The following post from Sha Yexin (沙叶新), a well-known playwright, was deleted from Sina Weibo on January 29. Sha, who was formerly head of the Shanghai People’s Art Theater, is now an honorary vice-chairman of the China Drama and Literature Academy. He currently has more than 120,000 followers on Weibo, according to Sina’s numbers. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where demonstrations are a normal thing. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where marches don’t end in disaster. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) roots out the dirt. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where the government isn’t in bed with business. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where refuge is provided for exiles [from the Tiananmen Protests]. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where June 4 is not forgotten. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where magazines are free. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where you don’t have to scale the [Internet] wall. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where the sense of human rights is strong. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where there are prospects for democracy. Thank goodness there is Taiwan and Hong Kong, when the mainland’s back bristles with thorns and no one dares step too far out of bounds!

Sha’s original post follows:

沙叶新 : 2012-01-29 22:17:57 幸好有香港，示威很家常。幸好有香港，游行不遭殃；幸好有香港，廉署反贪脏。幸好有香港，政府不从商。幸好有香港，黄雀救流亡。幸好有香港，陆肆没有忘。幸好有香港，杂志有开放。幸好有香港，上网不翻墙。幸好有香港，人权意识强。幸好有香港，民主尚可望。幸好有台港，大陆背有芒，不敢太疯狂！

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

The standoff last December between local authorities and villagers in Wukan, prompted by deep anger among villagers over corrupt land deals and the suspicious death of a protest leader in police custody, was one of the biggest stories of 2011. But the saga of Wukan, which is ongoing despite pledges by Guangdong’s top leadership to meet the demands of protesters, could continue to have an impact this year and beyond.
Some say the Wukan incident, an act of organized civil disobedience that infuriated local Party officials (and, no doubt, quite a few senior leaders as well), has established a “model” for villages facing seizure of their land, one of the most common causes of so-called “mass incidents” (群体事件) in the countryside and in areas outside developing cities. Some have cited Wukan as an example in calling for democratic reforms in China.
But even as international attention gradually shifts away from Wukan, it remains to be seen whether the villagers’ demands will ultimately be met — and whether provincial leaders will live up to their promises.
Discussion of Wukan continues inside China, but public discussion of its deeper implications is a sensitive matter.
A January 27 blog post on Wukan made by lawyer Yuan Yulai (袁裕来) to his blog on the Caixin Media platform was deleted by internet censors. Yuan followed up the same day by posting news of the deletion on Sina Weibo. Including an image file for the post (below), he wrote: “Is there no hope for the Wukan incident? Are leaders now setting the tone? (Why was this deleted? Is this still propaganda policy?)”
Yuan Yulai’s microblog post was also subsequently deleted. But the text-as-image file he posted on Sina Weibo, which we archived, is pasted below. In the file Yuan shares an account of words spoken by an unnamed senior leader at a recent meeting on stability preservation, the mobilization of domestic security forces to combat social unrest:

A certain leader said in an internal address at the CCP Work Conference on Politics, Law and Stability Preservation: Right now there are tens of thousands of mass incidents [in China each year], mostly happening in rural townships and villages and remote regions, the causes being principally economic. These are convenient for us to independently resolve or break up. But if these spread to coastal cities and are transformed into political demands, the result would be unimaginable. Some comrades lack a real sense of the dangers involved, thinking we are over-reacting. It would be better for a clear directive from the central authorities to over-react than to fall short [of what is needed].
. . . The Wukan incident is far from finished. Can challenges to the leadership status of the Chinese Communist Party evade retribution? That is a page we cannot open, that no one dares open.

The following is a partial translation of a review by journalist Chen Jibing (陈季冰) of the Wukan incident published in Outlook China magazine. Chen also posted the article to his weblog at QQ.com.

The Example of Wukan
Chen Jibing (陈季冰)
January 20, 2012
1.
Ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday news came of the latest development in the Wukan story. According to news reports, three special work teams constituted by Guangdong province to explore the issues of collective land [use and appropriation in Wukan], village finances and breaches of law and Party discipline by village officials notified the villagers of Wukan of their findings in the initial phase [of their investigation] on December 30. According to Zeng Qingrong (曾庆荣), chairman of the standing committee of the Guangdong Provincial Commission of Discipline Inspection and deputy-head of the [provincial government’s] supervisory office, who is serving as head of the special work team on breaches of law and discipline [in the Wukan case], they have already found that Xue Chang (薛昌), Wukan’s former Party branch chief, former village Party committee director Chen Shunyi (陈舜意) and others did indeed violate [Party] discipline in misappropriating collective assets of the village; a related personnel member in the marketing division of the Cooperative Association of Lufeng City Rural Credit Cooperatives (陆丰市农村信用合作社) pocketed 200,000 yuan in the process of land transfer (土地转让); various personnel in the Donghai Township State Land Office (东海镇国土所) of the Lufeng City Land and Resources Bureau (陆丰市国土局) accepted bribes in processing the transfer of land belonging to Wukan Village. At the same time, it has been initially established that some cadres from the Wukan Village Party Branch and village committee received rewards in the process of authorizing transfer of collective land [belonging to the village], and that some accounting staff in Wukan village are suspected of having personally used public funds [belonging to the village]. The cashier for the village committee, Zou Chai (出纳邹钗), also a committee member of the Party branch, has already been detained pending investigation for discipline violations (两规).
It was not long before this, owing to the direct intervention of the provincial Party leadership in Guangdong, that serious protests in Wukan Village, in [Guangdong’s] Shanwei City, finally calmed down in late December. While for reasons known to all newspapers, television and other mass media kept quiet on this incident out of fear, it was the most hotly watched public opinion storm on China’s internet — and particularly on microblogs — for some time.
On December 21, deputy provincial Party secretary Zhu Mingguo (朱明国), who has represented Guangdong province in handling this incident, met face-to-face with the chief acting village representative, Lin Zuluan (林祖銮), and agreed to the principal demands of the protesting villagers, including: to suspend and fully investigate the property development project in which the villagers’ interests were harmed and for which village cadres and the government illegally sold [village] land; to carry out a full and comprehensive investigation of the death of protest leader Xue Jinbo (薛锦波) while in police custody on December 11, 2011, to return his remains, and to release several other villagers who were detained for their involvement in the protests.
What has most unprecedented meaning is that the [Guangdong provincial] authorities also formally acknowledged the “leadership committee” chosen and constituted by the villagers themselves for the purpose of the protests, and that they pledged resolutely that they would not seek to settle scores with villagers involved in the protests at some convenient later date (秋后算账).
[Village representative] Lin Zuluan at least believes that their protest movement has already achieved the things they set out to achieve, and he has told media that he is satisfied with the outcome. “The higher-level government [authorities] have treated this matter with utmost priority, so I have all confidence that we can satisfactorily resolve this dispute,” [he said].
The attitude of the Guangdong Party leadership set the tone for the handling of the incident: “The basic demand of the people of Wukan Village in Lufeng City is fairness, and errors certainly did exist in the work among the masses carried out by the grassroots Party leadership and government, so certain unreasonable actions on the part of the villagers can be understood.” Moreover, Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang (汪洋) pointed out clearly that, “The occurrence of the Wukan incident was both a matter of chance and a matter of necessity. This is the result of paying insufficient attention . . . to tensions building up in the process of economic and social development, and it is a necessary result of our being ‘hard on one hand and soft on the other’ (一手硬一手软).” This hard on the one hand and soft on the other points clearly to the government’s active promotion of economic development while it has been soft on social management (社会管理).
On December 22, the People’s Daily ran an article called, “What does the ‘turnaround in Wukan’ clue us in to?” (“乌坎转机”提示我们什么), which called on governments at all levels [in China] to “eliminate the ‘oppositional stance’ in dealing with the masses” (扫除面对群众的‘对手思维’). The article said: “Looking back on many mass incidents over the past few years and assessing their basic character, [one realizes that] the vast majority arise from the fact that the masses, in response to appeals on behalf of their vested interests, have received no satisfaction or relief. This tells us that local government must have a keen awareness of prevailing conditions in facing the interest demands of the masses, even if these involve tension and conflict.”
Zhu Mingguo, who has personally handled this incident, subsequently stated that the villagers of Wukan Village raised two demands in particular. The first concerned the question of land. Wukan Village has 9,000 mu [or 6 square kilometers] of land, and now more than 6,700 mu [or 4.46 kilometers, 75 percent of the total] have been sold, leaving just over 2,000 [mu [or 25 percent of the original land]. But the villagers have not been transformed into city residents [of Lufeng City], nor has the issue of basic living allowances from the city been resolved [CHECK]. The demands of the villagers are reasonable. The second issue raised by the villagers was that the affairs of the village were not handled openly. They said that village cadres were corrupt, and that they were not consulted over the issue of land sales. “The villagers said to me that under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party they had farmed the land without paying taxes and also enjoyed subsidies and free education. We do no oppose the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party is good! What we oppose is the village selling the land without telling us,” [said Zhu Mingguo]. Zhu Mingguo added: “If these demands had been satisfied earlier, would this matter have built up to such an extent?”
I’m confident there is a great deal of truth to these words. But the heart of the problem is the question of how the ruling Party and government can create a system for themselves in which they must resolve demands of this kind. Perhaps there is nothing better than external pressure to bring people to their senses, and competition offers the best instruction. [CHECK]
2.
The so-called “Wukan incident” originated back in March 2011, at which point the villagers, who had suffered in silence for more than a decade, finally united in action. It is alleged that after local officials were involved in one particular corrupt land deal, furious villagers assaulted the village Party branch, and in the three months that followed numerous conflicts erupted.
The incident suddenly escalated in mid-December. On December 13, 42-year-old Xue Jinbo — who according to some accounts was 43 years old — one of several representatives chosen by Wukan villagers, died of heart failure while in [police] custody. Official media denied that wounds were present on Xue Jinbo’s body, [a claim made by Wukan villagers]. Reports said that on December 10 fellow detainees reported that Xue Jinbo was in a poor condition, and Xue Jinbo was then dispatched immediately to a nearby hospital, where he died after 30 minutes of emergency treatment. Reports also said that Xue Jinbo had a history of asthma and heart disease. [According to the reports], certification issued by forensic specialists at Guangzhou’s Sun-Yatsen Hospital shows that Xue Jinbo had no clear visible external wounds aside from bruising on his knees and wrists. The reports quoted the deputy director of this [forensic] center as saying that in his estimate the bruises on Xue Jinbo’s wrists had been caused by handcuffs, and that the bruises on his knees had been caused by kneeling on the ground.
Xue Jinbo and two others were detained on December 9, the justification being that they they were charged with destroying public financial affairs and jeopardizing public affairs. According to statements by local police, Xue Jinbo had led the unrest in Wukan due to tensions over land, [village] finances and issues with local election of [village] officials. At the time, [said police], he and other villagers had forced their way into the local government office and police station, and had destroyed six police vehicles. Police claim that these accusations were confirmed in two interrogations on September 9 and 10.
Xue Jinbo’s family has come to the conclusion that he was beaten to death. It is said that Xue Jinbo’s mother, wife and older brother went to view his body and discovered numerous wounds and bruises, including three points where his bones had been broken.
The anger of villagers then ignited and they openly opposed the local government. They organized large-scale demonstrations, and after cadres from the village Party branch and village committee deserted the village, they organized the village to govern itself, even setting up barricades and organizing hundreds of armed deputies to prevent violent suppression by police.
On December 15, acting Shanwei mayor Wu Zili (吴紫骊) gave a harshly worded denunciation [of the villagers]. He traced the incident back to two villagers who had been chosen to represent the villagers in negotiating with the government, Lin Zulian (林祖恋) and Yang Semao (杨色茂). He vowed to strike out firmly against “those principal figures who had planned and organized the inciting of villagers to smash and destroy public property, impede public affairs and other illegal and criminal activities.” He urged these people to turn themselves in. In a video appearing online on December 18, Shanwei Party Secretary Zheng Yanxiong (郑雁雄) harshly accused the villagers for using foreign media to invite the attention of the outside world to this local situation. Zheng Yanxiong said that the villagers had not sought the government but had instead sought out “rotten” foreign media, and “these media will only be happy when our socialist nation is broken and divided.”
These statements roused even greater feeling among the opposing [villagers]. After the above-mentioned language by Wu Zili, 8,000 of the villagers in a village with a total population of 20,000 again held demonstrations, the numbers double that of the previous day.
In fact, the full story of the Wukan incident is not all that complicated. When villagers attacked the offices of the village Party branch back in September last year, they accused the [local] government of selling off agricultural land in the village to a development company for a price as high as one billion yuan, and without providing villagers with reasonable compensation — and after [the transaction] pocketing 70 percent of the income [from the sale] for themselves.
As for the full and accurate situation in Wukan, perhaps we will have to wait patiently for the results of an independent and credible investigation. But cases like this of conflicts over interests emerging as a result of land appropriations (征地) are something that can be found everywhere in China today. According to research by Chinese Academy of Social Science professor Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), this sort of dispute over land accounts for two-thirds of all of all “mass incidents” in the countryside. Yu Jianrong estimates that since 1990 local officials in China have forcibly taken farmland totaling 6.72 million hectares, and owing to the gap between the actual market value of land and the amount of compensation for land actually given to farmers, [Yu estimates that] farmers have [collectively] lost around 2 trillion yuan (US$316 billion) in rights and benefits.
While the central Party leadership has said again and again that it will take concerted action against illegal land use, and has created new regulations prohibiting forced land seizures, demanding that farmers be compensated according to market value . . . and in fact this year’s No. 1 Document (一号文件) points out clearly that the portion of income from land appreciation given to farmers needs to be raised, all of these measures have met with fierce opposition from local governments. This is because at present the normal operations of local governments rely to a high-degree on so-called “land financing” (土地财政). According to a report released by the National Audit Office of the PRC in June [2011], local government debt nationally in China reached 10.7 trillion yuan, and of this 2.5 trillion yuan (or 23 percent) was guaranteed (担保) by land sales. By contrast, the estimate of total land sales income for local governments nationwide in 2010 was 2.9 trillion yuan. Which is to say that total income from land sales by local governments in 2010 is probably only sufficient to pay back the debt that will come due for the next few years.
All of this means that if the current trends do not change, standoffs like that at Wukan will most likely only increase steadily.

Last week, ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday, the regional government in the Tibet Autonomous Region
reportedly distributed more than 1 million portraits of the four generations of Communist Party leadership. The portraits were to be placed in homes, schools and temples. This highly sensitive move came amid escalating tensions in the region. Chinese state media reported this week that Tibetans had clashed with security forces in western Sichuan province, an ethnically Tibetan region. Prominent lawyer and former CMP fellow Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强) wrote on his Sina Weibo account yesterday: “Temples in the Tibetan region . . . have been required to hang portraits of the leaders Mao, Deng, Jiang and Hu. In Yining, muslims are prohibited from wearing beards or headscarves, and they are subjected to repeated attacks. They claim to play down religious consciousness. Have the Han gone insane? Or is it the leaders of the Han who have gone insane?!” The post was quickly deleted. In this cartoon, posted by artist Crazy Crab (蟹农场) to his WordPress blog, a solitary Tibetan monk — an image of spiritual, cultural and political desolation — stands utterly diminished before four massive portraits of (in order from left to right) Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) came early in 2012, beginning on January 23. This cartoon, posted by article Chen Chunming (陈春鸣) to his blog at QQ.com, captures one of the most familiar scenes of the Chinese New Year holiday, children setting off fireworks in celebration. The red firecracker at center bears the Chinese character for “Spring,” chun.

