Media pundit Joyce Huang (黃智賢) on April 11 posted a commentary on Sina Weibo praising Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for his speech at the Boao Forum for Asia, in which he declared that China should deepen reform and make itself even more open to the outside world.
Huang said that no other world leader could match Xi for his vision and positive outlook. She said that as a Chinese, she felt happy about the Boao Forum, but as a Taiwanese, she felt sad.
However, not long after she posted her comments, her post was deleted and her account was locked. Although it was later unlocked, that post had disappeared.
Lamenting what happened, Huang on April 12 wrote on her microblog: “What does it mean to have enemies in front of you and behind you, too? It is when you are struggling on the frontline to combat Taiwanese independence, and suddenly, from behind you, where you thought you had no enemies, someone stabs you in the back. Of course, Taiwanese independence supporters will be the ones most encouraged by such an incident.”
It is hard to think of a better illustration of the contrast between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait than this latest interlude.
Huang talks about herself “as a Chinese,” but she clearly knows nothing about China — wanting to express herself freely in China using Taiwan’s exceptional freedom of speech.
Surprise, surprise, in today’s China, there is no freedom to speak; in fact, there is even no freedom not to speak. There is no freedom to criticize Xi, nor is there any freedom to praise him.
When it comes to praising Xi, the central party and state authorities must set the tone, and then the media relay it according to the orders they are given. They cannot just praise him any way they like, otherwise you might get a situation where the media, like some Internet users, commit the treasonous act of damning Xi with faint praise.
During the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October last year, Chinese political leaders and media told people how to praise Xi. Huang would do well to study these instructions. In an authoritarian nation, praising the top leader is the highest form of political science and improvisation by pundits is definitely not allowed.
Actually, every supporter of unification with China in Taiwan would do well to learn from this valuable experience. They need to understand that you cannot flatter Xi just because you want to.
In today’s China, it is not just ordinary people who have no freedom of expression; even high-ranking and powerful figures, when they lose their grip on power, will only be free to confess their wrongdoings.
For example, former Chongqing Communist Party secretary and politburo member Sun Zhengcai (孫政才), who had been tipped as a future Politburo Standing Committee member and possible successor to Xi, on April 12 was put on trial in Tianjin for corruption. In a statement to the court, he said that he had only himself to blame, deserved his punishment and had no objections to the charges against him.
He admitted his guilt, repented of his wrongdoing and said that he would sincerely submit to the court’s judgement. The court is answerable only to the Chinese Communist Party and if it wants you to admit accepting whatever amount it dictates in bribes, you had better admit that you took those bribes. However many mistresses it accuses you of having, you had better admit it without question.
If one day Xi himself is overthrown, then, however many bribes and however many mistresses and overseas bank accounts he is accused of having, he, too, will have to sincerely admit to and repent of his wrongdoing. Why? Because, according to the logic of power in a one-party or one-person dictatorship, when someone is overthrown, their reputation has to be destroyed at the same time.
Only through character assassination can the moral authority of those who hold power be established. Cracking down on any kind of freedom of expression, including on the Internet, is another important way of upholding this illusion of moral authority.
Following Freedom House’s listing of Taiwan as Asia’s most democratic nation — for the second year in a row — the New York Times on April 14 wrote that Taiwan is gradually supplanting Hong Kong as Asia’s bastion of free speech, and that dissidents, rights groups and events that used to gravitate to Hong Kong have in recent years been shifting to Taiwan.
For example, Reporters Without Borders had been considering setting up its Asian bureau in Hong Kong, but it eventually chose Taipei. Its Taipei bureau director, Cedric Alviani, said that Taiwan has become an “island of stability” at a time when press freedoms in Asia are backsliding and that freedom of expression is a big part of Taiwanese culture.
Hong Kong’s freedom of expression is losing its luster, with the Causeway Bay Books incident sounding an alarm bell. It shows how Xi is becoming increasingly dictatorial, launching surprise attacks that come at lightning speed, giving his targets no time to react. China’s arrest and conviction of Taiwanese non-governmental organization worker Lee Ming-che (李明哲) is another indicator.
Having achieved absolute power, Xi, the latter day Mao Zedong (毛澤東), has smashed Western nations’ illusion that economic growth would lead to political reform.
Unfortunately, just as outsiders are coming to cherish Taiwan’s freedom of expression, unification supporters in Taiwan keep using freedom to oppose freedom. They take advantage of Taiwan’s freedoms to act as moles for China. Some of them go to China to pay homage at the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, while others stay in Taiwan where they go around waving China’s five-star red flag.
Apparently they are completely unaware that if the day comes when Taiwan is deprived of its freedoms, they will not even have the freedom to flatter Xi. Some politicians and pundits see China as a place where they have no enemies, but they simply do not realize that their enemies are using smiling faces as weapons.
In Taiwan, such people support the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), forgetting how, in the past, communist leader Mao defeated KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), putting on a smiling face to make alliances with prominent social figures and win over centrist elements, making the latter complicit in imposing dictatorship over the Chinese people. Nowadays those kinds of people worship Xi for his “vision and positive outlook.”
Their abuse of freedom of speech might not harm Taiwan, but they are lending legitimacy, from a safe distance across the Taiwan Strait, to Xi’s enthronement as a modern-day emperor.
Should the 1.4 billion Chinese who have no freedom of expression feel “happy” or “sad” about that?
Translated by Julian Clegg
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