The Epoch Times published, first in the Chinese language (in November, 2004) and thereafter in many translated versions, a document called NINE COMMENTARIES ON THE COMMUNIST PARTY which subsequently became available on the internet. This document reviewed the history of the Communist Party of China, exposing the distortions which the Communist Government of the People’s Republic of China still propagates and defends – distortions which (sadly) have been parroted by students of China’s recent history in our own learned communities, in editorial commentary and in policy-making circles. The effect of this publication of the Nine Commentaries has been electric. By May 10, 2005, 1.3 million persons had publicly registered their resignations from the Chinese Communist Party. Every day, another 10,000 resignations are posted on this internet site. Banners and posters have begun to appear throughout China with news of these resignations, and discussions are taking place everywhere. A high price has been paid by many of the signatories – in whose ranks are many teachers, public officials professional people of many sorts.
These shocking events have caused the Central Chinese Communist Party School to rush cadres to each of the 58 Provinces of China to organize study groups and to secure re-commitments to the CCP. It appears that this campaign in reaction to the Nine Commentaries may have boomeranged, as it has brought greater publicity to their existence and given greater currency to the words of the commentaries.
Not the least astonishing feature of this story – and certainly the most disappointing to me — is the almost total neglect of it by our media.
Via China E-Lobby
Yup. And I notice no comments registered here yet either. Sad. WWV will probably be fought against China one day in the not too distant future.
I’d actually bet on civil war/massive unrest in China before I’d bet on WW (X)
Reasoning is that China is relatively resource poor. Tomorrow morning the US could cut the sea routes, and keep them cut, until the chinese economy grinds to a halt (Oil, coal, iron,…food). Until the chinese get overland pipelines (Also not too tough to explosively interrupt) and a quite serious navy – and to want to mess with the USN (Japanese Self Defense forces (cough)) you have to be VERY serious.
It’s really not in the Chinese interest to have a _shooting_ war, yet, but other sorts of nastyness might work.
On the other hand it’s relatively easy to imagine a nasty internecine struggle.
Kate, thanks for this link. A friend, an old China hand, had mentioned the Commentaries in passing but not in enough detail to motivate me to search them out. In addition, he mentioned that he had read them in Chinese; not one of my languages, and that they were going to be a big deal. I have bookmarked the site and will read this evening. The role of the CCP in Chinese political history should be of great interest to more of us since it is pivotal in understanding where events may be headed. Pacific Rim study needs to be on all our Euro-Centric reading lists.
I’m finding that I have a lot of catching up to do on the topic of world politics and parties, especially Canadian. Forgive a Yank some ignorance, my Canadian history pretty much stops at W.L. Mackenzie King. (I’m working on it) But isn’t the writer in the linked blog article, Stockwell Bert Jr., the Canadian Alliance BC politician who Harper bested for party leadership? And, who was a maybe just a little too “picturesque” and not up to the task of either self discipline or party discipline?
Anybody, feel free to educate me since there seem to be a lot of US readers here and it would do us some good. I only just found out the origin of the term “Grit”.
Fred, the US is unlikely to do this except in extremis. The last time we did it in the Pacific we had a little trouble at a place called Pearl Harbor.
One place we can all make a contribution to freedom in China is to pound on Cisco Systems and other IT firms who help the elites block information flow.
Hello Kate,
Very interesting topic, may be our politicians can learn something from this, however I think not!
These beliefs may have originated from ancient Chinese culture but they can be found in all morden civilizations. Note tid bit taken from ‘On How the Chinese Communist Party Destroyed Traditional Culture, “It is common sense that kindness will be rewarded and evil will be punished. It is an elementary virtue not to do to others what one does not want done to oneself. Loyalty, filial piety, dignity, and justice have set the social standards, and Confucius� five cardinal virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness have laid the foundation for social and personal morality.”
just a test.
It’s been said that the China is like a speeding car, and looming ahead is a speed-bump called “political reform”. When China hits that bump, one of two things can happen…
– everyone absorbs the impact and the car keeps going, or…
– the wheels come off.
I wonder if this will be that speed bump.
HV,
As an American who’s knowledge of Canadian history is a little more recent, I can answer your question. Yes, Harper beat Stockwell Day for Party leader in 2002. Harper’s first move was to appoint Day as foreign policy critic (i.e., shadow foreign minister). Day has held that position ever since, and as the speech shows, he would make quite the Foreign Minister.
A big problem is people like Martin who have a huge stake invested in China. My company built a plant there and closed the one in Canada. I talked to the Sales Rep who was in China and he was appauled at the living conditions of the workers. Big North American companies such as the automakers are slowly moving their operations there. They dont care about right and wrong just the bottom line. Remember how the PM refused to even see the Dalai Lama ?
Norman is right, there is another speed bump on the road ahead for China and I think you will see the Communist Party as road kill. However, don’t assume that the “Western” way will take over. What will evolve is anyone’s guess.
