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...

China's Entertaining White Paper

China likes to think its human rights record is improving every year

Every year China comes out with its white paper on the human rights situation in the country. And of course it's painted in a positive light.

This time, the paper contains some 21,000 Chinese characters and explains how economic and social development has helped improve China's human rights, particularly in entertainment.

In the report's first section, titled, "Right to Development", it says the people's cultural rights were better protected thanks to the country's burgeoning television, cartoon and film production.

Dissident Liu Xiaobo continues to languish in prison

Uh huh.

It says in 2014, China produced 429 television series, which equals to 15,983 episodes, while cartoon programming amounted to 138,496 minutes. [The accuracy of the minutes is impressive].

The report adds growth on the big screen, with China making 618 feature films, 36 of which earned more than 100 million yuan each, racking up a total of 26.9 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) last year. This, the white paper says, is a 36 percent increase from 2013.

But how is the production of TV shows, movies and cartoons related to human rights, let alone the improvement of human rights in China?

Maya Wong, Hong Kong-based China researcher for Human Rights Watch wasn't impressed by this year's report.

Ai Weiwei was detained for a period before being released

"The white paper has departed so much from reality that it claims that the government has made 'great achievements' on human rights are absurd," she said, noting that in 2013, the State Council's white paper cited car ownership in defense of its human rights record. "The government could have counted the number of pandas as a sign of rights progress," she said.

Ouch.

So what are we to make of this year's white paper on China's human rights?

Sounds like a lot of creative writing, and whoever wrote it should be commended for trying to paint a warm fuzzy picture of the country's human rights situation when in fact anyone who speaks out against the state is put through a sham trial and then locked up, like Liu Xiaobo, journalist Gao Yu, lawyers Xu Zhiyong and Gao Zhisheng, academic Ilham Tohti, and for a period of time Ai Weiwei.

Journalist Gao Yu was recently jailed for seven years

The recent sinking of the cruise ship in the Yangtze has led to state media being instructed to use Xinhua-approved stories, and barring everyone else from the site. The families are demanding an open investigation with the number of deaths climbing past 430, but so far their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Citing increased entertainment as a form of improved human rights seems such a bizarre connection, but then any way to frame China in a better light was the aim of the white paper.

What will they think of next?

Trying to Crush Civil Society

Xu Zhiyong on the cover of Esquire in 2009

We are not surprised but very disappointed to see Chinese President Xi Jinping crushing any kind of development of civil society.

This morning lawyer Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four years in prison for "gathering a crowd to disturb order in a public place".

His crime? Calling for transparency and accountability of the Chinese government, that the country should be governed by rule of law.

The government likes to say that is is, and hopes the more times it says it, the more it becomes fact.

But the government's claims are far from the reality.

In fact Xu's own case was hardly an exercise in the rule of law.

His lawyers were not allowed to cross examine the prosecutor's witnesses, who only had to give written testimony and not appear in court;

His lawyers were not allowed to bring in their own witnesses; and they unsuccessfully challenged the legality of holding separate trials for Xu and the other activists, as it would have helped them in their defense.

As a result Xu and his lawyers did not speak during the one-day trial and in the end he tried to read out a manifesto calling for democratic change, freedom of speech and rule of law. After 10 minutes he was cut off by the judge, but the entire speech was put online.

After the verdict was read out and Xu said, "The court today has completely destroyed what remained of respect for rule of law in China," according to his lawyer Zhang Qingfang.

There is no rest for the wicked because the Chinese government has arrested another mild-mannered, rational activist, a Uighur professor by the name of Ilham Tohti.

Ilham Tohti lecturing to students in 2009

The authorities have accused him separatism and inciting ethnic hatred, and to indite him further, have suggested he has links to the terrorist group ETIM (East Turkestan Islamic Movement).

Tohti has been detained since January 15 when he was escorted out of his apartment on the campus of Minzu University of China by police. They took some 15 bags of documents, computers and cell phones while his wife and two children watched.

The Urumqi State Bureau of Security accuses the academic of inciting violence against the Chinese authorities and recruiting people to join the movement for an independent East Turkestan nation.

"Ilham Tohti exploited his status as a teacher to recruit, entice and coerce people to form gangs, and to collude with 'East Turkestan' leaders in planning, organizing and assigning people to go abroad to join in separatist activities," the statement said.

However, interviews with Tohti and his writings couldn't be further from these claims.

