Independent Legislator Li Ao's (李敖) visit to China has caused a furor. This is not very strange in China, because Li is a strange animal in that environment, and was certain to stir things up. In Taiwan, however, it is odd that someone would spend the time to give a political analysis of his trip.
Li's trip highlighted two things: the restrictions on freedom of speech in China, and confusion regarding Li's own image.
Some people say that Li's speech in Beijing encouraged liberalism, challenged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was worth applauding. The fact is that Li's criticisms of the CCP could have been heard weekly in the 1980s when I studied at Peking University and there were many people who were more penetrating and fierce in their criticism. Does the fact that Li is allowed to give a speech at Peking University mean that the CCP is opening up? No. Rather, it means the exact opposite.
The same day Li gave his speech, Chinese dissident Zheng Yichun (鄭貽春) was given a seven-year prison sentence for having stated his opinions on a Web site. The day after Li's speech, China promulgated rules restricting free speech on the Internet that surprised the whole world.
The reason Li was allowed to speak was that the CCP wanted him to oppose Taiwan independence, and because he is from Taiwan. In today's China, outsiders are allowed to voice criticism, but if Chinese do so, they go to prison for seven years. Can this kind of free-speech environment really be called free? The fact that Li was allowed to speak in fact highlights the CCP's hypocrisy and lies.
If Li really wanted to challenge the CCP, he wouldn't have gone on to flatter it so shamelessly at Tsinghua and Fudan universities. A comprehensive look at all three lectures reveals many contradictions.
Why? Because he wants to protect his image while at the same time sucking up to the CCP, which makes it difficult to avoid contradictions.
But he seems to have succeeded on both counts, and his visit to China must be considered a successful commercial endeavor.
Another important reason why he managed to stir things up was his extreme arrogance. Arrogance is normally the preserve of youth, and there are but two possible explanations as to why one would continue to be arrogant at age 70.
One explanation is that his arrogance is feigned and aimed at putting on a show and promoting himself. It's a strange way of winning people's affection because he is afraid of being forgotten.
The other explanation is that his intellectual level has deteriorated and he has nothing to say, and he is using his arrogance to hide that fact. I won't comment on which explanation applies to Li, but a visit to some Web sites of Chinese intellectuals shows that they disagree with his lectures.
Li's actions in his old age cannot hold a candle to the brilliance he showed during the era of Wenhsing Magazine, an influential magazine among young people in the early 1960s. The lack of contact between Taiwan and China meant that Chinese intellectuals had high expectations of Li.
I think that Li's three lectures have given Chinese intellectuals the opportunity to see that he is not the person he used to be.
That means at least something positive came from Li's visit to China.
Wang Dan is a member of the Chinese democracy movement, a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a member of the Taipei Society.
Translated by Perry Svensson
A gap appears to be emerging between Washington’s foreign policy elites and the broader American public on how the United States should respond to China’s rise. From my vantage working at a think tank in Washington, DC, and through regular travel around the United States, I increasingly experience two distinct discussions. This divergence — between America’s elite hawkishness and public caution — may become one of the least appreciated and most consequential external factors influencing Taiwan’s security environment in the years ahead. Within the American policy community, the dominant view of China has grown unmistakably tough. Many members of Congress, as
The Hong Kong government on Monday gazetted sweeping amendments to the implementation rules of Article 43 of its National Security Law. There was no legislative debate, no public consultation and no transition period. By the time the ink dried on the gazette, the new powers were already in force. This move effectively bypassed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The rules were enacted by the Hong Kong chief executive, in conjunction with the Committee for Safeguarding National Security — a body shielded from judicial review and accountable only to Beijing. What is presented as “procedural refinement” is, in substance, a shift away from
The shifting geopolitical tectonic plates of this year have placed Beijing in a profound strategic dilemma. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) prepares for a high-stakes summit with US President Donald Trump, the traditional power dynamics of the China-Japan-US triangle have been destabilized by the diplomatic success of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington. For the Chinese leadership, the anxiety is two-fold: There is a visceral fear of being encircled by a hardened security alliance, and a secondary risk of being left in a vulnerable position by a transactional deal between Washington and Tokyo that might inadvertently empower Japan
After declaring Iran’s military “gone,” US President Donald Trump appealed to the UK, France, Japan and South Korea — as well as China, Iran’s strategic partner — to send minesweepers and naval forces to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. When allies balked, the request turned into a warning: NATO would face “a very bad” future if it refused. The prevailing wisdom is that Trump faces a credibility problem: having spent years insulting allies, he finds they would not rally when he needs them. That is true, but superficial, as though a structural collapse could be caused by wounded feelings. Something
RSS