Keeping the May Fourth Spirit Alive

Matthew Pottinger spoke in Mandarin to mark the May Fourth Movement

I completely missed the speech by Matthew Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor on May 4 to mark the 101th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. He spoke it entirely in Mandarin, which is pretty good, and it must have been tiring to read out a speech that was over 20 minutes long, but his points are very interesting.

To be able to speak directly to the Chinese, let alone Beijing is very interesting, though sadly his speech was censored so not many actually got to watch it.



But the content of his speech and using the anniversary of the May Fourth Movement to talk about the importance of democracy is fascinating.

He says on May 4, 1919, following World War I, thousands of university students descended on Tiananmen Square to protest the unfair treatment of China at the Paris Peace Conference. Western nations appeased Imperial Japan by granting it control of a territory including previously German-occupied Shandong Peninsula.

"The Chinese students who marched to Tiananmen that day shouted 'give us back Shandong!' and 'don't sign the Versailles Treaty!' Police forced the students to disperse," Pottinger says. "But as frequently happens when governments close down avenues for peaceful expression, some protesters resorted to violence. In a principled move that acknowledged popular anger, China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles later that year."

He adds "Mr Science" and "Mr Democracy" were mottoes of the movement that propelled China into the modern era.

Then Pottinger talks about Hu Shih, a Chinese philosopher, essayist and diplomat. During the May 4 Movement, he was a key contributor in releasing the Chinese language free from scholars and imperialist culture and instead giving it to the ordinary people. "Bai hua" or literally "plain speech" is what Hu advocated which was revolutionary at the time.

Hu's peer, Chang Peng Chun, or PC Chang also made a big contribution. He studied in the United States, adapted Mulan for the stage, and organized a US tour for Peking opera singer Mei Lanfang. However Chang's greatest achievement was his contribution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, says Pottinger.

"Marrying Western belief in the primacy of the individual with Chinese concern for the greater good", Chang helped craft a document that would be relevant to all nations... A declaration on human rights was not simply about the rights of the individual, in Chang's view. It was also about the individual's obligations to society," says Pottinger.

Then he pivots, asking who today embodies the May Fourth Spirit, and Pottinger immediately brings up ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who alerted his group of friends about a new virus that seemed contagious, but later was forced by the police to sign a "confession" for leaking word about the coronavirus. Li died from the virus days soon after.

"Dr Li's comment to a reporter from his deathbed still rings in our ears: 'I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don't approve of using public power for excessive interference.' Dr Li was using Hu Shih-style 'plain speech' to make a practical point," observes Pottinger.

He also names citizen reporters who have also tried to find the truth but are missing: Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin, and Li Zehua; he also points out more foreign reporters have been expelled from China than the Soviet Union did over decades.

Pottinger also names people who have served as "China's conscience". "Many are regular citizens. Xu Zhangrun [Xi critic], Ren Zhiqiang [tycoon and Xi critic], Xu Zhiyong [civil rights activist], Ilham Tohti [Uighur academic], Fang Fang [novelist who wrote Wuhan Diary], 20 Catholic priests who have refused to subordinate God to the Communist Party, and the millions of Hong Kong citizens who peacefully demonstrated for the rule of law last year. The list goes on," he says.

Towards the end of his speech, Pottinger asks what the ultimate legacy of the May Fourth Movement will be, and the answers can be found by the Chinese people.

"Those with fortitude to seek and speak the truth in China today may take comfort, however, in something Lu Xun wrote: 'Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood.'"

One can see why Pottinger's speech was censored, but a strong case for China to continue in the May Fourth Spirit towards democracy... as it later led to the establishment of the Communist Party...