By He Qinglian Created: February 6, 2013
At a recent meeting of the Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection, Communist Party leader Xi Jinping stressed that
anti-corruption efforts need to target both “flies” and “tigers,”
referring to lower and senior level officials. He does not seem to have
real political reform in mind, though.
Observers have long concluded from the new Chinese Communist Party
leader’s “tour to the south” late last year that “Xi Jinping is
following Deng Xiaoping’s heritage.” However, the official media report
on Xi’s “southern tour” speech was abridged.
Xi’s complete speech surfaced online recently, and disappointed many
reformists. One noteworthy comment that Xi made regards the collapse of
the Soviet Union. Xi said, “In the end, Gorbachev whispered a few words
and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union collapsed. A huge Party was
gone, just like that. The Soviet Union had more Party members than us
[the Communist Party of China]. However, no one was a real man to take a
stand and fight.”
The phrase “no one was a real man” was coined by Lady Huarui, a
poet and concubine of an emperor who lost his empire after the fall of
the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 907-960). When Xi Jinping used this phrase to
describe the fall of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Union as
an “annihilated nation,” he clearly sensed the weight on his shoulders.
I, however, am not at all disappointed by Xi’s complete southern tour
speech. In my article titled “Xi Jinping: The Guardian of a Red
Regime,” I already concluded that Xi is not a person with an ambiguous
attitude. What he talks about is exactly what he wants to do. Whether it
can be accomplished is another matter. Xi always has a clear
understanding of his role. Moreover, the veteran cadres of the Communist Party of China (CPC) would not have chosen Xi as the person to
safeguard the “red regime.”
But the problem is that the Chinese regime is already in such a
degenerated state that the only possible outcome is total collapse. Even
if all seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee were “real
men,” nobody can prevent the inevitable collapse of the regime. The fate
of either the Soviet Communist Party or the CPC is not determined by
any single Party leader, but by the general public. Now, the Chinese
regime is simply refusing to recognize the fact that it has thrown away
its good name, replaced trust between people with suspicion, and given
up all its own trustworthiness. This is also known as the “The Five Ends.”
On Dec. 25, 2011, CPC mouthpiece Xinhua
published an article titled “Reasons for and Revelations From the
Collapse of the Soviet Union,” which shows the CPC’s view on the Soviet
Union’s collapse. The author of the article, Wan Chengcai, raised eight
questions. Apart from a neutral question on the “important reason for
the collapse,” all other questions were raised from the perspective of
the CPC’s single-Party rule. For example: Who benefited and who lost out
from the collapse? What are the major impacts on the world from the
collapse? What should China learn from the collapse? How should one
evaluate Mikhail Gorbachev, who initiated the political reform?
Vladimir Putin already gave a two-folded answer
to these questions. He said, “anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of
the Soviet Union has no heart; anyone who wants it restored has no
brains.” On the one hand, Putin was sad because the Soviet Union went
from a superpower to a second-tier country. On the other hand, Putin
considered it the right move to end the dictatorship in the Soviet
Union. However, the Chinese media intentionally paraphrased this so all
Putin purportedly said was that he felt sad about the collapse of the
Communist Party.
In fact, the root causes behind the collapse of the Soviet Union have
long been attributed to three factors. First, corruption by the
political elite had contributed to the growing social division and
unrest, alienating the common people and intellectuals, who lost faith
in the Soviet Communist Party. Just before the collapse, workers
organized a nationwide strike to protest bureaucratic embezzlement.
Second, to maintain its status as a superpower, the Soviet Communist
Party engaged in an arms race with the United States, which caused a
financial crisis. Third, Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev initiated a
series of “new thoughts” reforms, that resulted in an end to the
dictatorship in socialist countries in Eastern Europe.
Let’s compare the CPC’s current situation with that of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
Let’s start by looking at the international environment. Compared
with the Soviet Communist Party, the CPC is undoubtedly luckier. In the
1980s, the totalitarian regimes in Soviet Eastern Europe had “angered
both men and gods.” Pope John Paul II and the President Ronald Reagan
led the war to end communism, uphold justice, and safeguard beliefs.
President Reagan’s famous speech to “Tear Down This Wall” was broadcast
worldwide, and moved me to tears. The then Soviet General Secretary
Gorbachev simply followed the desires of the people and accepted
democracy. The Velvet Revolution, which took place in Eastern Europe,
opened the doors for democracy, and brought an end to the Cold War.
Mikhail Gorbachev became the 20th century’s hero of great wisdom, and he
will forever be admired by freedom-loving people.
The world has changed a great deal since then. While China was rising
in the first decade of the 21st century, Europe was declining. The
formation of the European Union was merely a weak attempt at restoring
the glory of Germany and France as world superpowers. Another
superpower, the United States, was financially handcuffed by the war on
terrorism, the war in Iraq, and the financial crisis in 2008, with debts
reaching up to the stratosphere and widespread disgruntlement from
citizens with U.S. participation in any kind of war. When the Jasmine
Revolution struck North-East Africa, Europe and the United States could
barely offer any assistance, not to mention resolving chaos in Syria.
Under such circumstances, keeping an eye on the human rights situations
in China was merely an international obligation for the U.S. and
European nations. They do not have the will nor the resources to become
the driving force of democracy as they did in the third wave of
democratization.
However, the favorable international environment will not decrease
the domestic pressure Xi Jinping is facing. Apart from vowing “not to
become Gorbachev,” Xi is in a very difficult situation.
First, the corruption amid the elite circle of the CPC is much worse
than that of the Soviet Union, Mobutu, and Gaddafi. This can easily be
seen from reports by the regime’s own media, let alone reports by The
New York Times and Bloomberg. The embezzlement of hundreds of millions
of dollars by a village-level official is not rare. Chinese Internet
portal QQ published an article titled “Corruption History of the Soviet
Union in the 1970s,” which exposed the corruption of the Soviet Union.
It is nothing compared with the corruption of the CPC officials. The
so-called “special supply” for the Soviet officials was just importing
goods, such as wine, clothes, cameras, and perfume, from the U.S. and
European nations. Meanwhile, the CPC officials had reached the state of
“luxury goods coming from bribery and no need to spend salary” as early
as the 1990s. What the Soviet officials cannot even imagine is the
international spread of CPC officials. Millions of Party members have
become “naked officials” by moving their family members abroad. The only
“special supply” they need is clean water, clean air, and safe food.
Second, the Soviet economic system had abundant domestic resources
and a low unemployment rate. But today’s China is plagued by a lack of
natural resources and a high unemployment rate. Over 100 million farmers
do not have land. Tens of millions of city dwellers are unemployed. The
profits from the economic reform have been depleted during the 10-year
rule of Hu and Wen.
Just as I wrote in my 2004 article, “The Current and Future State of
China’s Authoritarian Regime,” there are four basic requirements for a
society to sustain itself: the ecological system as the basis; the moral
system as the median among different social entities; basic living
rights measured by the unemployment rate; a political system that
maintains the normal operations of a society. Currently, the ecological
system, moral system, and the basic living rights have already collapsed
or are close to collapse. The only thing left is the political
dictatorship.
Under such circumstances, only the CPC’s political gangsters would
reject political reform. Even the intellectuals, who fear violence the
most, are wishing for reform to abandon the one-Party system and avoid a
violent revolution.
The person who acts as China’s Gorbachev will become the “good man,” respected and admired by the entire world.
中文原文：纵是擎天柱，难挽溃败局-闻习总“竟无一人是男儿”有感
This translation first appeared here, reproduced with minor changes.
