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Things are starting to stir in China

Whether or not they want to call it Western-style democracy, China's rulers certainly need transparency and accountability in their governance to avoid some unimaginable disaster. This message is coming loud and clear from some levels within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), sections of the media and elements of the bureaucracy. To be sure, these people are not talking about replacing CCP rule. They are simply asking for a measure of freedom and informed decision-making.

This was the message in a recent declaration jointly signed by 13 party elders, who formerly held medium-level posts, urging the CCP leadership that "to allow people to speak out freely will do no harm to the administration." They criticized the closure of the China Youth Daily's weekly supplement Freezing Point as another example of "vicious media control" by the Central Propaganda Department. They maintained that "depriving the public of liberty of speech will bring discord to political and social transition and will cause group confrontation and social unrest."

This is quite a bold declaration, even if it doesn't challenge CCP rule. It suggests that things are starting to stir in China, without meaning to read too much into it in the near future.

Vice-director of the State Environment Protection Administration Pan Yue (潘岳) made a similar point in the context of looming environmental disasters in the country. He reportedly told the newspaper, Southern Weekend, that, "Public good has been encroached upon by certain interest groups as people are not informed and have no channels to express their opinions."

Calling for an "open and sunshine administration," he said that environmental protection was the "best area for experiments in socialist democracy and rule of law," because it was the least politically sensitive and enjoyed public support.

Pan said that individual companies were not the main culprit, it is the system. In other words, "The pollution is now structural." This is borne out by official statistics pointing out that more than 70 percent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted, as is 90 percent of ground water in cities. In that case, the solution doesn't lie simply in introducing open administration in the environmental sector or any other area, even if that were possible. China needs a structural overhaul to build transparency and political accountability across the board. It means that people should be able to change their political leaders periodically if they are not satisfied with their performance.

This doesn't mean that democracies are perfect. What it means is that, unlike in China where communist oligarchs have decided to rule in perpetuity, in democratic countries people get to elect their governments.

That China is suffering a systemic crisis is also borne out by Premier Wen Jiabao's (溫家寶) recent statement. Responding to worsening official statistics about the law and order situation, he reportedly warned that the rampant seizure of farmland for development was one of the main threats to social stability.

Wen acknowledged that: "Some locales are unlawfully occupying farmers' land and not offering reasonable economic compensation and arrangements for livelihoods, and this is sparking mass incidents in the countryside."

And he warned, "We absolutely cannot commit a historical error over land problems," referring obviously to the many farmers' rebellions in the nation's history (including the Communist Party-led revolution.)

Wen is right to worry, considering that even official statistics about growing unrest in the country are pretty disturbing.

Last year, for instance, there were 87,000 criminal cases of public disturbance, up 6.6 percent from the previous year. Incidences of mob violence are said to have increased by 13 percent, with crimes involving "interfering in government functions" up 18.9 percent. It is safe to assume that the situation is much worse than indicated in official statistics.

It is heartening to know that the seriousness of the situation is acknowledged by the premier. But this doesn't mean much when the authorities are simply tightening their punishing regime. Last December, the police rained bullets on rural protesters in a village in Guangdong Province, killing several in the process.

This tougher approach is based on the premise, as spelled out by an official, that: "For a considerable time to come, our country will be in a period of pronounced contradictions within the people, high crime rates and complex struggle against enemies."

It would seem that the house arrest of Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), the blind civil rights activist from Dongshigu Village, Shandong Province, (and others like him) for exposing the darker side of China's one-child policy, is one way of dealing with such "contradictions."

The authorities have predictably dubbed him a liar and a traitor who has revealed state secrets to foreigners. According to a city spokesman, "Chen himself has broken the family planning law and we are investigating the case."

In other words, it is the same old policy of shooting the messenger and not heeding the message.

Chen has called the authorities "a bunch of bandits."

He is quoted as saying, "I have been detained and beaten several times since September." He believes that, "The grassroots civilians are awakened already so the only thing they [the authorities] can depend on is violence."

There are others like Chen who are challenging the authorities to uphold the law. There is, for instance, the case of a prominent land-rights activist, Liu Xinjuan (劉新娟), being sent to a psychiatric hospital after seeking to petition the local legislature in Shanghai.

There is also the case of Hu Jia (胡佳), an AIDS activist, who felt forced to resign from his charity organization, Loving Source, because of official harassment and pressure. The authorities branded his organization "anti-government" as it campaigned for better treatment of AIDS patients.

No wonder the government's new regulations, effective from March 1, to make AIDS treatment accessible and to ban discrimination against AIDS patients are creating no ripples.

The government has a terrible credibility deficit when it comes to public policy pronouncements about its good intentions. According to Hu Jia, the fact is the authorities "wish [HIV] carriers would die as soon as possible so they could bring less trouble."

But the government gets away with making meaningless and ineffectual pronouncements of good governance, even as it flagrantly violates it own laws. That's because it has largely managed to suppress any meaningful political dissent and organized political activity.

Still, it is starting to surface even within its own narrow confines, as is borne out by the declaration for freedom of speech by some party elders, and Pan's call for "open and sunshine administration."

These are welcome signs, with the potential growing for much-needed political changes in China.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.
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