Ever since the Urumqi riots in 2009 that claimed almost 200 lives, he has been trying to explain that Uighurs feel repressed thanks to pro-Han Chinese policies in Xinjiang. Much of Tohti's academic work is about the high unemployment of young Uighurs who cannot compete for jobs with Han Chinese migrants.

He was advocating that the Chinese government revisit its economic policies in Xinjiang as well as its heavy-handed presence there.

But there continue to be eruptions of violence -- though we are not quite sure to what extent because foreign journalists are not allowed in the area. We are dependent on Xinhua reports that are not always accurate or spin a news story into opinion...

Officials say last Friday 12 people were killed in a town near Xinjiang's border with Kyrgyzstan in a clash involving explosive devices. State-run media said police shot six people in Aksu prefecture and six others died from three explosions with no further details.

Exile Uighur groups claim the clashes are caused by aggressive police tactics, while the police describe them as "terrorists" armed with knives and farming tools.

Tohti, who is fluent in both Mandarin and Uighur, has been trying to be the voice of reason, the middleman who is trying to diffuse the tensions between the two ethnic groups.

But the government deems him as unacceptable and in fact wants to brand him a terrorist.

What has he done wrong? What has Xu Zhiyong done wrong?

Both are trying to gently push the government in a direction towards greater harmony and less tensions, but yet the authorities see these two as a threat.

At this rate the hope for a flourishing civil society has been set back for the next few years. Meanwhile Xi's main goals are to further consolidate his power and the power of the Party.

Rule of law has become a metaphor for what the Party wants, not the People.

Fighting Words

Xu wants to create a more just society in China... what's wrong with that?

Xu Zhiyong is an activist lawyer and academic who is considered to be the leader of the New Citizens' Movement. In 2012 he wrote the movement sought "to completely destroy the privileges of corruption, the abuse of power, the gap between rich and poor and to construct a new order of fairness and justice".

The group called for the end of corruption, which is also in line with what Chinese President Xi Jinping is doing with his current campaign, but the leadership was not happy that this grassroots organization was advocating this and promptly arrested Xu.

He was put on trial yesterday without specific charges -- and no foreign media nor diplomats allowed in. As a result, Xu and his lawyers felt the proceedings were not open nor just, so they refused to speak in court.

Xu's lawyer said his client tried to read out a statement that spelled out his ideas of "liberty, justice and love", but was cut off by court officials after 10 minutes after he asked why China did not follow the practices of other countries having officials declare their assets.

His full statement was made available online, in which he questioned whether the authorities took citizens' constitutional rights seriously and said they had "deep fears" of public trials and "the looming free society".

Six other activists were also put on trial today and Xu added in his statement that the others were not guilty because they were pushing for democracy and the rule of law, and that he was willing to pay a price for his ideals.

There's no verdict yet in Xu's trial, but it is expected he and the others will be found guilty of the alleged crime of "assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place".

The thing is, 40-year-old Xu is anything but a radical. He is a soft spoken, rational person who has thought a lot about what is wrong about China and wants to fix it in a logical way -- on a case-by-case basis.

Born in central China's Henan province, Xu was 14 years old when he decided "to be a worthy Chinese citizen, a member of the group of people who promote the progress of the nation", he said in 2008. "I want to make people believe in ideals and justice, and help them see the hope of change."

He studied law at Lanzhou University in Gansu province and then later at Peking University. He then became a law lecturer at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

In recent years he has tried to help many people, such as doing pro bono work in 2009 for families who were affected by the melamine milk scandal, and he was beaten for trying to visit blind activist Chen Guangcheng who was under house arrest.

He and a group of legal scholars started the Open Constitution Initiative in 2003, a grassroots organization promoting rule of law and constitutionalism. However, the authorities tried to shut down OCI by slapping it with a massive tax bill (claiming its donations were from overseas and should be taxed), and declared the group illegal. Xu was arrested but then released a month later after international outcry.

By arresting Xu and putting him and others on trial this week show the government's paranoia in grassroots groups that are pushing for rule of law and more openness, and is trying to squash the New Citizens' Movement.

Conversely by trying to destroy this group, other Chinese have taken an interest in New Citizens' Movement -- because if the government doesn't like it, the group must be doing something right.

So if and when Xu gets locked up behind bars, there is hope others will pick up the mantle and continue spreading his words behind the New Citizens' Movement. All he wants is for people to be more aware of their rights, as well as their right to protect their rights.

They shouldn't have to fight for rights that are inherent... but in China it's an ongoing battle between the state and the individual.