Some of My Thoughts----written before the court adjudication

Yang Jianli

According to the time specified by the Criminal Procedure Law, my case should be adjudicated very soon. The results won't go beyond either of the following: Innocent, or Guilty with a penalty.

In the first case, being found innocent, I will consider it the start of a positive interaction between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities and the pro-democracy movements. This is exactly what I have been hoping and striving for many years. As my first good-will gesture in response, I would wave my right to pursue the legal responsibility of my illegal imprisonment of nearly two years. If this turned out to be true, the past two years would undoubtedly have been the most valuable part of my life so far.

In the second case, I would feel both indignant and sorry for the unfair adjudication. As protest, I would stop participating in this fake legal game by waving my right of appeal no matter how bad the sentence is. But what is worth mentioning is that the CCP authorities used up the maximum amount of time (or perhaps even longer) allowed by the current Chinese law in processing this very simple case. It is imaginable that with all hesitations there is the tug-of-war between evil and conscience. My indignation would not make me ignore the little spark of "conscience not yet fully vanished" from this contest. I will stubbornly wait for that little spark to turn into a prairie fire.

However, no matter which situation turns out to be true, if I am unwilling to leave China, nobody will have the right, be it moral or legal, to force me to leave my country. In other words, if I am judged to be not guilty, I will immediately have the full right to move freely in China from that moment on; if I am judged guilty, then when I am released, I will still have that same right. In order to enjoy this right fully, I am willing to accept an unfair sentence, even if it means a prolonged prison sentence. During this time, I will reject any arrangement to expatriate me even if it is based on good will. Although my desire to reunite with my wife and children in the United States is like an arrow drawn so tight on a bowstring that several times it almost broke, I eventually convinced myself after many a sleepless night to once again choose the path of integrity choose. I want to demonstrate with my persistence in this case that it is every citizen's right to return to their homeland, and not be expatriated. No citizen should be deprived arbitrarily of one's basic rights nor have them compromised or traded.

Altogether I have lived in my homeland for 25 years. I was born and raised here, and established my own family. Along with my affection for relatives, teachers, classmates, friends who have prospered here, I have developed a natural and profound affection for this land of mine. Although two of these 25 years have been spent in prison, and despite the fact that the rights I am allowed to enjoy are disproportionate to the love I have for this land, nobody, including myself, has the power, or the ability to eradicate that love.

Some people may think that, as an overseas Chinese, such feelings of mine are the consequence of the racial discrimination I have experienced abroad. The truth is that, from the day I started my study abroad, I had decided to throw away the tinted glasses that the authorities here had forced on me, and think outside the collective ideology of “communist speak.” I made my observations with my own free eyes, and with my heart came to understand every country I visited. I have been to nearly twenty countries and regions. What I can tell you, with honesty as well as a sense of intense shame, is that the racial discrimination that we had been told about and imagined in these places is far less than the discrimination I had witnessed and experienced in China: that of the big city people against small city people, that of the city people against the countryside people, and that of the powerful against the powerless. Furthermore, in China, discrimination based on place of birth, heritage and social class is not only in people’s mind set, but also in the cold political, economic and social reality enforced by half a century of institutionalized fixed residency, the urban-rural divide and absolute dominance of governmental power. Over half a century victims of such institutional discrimination came to exceed one billion. However, under that iron fist of the proletarian dictatorship, how many have dared to defend their own rights? Think about the tears and blood of the Chinese peasants over the decades! Ask the hard laborers in the city who are from the countryside about their humiliation and hardship!