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s “southern tour”, in which the architect of China’s reform and opening policy (retired at the time, but still powerful behind the scenes) re-invigorated economic reforms against staunch opposition. And there is a strong sense in China today that the country again stands at a reform crossroads.
Key figures within the Communist Party, including Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝), and such notable academics as Sun Liping (孙立平) — the former doctoral adviser to now vice-president and successor apparent Xi Jinping (习近平) —have warned that China’s development is threatened by resistance to further reforms.
Others argue that China’s reform project is already a proven success, and that China’s government-led economic model is an example for others to follow. There is no need, in other words, for further reform.
Then there are those who believe reforms are to blame for the problems China faces today, and who say China should turn back.
Behind these competing views, which I have just vastly oversimplified, is a general sense of unease over exactly what China’s upcoming leadership transition this year will bring. This is more than a vague uncertainty. President Hu Jintao’s July 1 speech to commemorate the Party’s 90th anniversary, a carefully scripted text emerging no doubt from much internal wrangling, was a virtual blank slate, giving no indication of what anyone can expect beyond an emphasis on “stability.”
Adding to our dossier on the reform debate inside China, the following piece is from Qin Xiao (秦晓), a former Red Guard who has held a series of important positions at various state-run enterprises and is now chairman of the Boyuan Foundation, a Hong Kong-based economic think-tank.
This article, which first appeared on FT Chinese on January 20, has been re-posted on a number of China’s major internet portal sites, including QQ.com and Hexun. QQ.com attributes the article to Nanfang Online, the official website of the official Party newspaper in Guangdong province, Nanfang Daily.
A few comments on the article at QQ.com follow below:

“Reform in China Must Not Stop in its Tracks”
By Qin Xiao (秦晓)
People in China generally believed in the 1950s that socialism was the liberator of the people. Free markets, on the other hand, were detrimental to society. In the 1960s, when I was packed off to the countryside in Inner Mongolia for re-education (再教育) I recognized that the ideological fervor [over socialism] masked inherent defects in our planned economy. That is where I would like to begin telling China’s story.
As a corporate leader, I have personally experienced the past 30 years of reform. I have a greater understanding of the problems China must face. China is now in the midst of a latter phase of transition from a planned economy to a market economy — and our discussion of the relationship between the government and the market is vastly different from that seen in countries with mature market economies.
While China’s rate of economic growth has stood around 10 percent annually for three decades now, our debate still orbits around the following question: Has this success resulted from government control, or from free market [economics]? The answer [we give] to this question will decide China’s future. Will China continue to promote free market reforms that have yet to be completed, or will it bring three decades of transition to an end? Do the problems now facing China’s economy, and social tensions in our country, originate with market reforms themselves, or are they the result of bottlenecks and setbacks in the reform process? Is China’s [present] state-led economic model an end in itself, or should it be changed through deeper reforms?
In the process of tackling economic problems, democratic governments are restrained by the preferences of the electorate and by struggles among political parties. This can mean that efficiencies are sacrificed, or that responses are excessive. Modern democratic systems are not always ideal partners with market systems. Nevertheless, there are no utopias in our world, and there is no such thing as the ideal system. The question of whether these systems can be sustained and whether they can be accepted by society rests on whether or not they can avoid gross mistakes, whether they have mechanisms for correction and can make relevant and necessary adjustments.
Economists and statesmen have historically sought a model that might replace the modern market [economic] model. Two of the principal experiments put forward were the “Leninist-Stalinist Model” (列宁-斯大林模式) of the Soviet Union and the so-called “Asian Model” (东亚模式). The former provided the basis for China’s planned economy of the Mao Zedong era. Most representative of the latter model was Japan, and the model made economic stars of Japan and several other Asian nations.
In the 1930s, as the economies of the West slid into the “Great Depression”, the role of the Leninist-Stalinist Model in driving rapid economic growth in the Soviet Union was hotly discussed among economists. Thirty to forty years later the Japanese model became another hot point of debate. Nevertheless, history has already proclaimed the failure of these two models. The first model suffered sclerosis, sacrificing basic human rights to divert all energy to development of the economy and the military. The second model created price distortions (价格扭曲), misallocation of resources (资源错配) and corruption (官商勾结).
The modern democratic and market system still needs to be improved, but it remains viable — and no better choice has yet been found.
Well then, what does this teach China? In the 1970s, China’s government launched off on a process of reform and opening, setting aside the planned economic model and converting to a socialist market economy. In this way China’s economy was spared collapse and developed rapidly. In the early stages of this transition it was necessary for the government to play a leading role as the market was not yet developed, and this [necessity] resulted in the emergence of a government-driven model not unlike that of the [previous] Asian or Japanese models.
The mission of this government-driven model has now been achieved. But now we must cast aside the impediments [to further development] kept in place by powerful vested interests (特殊利益团体), transforming the function of the government and further promoting market reforms.
At present there are two tasks we must work to achieve. First, the government must shift the focus away from developing the economy (发展经济) over to improving rule of law and providing public services (公共服务). Second, our economic system must be transitioned from a government-led [model] to a market-led [model], with the government serving only a regulatory function.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned goals, the government must dispense with approval procedures for all sorts of economic and market activities (aside from industries that must necessarily be regulated). [It must] cease interfering with market pricing and transactions, progressively removing controls on land, labor, energy, mining and capital pricing (interest and exchange rates). The government must reform monopoly [state-run] enterprises. [It must] carry out a fair and efficient process of privatization of state-owned assets. [It must] reform tax institutions (税收制度) with the goal of improving social welfare. Aside from these, [the government] must increase spending on social security, healthcare, education, housing, the environment and other public services.
The spread of the economic crisis throughout [developed] capitalist countries has prompted skepticism about the future fate of free markets. Nevertheless, China’s story cannot become the justification for opposing free markets. Quite the contrary, market reforms are the reason China has achieved success over the past 30 years.
To move forward, China now must transform the role of the government in economic life, promoting further reform in the direction of a free market system. Our mission is still not accomplished.

