Thursday, August 31, 2006

China


I envision a China that is a multi-party democracy, that is federal, with Tibet having its own state level parliament, with human rights, so Tibetans have religious freedom. I envision a China where the Chinese Communist Party is still the largest party in the country within a multi-party framework. I envision the multi-party framework not to be like the one in India or America, but one where parties are state funded.

You are not trying to reclaim the Tibet of the 1950s. Tibet is not going to be a separate country. And the religious leader is not also going to be the political leader. The political leader has to be popularly elected.

And I do envision a unification of Taiwan and China, like East and West Germany. But that will not happen as long as China remains a one party state.

How long before China is no longer a one party state? I don't know. What will bring about the transformation? I think the country's rapid economic growth - something the Global South as a whole can learn much from - is the best bet to that end.

I have talked to many Chinese in America. It is amazing how they do not talk democracy. The last Chinese I talked to referred to the Chinese Communist Party as "something like the Great Wall of China." These are not people fearing persecution. They are not in China. This setiment must be to do with how the West has treated China in the past, and continues to do so today. If democracy is such a great idea, the Chinese should not have to feel racism in America, but they do. A Chinese political activist in Manhattan I met told me he lost his bid for City Council because too many white folks thought shoud he win he might only take care of the Chinese in Chinatown. The Chinese seem to feel about the Chinese Communist Party the way African Americans feel about the NAACP perhaps, only much stronger. And that sentiment has to be respected.

It is just that the way the Chinese brand of communism has morphed to become more nationalism than anything else is of relevance to the peace process in Nepal. There is a genuine ideological struggle going on. The titanic clash of ideologies that played out across the globe the past century is playing out in Nepal now.

The best way is to attempt a fusion. You take the best of both and come up with something new. You together create a new kind of democracy. Saying goodbye to power through the barrel of a gun is the first condition. Then making party finances transparent is the second condition. Then you move to state funded parties. That is what I have been proposing. If the seven parties will not, the Maoists should take the lead on this one. They should avoid the temptation of relapsing into dogmatism.

On The Web

CIA - The World Factbook
China Today
China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
China Internet Information Center
China the Beautiful
China Daily
China News - Breaking World China News
China Online
China Travel Information | Lonely Planet Destination Guide
China the Beautiful - Table of Contents Home Forum / query ...
China Airlines
Inside China Today - Media Monitoring Service by EIN News
University of Texas Libraries - China Maps
Internet Guide for China Studies
History of China

Support Democracy in China Home Page
Chinese Democracy
Tiananmen-1989
China, Hong Kong, Chinese Democracy and the Future
Democracy in China
ChinaSite.com: Democracy and Dissidents -- The Complete Reference ...
Silicon Valley for Democracy in China
Homepage of the Party for Freedom and Democracy in China(PFFDC/PFDC)
Microsoft deletes 'freedom' and 'democracy' in China | The Register
Building of Political Democracy in China Information Office of the ...
Prospects on Human Rights and Democracy in China
[PDF] How Would Democracy Change China?
frontline: china in the red: roundtable - democracy, sooner or ...
White paper on political democracy (full text)
Democracy and China | Chinese Democratization | Tiananmen Square ...
Harvard University Press: Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China
FT.com / Companies / IT - Microsoft bans ‘democracy’ for China web ...
BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | Bush preaches democracy to China
Hoover Institution - Uncommon Knowledge - THE NEXT GREAT LEAP ...
USATODAY.com - China's homeowners get small taste of democracy
China: Human Rights & the Democracy Movement
China's Democracy Crackdown Demands a Presidential Response
Amazon.com: Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political ...
Xinhua - English
John Battelle's Searchblog: MSN Bans "Democracy" in China
People's Daily Online -- China's socialist political democracy ...
JS Online:India's messy democracy or China's model of economics?

Google Books: China
  1. China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects - Page 86
    by Elizabeth Economy - Political Science - 1999 - 359 pages
  2. Shaping U.S.-China Relations: A Long-Term Strategy - Page 18
    by Michel C. Oksenberg, Elizabeth Economy - Political Science - 1997 - 81 pages
  3. The China Business Handbook 2005
    by Alain Charles Publishing - 2005 - 408 pages
  4. China in the Twenty-First Century: Politics, Economy, and Society - Page 39
    by Fumio Itoh - History - 1997 - 287 pages
  5. The Ordos Plateau of China: An Endangered Environment - Page 117
    by Hong Jiang - Science - 1999 - 210 pages
  6. Growth, inequality, and poverty in rural China: The Role of Public Investments - Page 69
    by Linxiu Zhang, and Xiaobo Zhang Shenggen Fan - Business & Economics - 2002 - 72 pages
  7. The China Business Handbook - Page 9
    by Alain Charles Publishing - 2005 - 448 pages
  8. China: Environmental Technologies Export Market Plan
    by Eric Fredell - 1996
  9. Beginning the Journey: China, the United States, and the Wto
    by Robert D. Hormats, Elizabeth Economy, Kevin G Nealer - Political Science - 2001 - 37 pages
  10. Weaving the Net: Conditional Engagement with China - Page 224
    by James (EDT) Shinn - Political Science - 1996 - 284 pages
  11. Forced Labor in China: Hearing Before the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of... - Page 50
    by Christopher H. (EDT) Smith - 1998
  12. The Strategic Quadrangle: Russia, China, Japan, and the United States in East Asia - Page 137
    by Michael (EDT) Mandelbaum - Political Science - 1995 - 232 pages
  13. The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Past, Present, and Future - Page 24
    by Michael J. (EDT) Green, Patrick M. (EDT) Cronin - Political Science - 1999 - 403 pages
  14. More Than Humanitarianism: Independent Task Force Report - Page 41
    by Anthony Lake, Christine Todd Whitman - Political Science - 2006 - 148 pages
  15. U.S.-China Trade Relations & Renewal of China's Most-Favored-Nation Status: Congressional Hearing
    edited by Philip Crane - 1999
  16. Governing the GM crop revolution: Current Issues and Future Challenges - Page 23
    by Robert L. Paarlberg - 2000
  17. Reforming from the Top: A Leaders' 20 Summit - Page 195
    by John (EDT) English, Ramesh Chandra (EDT) Thakur, Andrew Fenton (EDT) Cooper - 2006 - 319 pages
  18. Crossing National Borders: Human Migration Issues in Northeast Asia - Page 40
    edited by Tsuneo Akaha, Anna Vassilieva - Political Science - 2006 - 254 pages
  19. Furfuryl Alcohol from the People's Republic of China And South Africa: An International Trade... - Page vii
    by Not Available (NA) - Business & Economics - 2004 - 110 pages
  20. Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order - Page 59
    by Charles Kupchan, Emanuel Adler, Jean-Marc Coicaud, Yuen Foong Khong - Political Science - 2001 - 182 pages

No comments: