixed by the time we are in our mid-20s (The Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 to 1976). The way he handles problems has the marks of that era, for sure. Bringing down Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou followed a quite mature procedure/strategy that developed in Mao’s times: first they’d make the decision to tackle this person, and then they’d collect the evidence, after which they’d determine what kind of evidence is suitable for public release and what not. These are all procedures well practiced in the Mao era, though not so much in Deng’s times. When you’re dealing with the bad guys, the most effective strategies are really, Mao’s strategies. Nobody has more strategies than Mao Zedong when it comes to power struggle.

But that doesn’t mean Xi is trying to become the next Mao Zedong. I wouldn’t say that’s the case. Who can be Mao Zedong in today’s China? Nobody, because Mao Zedong only existed in a particular time of China’s history, under particular conditions. Mao Zedong could have the entire country read only one book. Can Xi Jinping do that in today’s China, in this age of the internet? No.

If Xi Jinping stays on as the president, I think his approach to politics and policies will begin to reflect more of the positive influence from his father. Of course his father Xi Zhongxun was never for a multi-party system, but he was quite tolerant of intellectuals and genuinely cared about the suffering of the mass. I hope Xi can pick up these good legacies. Xi Zhongxun also emphasized on intra-party democracy. If Xi Jinping can introduce democracy within the Party in his second term, that would be quite good of a legacy to leave behind.

President Xi Jinping differs from the previous two presidents in that he’s a “second generation red”- his father played a key role in the Chinese revolutionary war. How will this particular identity affect his perspectives on policy or perception of power?

We can assume Xi’s intention is good when it comes to policy-making – his father’s generation fought hard for the country, so Xi’s generation would want to preserve the legacy.

Yet the identity itself has less bearing on Xi’s approach to governing than the era he was brought up in. Xi Jinping and former president Hu Jintao differ the most in that Hu received traditional education all the way till his adulthood. However our generation, including Xi, never received any formal education because of the Cultural Revolution. We were exposed to very little bureaucracy and prescribed orders in our teenage years. The good thing about this is that our generation has an open mind – be careful here, having an open mind is not equivalent to being liberal. Being open-minded means being willing to try out unconventional approaches. For that reason, we may expect a lot of surprises from Xi Jinping.

The corruption crackdown has swept through China like a raging fire, but few expect it to be sustainable. How and when will this round of anti-corruption come to an end?

I believe at the moment, they are looking for ways to draw a conclusion to the crackdown, at least temporarily. And I believe that would be the right thing to do. It wouldn’t end well if it were to drag on. China does not have a transparent political system. Neither the court nor the media is independent. For these reasons, the anti-corruption system (the Central Disciplinary Commission and its sub-branches) is the only tool that the leadership can rely on for tackling corruption. But if such a system is given too much power, it will become corrupt in itself. Just imagine, when your entire political career and even life are at stake, of course you’d be willing to pay bribes to be spared an investigation.

Corruption clampdown in China is always cyclical; it functions somewhat like elections – if you’re in a multi-party system, the incumbent candidates would know that an election is within sight, and they wouldn’t be re-elected if they do something out of line. That’s what keeps them from misbehaving. The Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou cases will be enough for warn those at the lower echelons that there is a boundary to things they can do, and that they’d be punished if they go beyond that boundary. Isn’t that part of the purpose of the anti-corruption campaign?

There are more urgent matters than corruption to deal with. The most important task facing Chinese leaders is economic development. Anti-corruption to a certain extent is good for economic growth. Most certainly, reform cannot be pushed forward without first removing some of the entrenched power figures, such as those in the oil and gas sector or on the National Development and Reform Commission.

But anti-corruption can also create barriers to economic development. Many government officials are now too timid to take care of their day-to-day business because they’re afraid they’d be reported – for example, on an occasion where you need to treat someone to a meal for a project.

Chinese media reported that the fourth plenum, to be held in October in Beijing, would center on legal reform. Can we see that as taking a step forward at real reform?

As of now, I have not seen any sign that the fourth plenum will address the issue of the transparency or independence of the legal system. I think what “legal reform” means in the context of the upcoming fourth plenum is cleansing the security apparatus previously controlled by Zhou Yongkang. That would include the courts, detention centers, police force, the armed police, and the city administrative bureaus, etc.

Under Zhou’s rule, the police force has turned into mafia-like entities at many places. If they can clean that up, so that the security apparatus will in fact do things according the rules itself has created, that would be an incredible achievement in itself. The purpose of the security apparatus is, still, to protect the interest of the regime. But on the bottom line, the means to serving that purpose has to be legal – “legal,” in its least, means falling within the Chinese legal framework that the government has devised itself. The trouble right now is, the local security apparatus often doesn’t follow orders from above.

A first step can be improving the quality of those in the legal system – for example, set rules for what kind of tests must be taken for what level of position, and what legal training is to be given, and follow those rules. There must be professional standards for those in charge. This is a relatively easy goal to reach. An internal study has shown that those within China’s security apparatus have the lowest education levels and the least credentials. It’s just that the results were never announced.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hengshao/2014/08/29/ding-xueliang-we-may-expect-a-lot-of-surprises-from-xi-jinping/

Thousands remember Tiananmen as China tightens security

James Pomfret and Terril Yue Jones, 06/04/13

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people held a candlelit vigil in a rain-soaked Hong Kong park on Tuesday to urge China to respect human rights on the 24th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

In China, most mention of the anniversary was censored from the Internet. Security was tight in Beijing, where on June 3 and June 4 1989, China's leaders ordered troops to open fire on demonstrators and sent in tanks to crush a student-led campaign movement, killing hundreds.

In Hong Kong, members of the crowd wore black and held candles under umbrellas. Protesters demanded Beijing overturn its denunciation of the pro-democracy movement as a "counter-revolutionary event".