The following are a number of comments appearing after this article at QQ.com:
(1) In fact reforms have already stopped. We’re even seeing a turning back!
实际上已经停止,而且出现倒退!
(2) Private ownership is the root of ten-thousand evils.
私有制是万恶之源。
(3) Aren’t reforms done? What need is there for further reform?
改革不是已改完了？怎么还要改？
(4) In order to protect vested interests, [reforms] have basically already stopped, or even gone backward! For example, state monopolies and such.
为了维护既得利益，已经基本止步，甚至倒退！比如国企的垄断等等。
(5) The impression people have now is: economic reforms have been stalled for a long time, and the progress on rule of law has gone backwards with major strides.
现在给人的印象是：经济改革长期停滞，法治化进程在大踏步后退。
(6) Prices are going up every year, and little people like me see no increase in wages so its really negative growth. How can I support reform achievements like that?
物价年年涨，我等小民收入没增就等于负增长，这样的改革成就我等如何赞成
(7) Constant reform is the only way of ensuring the country keeps in stride with the times.
不断改革乃是保证国家与时俱进的根本方式！
(8) The planned economy is just a power economy, an economy for officials. That’s where the obstacle to reform is, everyone knows that.
什么计划经济，就是权力经济，就是官经济。改革的阻力在哪里，国人都明白的。

Chinese media reported with shock in January 2012 that the airport in the city of Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan province, was charging 68 yuan (US$10.7) for bowls of instant noodles the would ordinarily cost at most six yuan in the city. Despite nationwide reporting of these incredible prices, Changsha’s airport continued charging them as usual. In this cartoon, posted by Cao Yi (曹一) to his blog at QQ.com, TV cameras attempt to surround the Changsha airport, where a chef smiles self-assuredly as he offers bowls of noodles for 68 yuan — but the airport, disguised by a giant turtle shell, is utterly impervious.

At a discussion forum of the Guangdong People’s Congress in January 2012, delegate Zhong Keji (钟课枝) advocated more “positive news,” saying that it seemed to her that China’s media was too full of coverage about corruption and other matters. Chinese media quoted her as saying at the forum: “Supposing everything we see is about this Party secretary falling from grace today, and that city mayor falling from grace tomorrow, how sad would that be? That just shows that problems have appeared in our system. Just like with food safety. I don’t want to see that kind of stuff. I just can’t take it.” In response, Zhu Xiaodan (朱小丹), another delegate at the forum, said: “When cadres have committed wrongs and are handled by the justice system, we must let the people know this. . . Not wanting to see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If we have problems within our [leadership] team, we cannot hide this from the people.” In this cartoon, “The Ostrich Delegate” (《鸵鸟代表》), posted to Sina Weibo by the inimitably bold Kuang Biao (邝飚), Zhong Keji is depicted as an ostrich with her head buried in the earth. She is identifiable by her red “delegate” badge. The text on the cartoon is her quote, as above.

In a post today, CMP Director Ying Chan discussed the way presidential elections in Taiwan this month were actively discussed in mainland China despite a directive from the Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department that limited Chinese newspapers to using Xinhua News Agency coverage.
Not surprisingly, domestic Chinese microblogs were one of the places where discussion of the elections in Taiwan was most active — and where in fact it continues.
This post, for example, made after Ma Ying-jeou’s victory Saturday by Hong Kong journalist Luqiu Luwei (闾丘露薇), was still being shared and discussed today:

Ma Ying-jeou has won, showing that elections are not a scary thing for a ruling party. Elections four years ago were steady and smooth, and this year was no different. This isn’t the work of any one political party or political figure, but rather a reflection of how the Taiwan electorate has slowly matured. . .

Just to give readers a sense of the microblog-based reach someone like Luqiu Luwei can have, she has a reported following on Sina Weibo of close to 1.3 million. And while followers for VIP account holders can be inflated by microblog service providers in China, there is no doubt Luqiu’s following is substantial.
In response to the Luqiu Luwei post above, one mainland user on Sina Weibo wrote: “[Chinese] authorities, why do you fear elections?”
On that note we turn here to one of the most interesting pieces to appear on domestic microblogs in China this month on the question of democracy in China. The post, converted from text into an image file (a fairly effective means of eluding censorship), addresses one of the most frequent rationalizations given by opponents of democracy in China: that the Chinese people are just too base in character to make it work.
Posted on January 6, this version of the image-as-text file was shared more than 9,000 times on Sina Weibo, drawing close to 2,300 comments as of January 17. We’ve posted the image file as the bottom of our translation, and readers can see from the overlapping Weibo account names at the bottom-right that this file was re-posted a number of times.

