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Editorial: Democracy, free speech are twins

Three scholars from Beijing visited the Taipei Times office on Wednesday afternoon. They are in Taiwan at the invitation of a local academic organization to observe the December elections. The scholars did not say much about what they saw here or what they thought about it. Instead, they showed great interest in the founding and development of this newspaper. However, when it came to the question of why China still can't produce a newspaper of international standards, one scholar commented cooly, "That's a question of concept!"

His answer hit the mark. China has been unable to establish any news media of reasonable quality because communist dogma is the only thing its media workers have in their heads. It's because of the "concept" question that the Beijing regime does not dare allow its people to have freedom of speech. It is the same reason that Beijing's leaders dare not move toward a democratic form of government, but instead cling on to the idea that "Only socialism can save China."

There will be no hope whatsoever for China as long as its leaders stick to communist dogma, rule by ideology and fear to face their own people with new ideas. No matter how vigorously its economy grows, China has major problems to face. The solution to most of China's economic problems lies in coordination from the political establishment. What's needed even more are workable concepts -- universally acceptable concepts, not self-deluding, impossible slogans such as "socialism with a Chinese face" or "socialist market economy." There is no knowing when the Chinese leadership will finally come to understand this.

In a recent interview with the German weekly Die Zeit, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said he wanted to ask his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin (江澤民) when China will be willing to carry out direct democratic elections and allow the formation of opposition parties. Jiang might view Chen's question as a provocation, but actually it was a very practical question about Jiang's conceptual framework for China's political development.

The only thing remotely resembling democracy that exists in China now is limited to the village level, where show-case elections are staged for the benefit of foreign observers. How much real democracy these elections could bring, whether they will eventually trigger policy conflicts between elected officials and the Communist Party -- and whether the policies of elected officials will be shelved or buried forever -- are questions that can only be answered by long-term observation. Remarks from Western politicians such as former US president Jimmy Carter -- who said he believes China's so-called "grassroots democracy" is real democracy -- are ludicrous in this regard.

Beijing's tame media have been very good at magnifying the chaos in Taiwan's legislature and using it to convince its domestic audience that Western-style democracy is not suitable for China. In fact, the appearance someday of such a combative legislature in Beijing's Great Hall of the People may be the only way of proving that a true democracy has taken root in China.

If Taiwan can actualize a Western-style democracy, there is no reason why China can't. That's why Taiwan is widely seen around the world as the beacon for China's democratization -- and its media a model for their mainland counterparts as well.
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