From the point of view of economics, China is still not a unified market economy. This is because workers still cannot migrate, travel, find jobs, receive public benefits (such as education) and social security without being institutionally discriminated against. This cruel reality has long ceased being a fresh topic, but it has always remained a focus of social reform. We have also noted that the reform-deepening (?) plan newly announced by the CCP authorities will start to address unjust social policies such as fixed residency and maintenance of the urban-rural divide, and that the implementation of the related reforms will be accompanied by further privatization of state-owned enterprises and allowance of land transfer and possible privatization. On the eve of such a major reform of the social system and the redistribution of economic resources, a fundamental question is inevitably raised. In the beginning years of its rule in China, the CCP forced the Chinese people under the gun to surrender their private properties to the state, so as to establish the comprehensive planned economy which later brought the Chinese people to abject poverty (not to mention the enormous loss of lives that accompanied the process). In a sense, the economic reform that started from the end of the seventies in the last century was to "redistribute" or partially "redistribute" the economic resources back to private individuals, while at the same time establish necessary political, economic and social mechanisms to guarantee that the redistributed capital as well as new capital invested from outside will continually generate wealth, and that the private property will never be confiscated again. This "redistribution" process is far more complicated than the "robbing" process that happened decades ago. This is because the "robbing" is uniform, with only a single scheme, and implemented with an all-mighty military power. While being "robbed", everyone, no matter how scared and unwilling, knew about the same outcome, i.e., there would be no more private property. In the "redistribution" process, in contrast, there is far less definitiveness and uniformity as to who gets being among the "redistributed" and how the "redistribution" is done. Therefore, people have high expectations as to how just the rules of "redistribution" are. In order to maximally satisfy this widely shared and justified expectation, there has to be long-term and effective monitoring, constraint, and checks and balance over the implementers of the "redistribution" — over government at all levels. Such is the essence of the political reform advocated by the democracy movements over the years, which is virtually common sense. However, the CCP authorities have continued to resist any fundamental political reform and democratic progress. As a result, the benefit of the reform is largely distributed according to power, while the risk of the reform is borne by the ordinary people who are powerless. Widespread power-money exchange and unstoppable corruption of government officials has become the quagmire that has been strangling the progress of civilization in China.

We are now facing a broader and more profound “redistribution” process. However, China, as vast as it is, has yet to have any level of government officials elected by the public in an open, fair and just election, or to have a single press organization that is privately owned and independently run. Under such a circumstance, isn't it clear enough what China is facing? A new round of economic reforms will inevitably touch upon the sensitive issue of land, which will naturally involve the fundamental interests of the victims of over half a century — the peasants. Isn’t it time that a mechanism of direct election of government officials at the entire township and county level be introduced? Missing this opportunity will only further worsen the already rotten political and cultural environment that has been hindering China’s democratization and civilization.

Some people may insist that “China has its uniqueness”, and use that to deny the necessity and urgency of democratization. Let me make it clear. Every word I am saying now is about the uniqueness of China rather than about that of any other country. What is unique about China is not necessarily justified, worthy of maintaining and protection. Just think about it, isn't any progress made in China based on changing and abandoning certain problematic characteristics of China?

Some may ask, “You want democracy, right? Our current political system is already democratic. It is a socialist democracy with unique Chinese characteristics.” Of course, democracy in practice has vastly different manifestations in its forms and content -- it however must meet certain basic and common criteria to be called democracy. This includes public elections of the government and people’s representatives, freedom of assembly, open, fair and just competition among political parties, independence of the judiciary system, freedom of press and freedom of speech, and so on. To use an analogy, oranges can have many varieties but they all have to have some definitive characteristics to be called oranges. Calling a carrot “an orange with such and such characteristics” will not only be unconvincing, but also open oneself to ridicule.

In order to understand the reality of Chinese politics, let us try to “appreciate” a few exotic fruits of the “socialist democracy with unique Chinese characteristics.” The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that the National People’s Congress is the body that holds the paramount power of the state. However, the well-known “Four Fundamental Principles” in the Preface of the Constitution asserts instead that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leadership must be above anything else (recently modified to say “continue to be led by the CCP”). How can such a conflict be explained and resolved? The fact is that the CCP central committee and its local organizations are always above the People’s Congress at all levels. Anyone with a clear mind can see that what the CCP persistently adheres to is nothing but the CCP one-party dictatorship. Lately, the CCP has been attempting to unify the “party-leadership” with the rule of law and letting the people be the masters of their country. But how can this unification be done? What is the process of such unification? What if the unification becomes impossible because the conflict cannot be resolved? Every honest Chinese should know that conflicts of this nature happens every day. Who is there to guarantee that the leadership of the CCP does not violate the rule of law, or act against the people’s will to be the master of the country? What happens if the harm is already done? Also, there is the so-called “Three Representatives.” Leaving aside for the moment whether the "Three Representatives" means theoretical progress, the key of the problem is still procedural, i.e., how it is implemented. For example, who should judge its “progressiveness”? How can the people’s interests be reflected in the policy making process? Who is to decide whether the people have been “represented”? What if the CCP cannot represent the people? What if a local CCP organization can no longer “represent” the people? Can they be represented by the organization of a different party? The fact is that here lies an enormous gap, a gap that cannot be crossed. It is a gap made by the illegitimacy of the CCP’s one-party dictatorship, which simply cannot be filled up by lame excuses, sophistry, lies or lip services!

Without legitimacy there can be no credibility; and, without credibility a government cannot be stable. In fact, there is a better choice for the CCP authorities, i.e., to honestly recognize the fundamental values of democracy, to set up democratization as the national goal, to seriously list all the realistic difficulties, based on which a timetable can be set and made public, and to start the process by allowing direct election of the people's representatives, the county governors and the town mayors, and to truly allow at least a certain amount of freedom of press and freedom of association. Explicitly setting democratization as the national goal and set itself off on this difficult but bright journey of no return should increase the people’s confidence, dispel misunderstanding and establish trust between the governing and opposing parties. The guiding power of a democratic goal, the trust of the government’s decision and accumulated experience in a democratic life can make the people gradually dispel the mind set of believing in a “power is truth” conspiracy, of over-indulging and tolerating the winners of political struggles, of admiring the marriage between power and money, of lacking the sense of individual rights, and of being either the slave or the tyrants. Removing the ridiculous modifier of “with XX characteristics, XXism” can help the people establish uncontaminated notions about democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law, election and market economy, etc. It can also reduce the psychological, logical, and emotional blocks in the democracy education and practice. In summary, this historical move can clarify the objective of China's democratization, avoid sidetracking, and reduce the social cost of the transitional process.

Current leaders of the CCP, you have inherited a one-party dictatorial political system from your predecessors. I believe that practicing such a dictatorship is not really what you originally wanted. I also believe that had history given you the opportunity of establishing a new government rather than sustaining an old one, you would have chosen a democratic system. However, the CCP one-party dictatorship regime that you have inherited has, in the whole of Chinese history, conducted the cruelest robbery of private property, created the most bloody peace-time domestic turmoil, caused the most horrific peace-time starvation unrelated to any natural disaster (although it has been called “a natural disaster”). Moreover, the CCP has caused the greatest number of non-natural deaths in peace time, created and continues to create the most numerous cases of injustice, perpetrated the most barbarous destruction of Chinese culture, historical relics, the natural environment and religious beliefs, wrought the most notorious crackdown on a student movement, and made and continues to produce the most widespread government corruption. Perhaps you think they are not responsible for any of these. But just like someone who has inherited a commercial company, with all its assets, trade mark, brand name, clients and business connections and relations… everything that is beneficial. But he does not want to inherit any of the company's debt. That just never happens. Speaking this way, I am not advocating political revenge. In fact, I have always been opposed to any political revenge outside the law. I am especially opposed to revenge by violence. The best way of paying off the old “debt” is to return power to the people. Isn’t this just the right opportunity to establish a new political system? For those politicians who want to become positive agents in history, can there be a better opportunity than this?

Needless to say, I have no loyalty to the current CCP government. In fact, I am a determined opponent of the CCP and every other one-party dictatorship. Should the CCP be willing to accept the people’s selection through an open, fair and impartial democratic process, I would stand for election and, if defeated fairly, would accept the loss knowing that I might have another opportunity to be elected. Yes, I would remain part of the opposition, that is, the loyal opposition.

--------------------------
Source: "yangjianli.com".