Editor: At the fourth overseas round table meeting of the Chinese democratic movement, Mr. Yang Jianli gave a speech titled Non-Violence Principle and Non-Violent Resistance Movement (see the last issue of ChinaEweekly). It insists a non-violence principle and advocates a non-violent resistance movement. Mr. Xiang Xiaoji spoke about his fundamentally different ideas in his speech. He believes that the public is entitled the rights to violence, arguing that the biggest devil in China is a brutally violent government but not violent people. Following their speeches, the host of the meeting arranged two rounds of debate between them. Participants of the meeting highly appreciated the debate, which was regarded highly significant for the Chinese democratic movement. It is also thought as a role model of healthy debate for Chinese democratic activists. Below is a record from the debate.

Xiang: I have different views on the issue of violence or non-violence from what Mr. Yang just said. Some overseas democratic activists have long been shouting the slogan “peace, ration, non-violence”. The first word and the third here overlap each other - just two sides of the same coin. Why such a slogan? I was wondering when I heard about it. It’s been over twelve years now after the June Fourth and we’ve never seen a single violent event against the massacre. We have lost our blood and bravery and we are so far away from being violent, but still we just keep talking, again and again, about “peace, ration, non-violence.” We say this to those who are jailed by the CCP and we tell victims of CCP violence, “no self-defense beyond limit.” Is this right? No, this is not! Who is the wolf and who the lamb? We don’t even clearly know. We say to the lamb, “you must be non-violent.” Unbelievable! It is a lamb, how can a lamb be violent? So, she would only have the rights to be killed, if she followed what we told her. Laws in every country have items on proper self-defense, including Article 54 of the UN Charter. Violence is not an issue for our democratic movement because we are merely practicing proper self-defense. We are struggling against a brutally violent government. When we are against a mighty violence and faced with killings from CCP’s bloody crackdown, we have the rights to fight back. If the working class people in today’s China revolted today, should we criticize them from the sidewalk for their resorting to violence? We should protest CCP’s violence! In theory, a democratic movement should distance itself equally from a violent government and a violent people. But the reality is that the danger in China today is from a violent government but not a violent people.

Yang: Very well said, Mr. Xiang, in that the major danger facing us today is the violent CCP government. Mr. Xiang emphasized people’s rights to violence. If you all here still remember, when I talked about non-violence principle just now, I emphasized that I was not taking the principle as a religion or as the so-called Peace-ism. I talked about it as a strategy. In other words, I was not talking about it as rights. Not too long ago when Mr. Peng Min visited me, he advocated his plan of promoting violent public uprisings in China. I said to him that people’s violent uprisings could be justified and people were actually entitled the rights to do so. But a responsible political leader or group is qualified to advocate violence if it is incapable of controlling and containing the violence within a justified limit. This is the key of the issue. I believe violence will do nothing good for the people, for democratization or future democratic system. Therefore, we should not advocate violence at all, and further we should draw a clear line from violence. Facing the indescribably messy China, we ourselves need to be clean first before the battle.

Talking about violence, there is too big a power gap between us and the CCP. What can you achieve by killing a few corrupted officials, exhausting almost all your resources? Set aside if we are capable of overthrowing the CCP with violence, well, assuming we are and we actually succeeded, how can we believe violence-for-violence will result in a democracy? We must find a way, a walk-able way, and each step on the way will add a layer to our democratic foundation.

Now, China has become an open society in many respects. After WTO entry, almost nothing in China, including our movement, will not have something to do with the outside world. How is possible for us to gain sympathy and support from the world’s mainstream civilizations if we advocate violence?

I’ve met many violence advocates in the last ten years, but have never seen a single one who succeeded in anything with violence. This shows me that basically we are incapable of violence. If you are incapable of something, why talk about it? I promise to everyone here, what I talked about today is what I have been doing and I’ll continue, bit by bit.

Xiang: Jianli’s arguments just now can be summarized as three points:

Too big a power gap. Violence is unwise. Can’t win and so don’t do it.

No international support. Violence does no good for democracy.

Violence-for-violence often results in new violence.

Therefore, it comes down to whether we should be and are capable of violence. I think all three points can be taken as only one. First of all, advocating violence here still means to be within the limit of proper self-defense, not proactively attacking or using violence to change the government. Rather, we encourage the people to protect themselves with force, to liberate themselves from CCP’s violent rule. Too big a power gap and so the people can’t win? I believe the power balance can change. No political force was strong from the beginning, and neither a power can be strong forever. The KMT-CCP civil war is an example. We can’t give up our rights to self-defense because the CCP is now too mighty. Also, the international community believes power and might. If violence can bring us some successes, even small ones, we’ll gain international support. In fact, the world community is also result-oriented.

There is a counter example. The Dalai Lama advocated for so long peaceful resistance with no violence whatsoever, which only led his Tibet independence movement to nowhere. However, the recent declaration of violence of the Tibetan Youth Party has gained support from a majority of the Tibetans. Finally, violence-for-violence does not necessarily result in new violence, as demonstrated by the American Independence War. A violent revolution can also result in a democracy. The key is a good constitutional mechanism. So, I believe the overseas democratic movement should start from establishing a provisional government and drafting a constitution for it, and then go on from there to a democracy in the whole China.

Yang: Xiaoji talked about changing the power balance just now. I would like to know how? There is an issue of operating. Let’s talk again about proper self-defense with violence. Who in this room today has the capability, or has concretely prepared to operate a controllable violence for a proper self-defense? An example of the controllable violence I am talking about here is the Afghanistan war operated by President Bush. He ordered to attack, then the attack began. He ordered to stop, it stopped. It would not cause civilian killings.

Many big issues in our democratic movement were dealt with as jokes these years - the wave of establishing political parties was an example. I really wish we were not joking now when we talked about “proper self-defense”, “drafting constitution,” “provisional government”, and so on. Like what I already said, what I say is what I will and can do.

Regarding Dalai Lama’s advocate of peace, I think he has been very successful; otherwise the Tibetan issue wouldn’t have gained so much international attention and he himself wouldn’t have been so much respected by the Tibetans as well as people around the world. We can imagine what it would be like today if Dalai Lama resorted to violence for his movement. Thank you.