Constitutional Democracy Movement

Interview with the Voice of China

June 4^th, 2001

Reporter: Today is the twelfth anniversary of the June Fourth, a day for remembrance and reflection. Many are quite concerned about China’s current state and prospect and yet generally believe that China’s future is closely related to the Chinese democratic movement (CDM).  So it’s natural for people to pay particular attention to the CDM for its perspectives toward a variety of issues in China.  Mr. Yang, I’d like to ask you some questions today.

Yang: Thank you for this interview. On June 2^nd, I presided a forum commemorating June Fourth in Sidney, Australia and was on my way rushing back on June 3^rd for the June Fourth Commemorating Vigil at Harvard in the Boston area. Unfortunately I missed it due to a flight delay and feel quite uneasy now.  First of all, please allow me to join the listeners of this radio to pay tribute to the martyrs of June Forth, as well as the soldiers died in the course of ordered killing, who were too pitiful victims of the Communist autocratic regime. Commemorating the June Fourth massacre could help find back the sensitivity to humanity that falls short among our Chinese.  To simply put it, people with that kind of sensitivity will suffer miserably when merely seeing humanity being tortured, and they won’t bear with it.  For long, many believed an economic open-up can prevent such human tragedies from reoccurring.  However, in nearly ten years of economic open-up after Deng Xiaoping’s “southern tour”, the Chinese communist regime has never stopped public suppression, not even for a single day.  More and more people have now come to realize that it is most essential to first resolve the problem of the Chinese communist autocracy in order to root out June Fourth type of tragedies.

Reporter: You began working for the CDM back in 1989 and have been active ever since. In the recent years, the term constitutional democracy movement has often appeared in your essays and speeches.  Could you tell us what it is?

Yang: Constitutional democracy movement is one that first sets a general and yet clear constitutional goal.  It has many aspects such as state territory and structure and political framework.  It is also a movement that calls all political forces and interest groups, whether ethnic or regional, to come together for the general constitutional goal.  This is an important component of the Chinese democratic movement.  In short, the Chinese democratic movement is composed of three movements: the backward-looking, the pressure, and the forward-looking.   The backward-looking movement is to show how reactionary the communist revolution was historically and to expose the autocratic nature of the communist rule.  The pressure movement is to make use of all domestic and international levers to force the Chinese authorities to start fundamental political reforms, or to end the one-party dictatorship in a bottom-up fashion.  The forward-looking movement is the very constitutional democracy movement.  Of course, this categorization is entirely for the convenience of description.  In fact, the three movements are closely tied together.  The above categorization is merely emphasizing different aspects.

Reporter: You’ve mentioned twice the general constitutional goal. General, what do you mean by that?

Yang: The General constitutional goal is a collection of a few sketchy constitutional principles, including a federalist state system, with no details such as the terms of parliament members.  What I want to emphasize here is that all details of systematic arrangements in a future constitutional democracy, including even some general principles, will have to be planned and implemented in a constitutional process involving all political parties, as well of groups of different interests, ethnic and regional backgrounds.  The final constitutional set-up will primarily be a result of compromises among all the interests in the process.  From a scholastic point of view, the compromised result usually is not the best, but such a constitutional process of compromise cannot be skipped.  Actually any well-trained constitutional scholar can come up with a good constitution as a result of his closed-door hard work, which may have minimal logic paradoxes as well, but this kind of constitution without a constitutional process will hardly be treasured.  It won’t gain the pubic trust and confidence.  There is, therefore, no way to implement it. Let me give an analogy.  A constitutional democracy is like a baby.  Everyone should contribute to the birth of this baby so it’ll be the baby of everyone and thus everyone will love, care, protect and have faith in it.  The constitutional democracy movement is the very one to promote a constitutional process aimed at the birth of a constitutional democracy.

Reporter: You said at the beginning that the constitutional democracy movement is a process that first sets up some general goals and then promotes to reach those goals.  You indicated just now, however, that some constitutional principles are likely to be established in the constitutional process, which will probably be results of interest compromises.  This sounds a bit self-conflicting, doesn’t it?

Yang:  It might, but actually not.  To set an ultimate constitutional goal is for a jumpstart of the constitutional process, which has to be started by some people or some political forces, isn’t it?  In today’s China, the communist party in power is an autocracy that has a constitution without a constitutional rule.  Limited by its own interests, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never put forth a goal of a constitutional democracy.  Under such political circumstances, the Chinese democratic activists must shoulder the responsibility as the starter of the process promoting a constitutional democracy.  What it’s about in the beginning is probably just some expositions and discussions on the goals of a constitutional democracy, which maybe then spread out to catch further public attention and stimulate more discussions.  Along with an initial political transformation, probably, a constitutional process will be inevitable.  Because a constitutional process will be a process with political conflicts, dialogues and compromise, its complexity and uncertainty will likely make some original constitutional goals obsolete or even unreachable.  For example, ethnic and regional relations, ratios of representatives from various interest groups, etc., will all be set up as results of political conflicts, dialogues and compromises.  Of course, some principles cannot be compromised, such as governments by elections and protection of human rights, etc.

Reporter: Many Chinese don’t actually have a clear clue about the objectives of the Chinese democratic movement.  They are even afraid of a disintegration of China as a result of democratization.  According to your words, a constitutional democracy movement is a forward-looking movement.  Will it help uplift the public confidence in democratization?

Yang: Yes, exactly it will.  It is also an important part for the constitutional democracy movement to stimulate public debates and discussions, and even encourage proposing and examining blueprints for a variety of constitutional goals.  The Foundation for China in the 21^st Century has proposed a framework for a constitutional democracy in China with a flavor of a federalist state.  It has caught wide attention and involvement across the Taiwan straits as well as people of different ethnic backgrounds.  This is a good start.  We believe that the goal for a democracy without disintegration and a reunification without totalitarianism meets the will of the Chinese people.  I have no doubt that such a goal will certainly uplift people’s confidence in China’s democratization.

Reporter: It’s the Fourth of June today.  What else do you particularly want to tell our listeners?

Yang:  The earlier the start of a constitutional process, the better for China.  An all-around constitutional process in China waits for substantial changes of political conditions.  An acceptable resolution of June Fourth can be an important breakthrough.  I hope we all continue to press the Chinese Communist regime for its concession on June Fourth.  Or we should push for the conditions to make June Fourth a political card in the Chinese Communist party’s internal power struggle, resulting an earlier resolution of the June Fourth issue and a substantial change of the political environment in China.