Fifty years ago today Mao Zedong (毛澤東) stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in what was still known to the West as Peking and proclaimed the People's Republic of China, declaring: "China has stood up." For better or worse, this event is now recognized as one of the most significant in modern Asian history. For Taiwanese, perhaps the most important direct impact of the victory of the communists was the retreat of Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) defeated regime to these islands, separating Taiwan and China once again and putting the two countries on different, even antagonistic, paths.
But Mao misspoke somewhat. China had not stood up on that day; it had only just begun a long process of doing so. That process was neither swift nor smooth, and some of the detours on the way, many directly caused by Mao himself, had catastrophic consequences for innumerable Chinese men and women. Any impartial assessment of the record of governance of the Chinese Communist Party has to be extremely mixed, with as many lost opportunities and setbacks as accomplishments.
Nonetheless, there is one area in which China has indeed, fifty years on, stood up. For the first time in several hundred years, China currently faces not one significant external threat. Nor, with all due respect to the freedom fighters of Tibet and Xinjiang, does it face any real prospect of civil war. Of course, there are still very serious internal problems, carrying a real risk of social instability; however, considering the size and heterogeneity of China -- which makes any attempt at nation-state governance precarious at best -- and the multitude of different types of foreign powers that have coveted it in the past, the level of security that China now enjoys is unprecedented.
Thus, it is now time, and this anniversary provides a suitable opportunity, for China to lay to rest the long-standing sense of insecurity, often bordering on paranoia, that has been accumulated over the dark days. In the current secure environment, there is no longer any need to fret about potential conspiracies, nor to puff up at every perceived slight to national pride. The burdens of history have metastasized into an enormous chip on China's shoulder; the time has come to start laying that chip down, and not to turn it into a reservoir of hyperpatriotism.
National security has always been the favorite rationalization for dictatorship and for violations of human rights, in China as in many other countries, including our own. Now that those concerns have been considerably eased, it is time for the Chinese people to cease their toleration of their government's restrictions on their rights, and to begin to stand up themselves and make their voices heard, in all their inevitable cacophony. The people have to start to grow out of the simplistic nationalism that equates their interests with those of their rulers.
Likewise, there is no longer any call for overwhelming state dominance of the economy. Although particular political leaders will continue to have their own concerns, the Chinese society as a whole now has nothing to fear from opening itself up to information, goods, investment and travel. The Chinese people and Chinese enterprises will not, as a result of outside exposure, become pawns in any hostile conspiracies, because there are no such plots afoot.
Nations mature more slowly than individuals. China is now coming out of a particularly turbulent adolescence. Now it should begin to step out into international society as a mature, responsible, adult member. As one of its nearest neighbors, Taiwan will look forward to welcoming the advent of a prosperous and democratic China over the next half century. Then there will truly be something to celebrate.
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