The MSM doesn’t cover the happenings in the orient much because it is not black or white and too complex to fit in a few sidebars. If it can’t be explained in a 15 sec sound bite then it won’t be covered.
Just for fun I mentally inserted the word Liberal whenever CCP was mentioned. Scarey stuff. especialy number nine.
The back of beyond
…………
Commentary
There was always something odd about calling OIF a “war for oil”. Oil from the Middle East has been shipped through established marketing channels for decades. OIF is unlikely to alter those arrangements. Perhaps the real war for oil, in the sense of a struggle for arrangements that do not yet exist is over the reserves in Central Asia. In that struggle Russia has the key advantage of geography. It lies right across the Eurasian landmass and the petroleum roads of the 21st century must pass within or close to her borders. The future oil fields are redoubts of the Islamic fundamentalism and the traditional arena of the Great Game power rivalry between Russia, China and the leading maritime power, once Britain, now the United States.
posted by wretchard at 5:06 AM | 100 comments
This Epoch Times is made by the Falun Gong. When I was living in Taiwan I was handed the paper by some woman in a train station. (At first I was worried, as it’s illegal to give out communist liturature in Taiwan.)
It will be interesting to see the future of China.
China has certain issues it will need to work through before it can truely become a world power (the peasant problem being the greatest of these)
Currently the distribution of wealth in China is no different than it was before the Chinese civil war.
wuberman–I think you have it right–those were my thought exactly–the mirror image is chilling to say the least.
Sadly, it is in the best interest of the Corporatocracy that China maintain the status quo–cheap labour and goods–the only thing that matters is the bottom line to the likes of Martin et al.
I get a kick out of the mental gymnastics of comparing modern day China to Nazi Germany in the mid-30’s. Relative prosperity in both nations was/has been brought about by autocratic state induced growth. Are the Bejing Olympics of 2008 the equal to the Berlin Olympics of 1936? Does China start to come apart at the seams shortly after when it cannot get the resources it needs through fair trade?
Right now, today, the most important thing that we can do is to make sure that there is a free flow of as much (Don’t go all wobbly and relativistic, here.) accurate information as possible about alternate futures for everybody, everywhere. “Democracy, whiskey, sexy”.
People have to be able to dream of possibilities first before they can act on them. This will be Norm’s “speed bump” and it’s got to be high enough so that the old wheels fall off. Old media and many institutions, like academia, have not only lost their way but are staggering in circles like wet brained drunks mumbling the old comfortable phrases to themselves.
And, worse there are a lot of old, slavering pedophiles in the UN, Europe and anti-democratic regimes just looking for the sweet young thing they’ve heard about called the “Internet”. They just know that they have what she needs.
To see what happens to a society that loses this capability read Shrinkwrapped post on Qaddafi’s Libya and the link to Michael Totten’s post on his Libya visit.
For some reason I can’t seem to paste the link so go to shrinkwrapped.blogs.com and scroll down
I wonder if the “Nine Arguments” written by the Chicago Tribune (posted Dec 28th) was borrowed in part from “Nine Commentaries” by MSM to create a quotable refutation of the Iraq war? I didn’t know there were exactly nine arguments on the issue (some of the arguments looked the same to me, just worded differently). It’s almost as if MSM is all too aware of the news potential surrounding the “Nine Commentaries” but are very reluctant to make the general public aware of another movement that supports the spread of democracy. The press doesn’t need the masses drawing positive parallels that help the Bush Administration.
Martin: Good point. A number of years ago there was a book called “The God That Failed” about the failure of totalitarian Communism and by extension totalitarianism in general. It’s by Richard Crossman. It’s really hard to find since it is so unpopular with the left New and Old. Don’t fall for the one entitled “Democracy: The God That Failed”. The left and most of the elites have never forgiven nor forgotten having their ice cream fall out of the cone.
They’d just love to get their creepy hands around the necks of the “sheeple” and shake them until they forgot all that democracy nonsense. They’ve always know what was best for us and by God they’ll keep breaking eggs until they get the omelet they want.
Thanks for the book tip, Hungry…I’ll try to find a copy for some light but relevant reading during CBC news broadcasts. I too think that Pacific rim history is far too important to be relegated to footnotes and soundbites in North American schools. In that history are stories of ancient dragons that live on today.
I believe Capitalism and Communisism can’t coexist. As people make the transition from state controlled enterprise to the private sector alot of career related stress ensues. Chinese citizens are indeed feeling the pressures of the real world as of late. They are being forced to find their own way in the free market, and will soon demand more political freedom as well. Inflation is becoming a big problem. It is outpacing wage increases 2:1. So as they watch their real incomes drop, they will also become more consious of where the tax dollars are going. They will fight for accoutabilty and choice. I too believe that a civil war in China is immenent as the communist iron fist will not contain the growing discontent.
I have long seen disturbing parallels between Communist China and Liberal Canada.
The main differences are China has no human rights while Canada does.
However, they do seem to be equally corrupt and largely ineffective in terms of government.
Each nation’s press is also too closely tied to the government, though in different degrees.