Mon, Nov 12, 2018 page3

• INTERVIEW: Author Wang Lixiong sees China fall without reform

  Chinese author Wang Lixiong, who is under a general publication ban in China, said in an interview by e-mail with ‘Liberty Times’ (sister newspaper of the ‘Taipei Times’) reporter Lan Tsu-wei that it is ‘a good thing there is still Taiwan, where our works can still be published’ and he is happy to pay local sales tax on his books

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  Liberty Times: In “Yellow Peril” (黃禍), published in 1991, you predicted there would be a transfer of power in Taiwan with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) winning an election. In “The Ceremony” (大典), published in 2007, you predicted the removal of term limits for the Chinese president. How did you write these books full of social and political predictions?

  Wang Lixiong (王力雄): I like to write about issues that give my imagination free rein, yet are still grounded in reality. My political fiction novels deliberately start realistically, with the narrative developing gradually based on logic. This is to encourage readers not to treat the novels’ plot twists as conjecture and fantasy, but rather as a serious progression from the actual present into a hypothetical future, based on logic.

  With this style of narrative, I want to encourage readers to devote more thought to the community they are part of and not treat my work as a thriller based purely on imagination.

  

  Books by Chinese author Wang Lixiong published in Taiwan, including Yellow Peril and The Ceremony, are displayed in Taipei in an undated photograph.

  Photo: Lan Tsu-wei, Taipei Times

  Should any “prediction” in the novels come true, it is simply that the logic I follow in the novel matched the development of real-world affairs.

  LT: When “Yellow Peril” was published, the DPP had only existed for five years. Why did you predict that the party would come to power? In the same vein, how did you predict that the two-term limit on the Chinese presidency would be scrapped? How did Beijing react to your predictions?

  Wang: The predictions in Yellow Peril were based on judgement supported by research, instinct and personal expectations.

  In 2000, I rode the bicycle to a Taiwanese friend’s house in the suburbs of Beijing, about 10km away, every day to watch the Taiwanese elections on TV. On election day, I even invited Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) and his wife, Liu Xia (劉霞), to come along.

  At the time, we were all supporters of then-DPP presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), not because we agreed with his campaign platform, but rather because a transfer of power would be the true test of Taiwan’s democracy. Because of that, we toasted to the incoming DPP administration.

  As for removal of the clause in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China setting the presidential term limit, there really is not much to it — the trend was obvious.

  My contact with the Chinese government is limited to Public Security Bureau officers. This should tell you how much regard they have for me.

  LT: “The Ceremony” predicted the abolition of the term limit on the Chinese presidency and included a scene where the president-for-life was assassinated. The topic, as well as the assassination at the ceremony, are sensational and have given many people food for thought. That has led to concerns about your personal safety. Does that affect you? How do you face the Chinese government’s surveillance measures and methods to maintain its grasp on power?

  Wang: The Chinese government obtained a copy of my work prior to its publication, as I was soliciting views among friends, and requested that I cancel the publication.

  I answered: “The baby has come to term, and its birth is inevitable.”

  Of course, the authorities could have engineered a “still-birth” of the book by arranging for accidents to happen to the author, but it did not. Perhaps they thought that it was not worth the effort, as not many Chinese would read the book due to it being published abroad.

  So-called “national inspection” in essence targets printed work only, while publication bans target people — including my wife, [Tibetan author] Tsering Woeser, and me. For more than a decade, none of our books have been published within the Chinese border.

  Thankfully there is still Taiwan, where our works can still be published.

  I had once tried to contest the 20 percent value-added tax imposed on sales of my books by the Taiwanese government on grounds that I had never enjoyed public services and benefits in Taiwan.

  However, once I considered that I was paying tax for freedom of publication, I found it to be more than reasonable.

  LT: Both “Yellow Peril” and “The Ceremony” mention the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Would you say that is the reason for your publication ban in China? Has your personal freedom and freedom to travel been limited as a consequence? Have other political critics in China received similar attention from Chinese officials?

  Wang: When I published the book The Destiny of Tibet (天葬—西藏的命運) in 1998, I also publicly announced that I was the author of Yellow Peril, which I published under a pseudonym. Both books were blacklisted in China.

  In 2007, I published My West China; Your East Turkestan (我的西域，你的東土) on the problems in Xinjiang, which the Chinese Ministry of Public Security labeled “terrorist reading material.”

  The general ban against me began in 2001 when I quit the Chinese Writers’ Association with an open letter protesting the association’s demand that its members be puppets of the Chinese Communist Party.

  Since then, Woeser and I would face restrictions during certain sensitive periods, and she would also be accompanied by public security officers, from the moment she arrives to the moment she leaves to visit family in Lhasa.

  She has never obtained a passport and has never left the country. While I was occasionally barred from leaving the country before 2015, I was permanently barred from leaving from that year on.

  LT: In “The Ceremony,” you predicted widespread chaos. What is your view on China’s one-party system? What are your expectations for a future after democratization?

  Wang: Without internal reform, one-party authoritarian rule will eventually end in collapse.

  Will there be a benign power then that can replace the vacuum left by the collapse of the government and contain the fallout so that society does not collapse with the government? As authoritarian systems prohibit any challenge to their power, an alternative force has so far had no chance to develop.

  Under such circumstances, if we were to simply move to representative democracy — with no time to train or foster talent — politicians would simply seek to increase their power and influence, perhaps through populism, and society would be torn apart. Furthermore, ethnic splintering within China or regional powers becoming warlords could lead to civil war.

  Such developments are not entirely alien and have been seen many times as nations sought to transition toward democracy.

  In my 2016 book Integrating Power and the People — A Self-Organizing Society of Layered Power Sharing (權民一體論：遞進自組織社會), I proposed adopting democracy according to a layered power-sharing model, largely to prevent such a disaster.

  Translated by staff writer Jake Chung
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