"Vindicate June 4th!" many shouted. "Never give up!"

Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, is the only place on Chinese soil where large, open commemorations of the Tiananmen massacre take place. The vigil is held up as a symbol of Hong Kong's relative freedoms and civil liberties compared with mainland China.

"I feel very sad. It's been 24 years and nothing has changed. The changes that the students of 1989 demanded have not come yet. Instead, things are getting worse and worse. You can see the officials are still very corrupt," said Doris Poon, a clerk in her late 40s.

Organizers estimated 150,000 people showed up to send a "united message" to China's new president, Xi Jinping, whose government has clamped down on Internet freedoms and detained anti-corruption activists. Police put the figure at 54,000 at the peak of the assembly.

A record 180,000 people attended last year's vigil.

Xi became Communist Party chief in November and president in March at a time of mounting public pressure for long-stalled political reforms, though there has been no sign of that so far.

While China grapples with thousands of protests a year, over everything from pollution to corruption and illegal land grabs, none of these demonstrations has even come close to becoming a national movement that could threaten the party's rule.

"Everybody can see that China today continues to tighten and this suppression of human rights will cause more Hong Kong people to come out," said pro-democracy lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan.

SECURITY TIGHT IN BEIJING

In Beijing, Tiananmen Square was packed with tourists on a cool, smoggy day. Plain clothes security and police were out in force, checking identity cards of Chinese tourists.

"It's June 4, a day the Communist Party and the Chinese government don't like," said a young woman from the southern city of Shenzhen, who declined to give her name.

"Older people who remember told us about it. We know June 4. It's called the day students shed blood."

The government last week began detaining some dissidents and cutting off telephone and Internet access for others.

"If the government is sensible, next year is the 25th anniversary and they could designate a spot where we could march," said Zhang Xianling, 76.

Zhang is one of a group of "Tiananmen Mothers" who seek justice for children killed in the crackdown and were closely watched by police as they paid respects to victims in Beijing's Wan'an cemetery.

Last week, the group denounced Xi for failing to launch political reforms and accused him of taking china "backwards to Maoist orthodoxy".

"If you want to commemorate it, you should be able to commemorate it," Zhang said. "That would be an enlightened government."

Authorities boosted censorship of social media sites, blocking searches not only for terms like "Tiananmen" but even the words "today" and "tonight", and removing the candle symbol from the list of emoticons on the Twitter-like service Sina Weibo.

A satirical, doctored image of the famous photograph depicting a man confronting a tank - replacing the line of tanks with giant yellow rubber ducks - was circulated online before it was blocked by censors.

Some skirted the restrictions through cryptic allusions.

"The events of that day in that year I will never forget. I will always keep a candle lit in remembrance in my heart," wrote one Weibo user.

(Additional reporting by Venus Wu, Lavinia Mo and Stefanie McIntyre in Hong Kong and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Andrew Heavens)

http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-marks-june-4-crackdown-china-tightens-133255772.html

政改第一步 傳陸擬重評六四

記者林琮盛/綜合報導, 旺報, 06/09/12

「六四事件」對中共而言，過去是碰不得的禁區，但從今年官方媒體處理「六四事件」的手法來看，卻透露著一絲「轉圜」的跡象。

據香港雜誌《前哨》6月號披露，今年元旦，因「六四事件」而拔擢上台的中共前總書記江澤民叮囑「儲君」習近平，中共必須緊迫實行政治體制改革。第一步，就是要「平反六四」。

破例用「六四」一詞

無獨有偶，英國《金融時報》也曾在3月20日報導，中共總理溫家寶近年3次在中共高層祕密會議上提出為「八九民運」平反。當時，反對溫家寶意見最激烈的人，就是不久前被罷黜的重慶市委書記薄熙來。

平反「六四」雖尚未定案。但大陸半官方媒體對六四事件的處理，卻出現微妙的轉變。

今年4月8日，六四事件異議人士方勵之病逝後兩天，半官方色彩的中通社發出一篇來自紐約的報導說，方勵之是「六四事件後到美國的原中國天體物理學家，」、「1989年被北京市公安局通緝，在美國駐中國大使館滯留一年後，乘坐美國飛機轉道抵達美國。」

接著，6月4日當天，中通社更以「香港有團體在維多利亞公園舉行燭光晚會」為題，不點名報導支聯會舉辦的燭光晚會。在180字的報導內，中通社報導，「香港有團體」於4日晚間，以「六四」23周年為名，在維園舉行燭光晚會式的集會。

「燭光集會從晚上8時20分左右開始，近10時結束。大會先後進行了獻花、燃點火炬、默哀一分鐘和齊唱歌曲等活動」。報導最後引述警方數字指有8.5萬人在公園內。有關報導至5日中午前仍未刪除。這是中通社今年兩次明確使用「六四事件」一詞，過去多年絕無僅有。

多維新聞網還以「難得的進步」，來形容大陸半官方媒體的轉變。

外界臆測，中共或許將轉變一貫在「六四」問題上的態度。其實，中共在「六四」態度上的些微變化不只如此。

貴陽紀念未被干擾

當初被稱為「天安門四君子」之一的侯德健，去年解禁並於鳥巢開唱；中共前總書記趙紫陽在今年2月21日被短暫解封；今年六四當天，貴陽市出現紀念「六四」活動，卻未被警方干擾；被視為六四事件責任人之一的前北京市長陳希同，竟能在香港出版回憶錄，談及六四。若沒中共中央的默許，恐難問世。

這些案例透露出的微妙訊息，被外界解讀為中南海似乎有意面對及重新評價「六四」事件。

http://news.chinatimes.com/mainland/11050501/112012060900156.html