Left Flank

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.