Left Flank

Joshua Foust reminds us of the unromantic Tibet. And then, he offers this sage, post-Kosovo advice:

However simply looking down upon China with Holy Western Outrage is not a solution. Ignoring the priggish and quite frankly offensive Han chauvinism (dwarfing even the gaudiest excesses of American chauvinism, which rarely goes beyond empty sloganeering and angry TV pundits), the current Chinese government—which kindly props up our entire financial system through its generous purchasing of our securities and bonds and cheap exports—literally stakes its existence on the government's infallibility. Allowing Tibet independence would require allowing Xinjiang independence… which would also require Taiwan's independence. Many Americans would cheer at the prospect, but hopefully not with the understanding that Chinese society is actually much less homogeneous and far less stable than the CCP likes us to realize. And, like it or not, a stable China means a stable America. We disrupt that at our own peril.

So yes, let us join hands with the spiritual, romantic Tibetan people—I cannot deny their appeal. But let us also do so in a proper context, taking a sober look at the true history and true issues surrounding it. Nothing in anyone's past can justify the horrors visited upon any of the CCP's hundreds of millions of victims. But that is why we should agitate for their redress in a constructive manner—which precludes angrily stomping our feet and shouting slogans. Brave people are literally dying for their freedom in China: let us do them the courtesy of seriously advancing their concerns.

The rest of the post is more informative than all of those western deconstructions on CNN.

Four disparate, yet coordinated groups of Chinese farmers in PRC have started a dialogue, as it were, about dissent. Activists in Beijing have recruited farmers and produced four similar manifestoes demanding private ownership of land, to safeguard their investments from speculators and other business interests assisted by the Communist Party, to accelerate urban development. FT's Jamil Anderlini's report cuts right to the central issue:

Some government scholars say a shortage of arable land in China would be exacerbated if peasants were allowed to sell at will to developers. But activists point out that vast tracts are already disappearing and argue that privatisation would probably speed up the creation of larger and more efficient farms. The power to reclassify rural land as industrial or urban lies with government officials, who derive much of their official revenues (not to mention illicit personal income) from selling reclassified land. While peasants do not have to pay for their 30-year leases, they are allowed to sublet their land, which provides huge scope for officials to grant government land for free to their friends and relatives, who then lease the land for a profit. Advocates of privatisation acknowledge that the majority of local officials across the country are unlikely to support the loss of such a large source of revenue and this entrenched interest is probably the biggest obstacle to the government agreeing to such a reform. «The big problem with our socialist system is that Communist party officials have become the landlords,» says one organiser of the protests, who argues that private land ownership will be a precursor to a more pluralistic political system.

Yet, there is a need to consider the mode and value of dissent, especially when foreigners voice it, as has occurred with the issue of the Beijing Olympics. Both Jeremiah Jenne and Gordon G. Chang represent two well-conceived opposing viewpoints about how to criticize PRC. Chang confirms Jenne's argument, that Chinese people often conflate nation and culture, but I would agree with Chang, that objectifying one's, and others', experiences is requisite. Chang's point about "pecuniary self-interest" cuts right to the heart of the matter, but only after one understands what Jenne identifies as the fusing of "…ideas of nation and state (and later nation, state, and party) into an inseparable ideology which was then disseminated through propaganda and education to the people."

Still, that PRC can witness such antagonistic (as long as not violent) positions is more useful if more Chinese people are to earn a bigger stake in their own happiness.