Those who fight against democracy, please answer the following questions right away:
1. You emphasize that our people are of low character, not suited to carrying out Western democratic systems. But how is it then that we are able to implement an even more advanced socialist system? Is it that socialism doesn’t demand of the people a very high-level of character and conduct? Or is it that socialism is inferior to capitalism?
2. You advertise that autocracy is more efficient than democracy, and so you reject democracy. If this is the case, wouldn’t an even more autocratic imperial system have a higher degree of efficiency still? Should we then return to the imperial system? Is high efficiency necessarily good? And what if there is high efficiency in doing bad things — what then?
3. You emphasize that our people are intelligent, hardworking, courageous and good, the most excellent people on earth. How then do you explain that this most excellent population, having passed through 5,000 years of corrupt history and then having subsequently lived through 50 years under the most advanced and ideal system replacing [the old corrupt system], are still of such low character that they aren’t suited to the most basic democratic rights?
4. You emphasize that the peoples’ character is too low so we can’t have democracy, but why is it that intra-party democracy too cannot move ahead? Does this mean that elites within the Party are also of low character? If people are of low character, are they qualified to rule a nation and its people?
5. You say that the Party is the servant of the people, and that the people are the masters of our nation, but you emphasize that we must uphold Party leadership. Why is this?
6. You say on the one hand that we must take command politically, that politics is a required course. But on the other hand, you don’t allow us to discuss politics. On the one hand you say officials must talk politics, but on the other you don’t allow the ordinary people to participate in the administration and discussion of state affairs.
7. You say that you represent advanced culture, but you can’t tolerate freedom of expression as mandated in our Constitution. You don’t permit criticism, but only allow paeans of praise [for the Party]. So where is this advanced [culture] you talk about?
8. If the National People’s Congress is the highest organ of power in our country, why is it that it must work under the leadership of the Party?
9. Why though you are clearly staunch materialists do you completely worship a fabricated Ism [i.e., socialism with Chinese characteristics] and define this as the ultimate truth, not permitting the existence of other ideas?
10. If the people are the masters of our nation, why is it that these masters don’t have the right to demand democracy, freedom and human rights?
11. Why is it do you think that while the Party has set its mind to opposing corruption, corruption has not just seen no decline over the past decade and more, but in fact has grown more and more serious? Does this mean that the central Party’s commitment to fight corruption isn’t strong enough, or that it doesn’t have sufficient capacity?
12. You publicize the advanced nature of the proletariat, and you publicize violent revolution. But when the proletariat has used violent revolution to seize power and then annihilates the propertied classes to become the masters of the nation and monopolize all of the resources of society, cna they still be called the proletariat? Can they still maintain their advanced nature? Did our nation’s proletariat really become the nation’s masters?
13. [You have said:] “Why must we have violent revolution? Because the proletariat are the most advanced, and they demand revolution”; “Why is the proletariat the most advanced? Because they are the most completely devoted to the revolution.” What kind of logic is this?
14. You have publicized that, “Revolution is guiltless, and revolt is rational.” But now you emphasize that “stability is the overriding priority,” afraid of the wind even stirring the grass. In this era of peace, how is it that you work along contrary lines?
15. You publicize that we are a society where each person receives according to his labor, but the the power and standards for distribution [of wealth and resources] are all in the hands of just a few officials, and ordinary Chinese don’t have the right to question. What should we make of this?
16. You say there was “never a Savior”, but you parade the idea that “he [Mao Zedong] was the Great Liberator.” How do you explain that? [NOTE: Here the writer is attacking the cult of Mao Zedong, the idea that the leader’s legacy is unassailable.]
17. You publicize that in our wicked old society the people were no better than cattle and horses, but you call on the people to strive to be willing old oxen of the revolution. Could you explain this idea?
18. How is it that our leaders are always the greatest and most enlightened, but our people are always regarded as having a debased character? Is it that our leaders are unable or unwilling to work to lift up the character of the people? And how is it that we can manage to find such great and enlightened from among a population of debased character? Further, wouldn’t it be right to say that in those countries where the character of the people is not so base, the leaders there even greater and more enlightened than our own?
19. How is it that [you say] our system is the most advanced, that our government is that most enlightened, that our leaders are great, and our people are the most diligent, but the country is still very backward and poor?
20. You say that the Party was established for the people, that [the Party] is single-minded in serving the people, but the expenses of the Party are from the national treasury and the people don’t have the right to ask questions about them. Why is that?
21. The people are asked to report their personal income and pay taxes, but there is objection to the idea that government officials make their assets and holdings public. What is the reason behind this?
22. Why is it that the people are asked to pay taxes but have never been informed how this money is being spent?
23. Why is it that our economy has shown a high rate of growth year after year but the incomes of ordinary Chinese have not grown?
24. Why is it that ordinary Chinese are always asked to obey this rule or that rule, but have never been permitted to voice their doubts about the rationale behind these rules?
25. Why is it that when officials pocket millions of yuan through corrupt means these acts can always be played down, but if an ordinary citizen steals just more than ten-thousand yuan they can face capital punishment?
26. Why is it that the proletariat are the most advanced? Is it that one can become advanced simply by becoming poor, by having nothing? Do our poor people today still have this advanced nature?
27. Seeing as [according to Party doctrine] the workers are the master class of our nation, why is it that masses of laid-off workers have fallen to the lowest levels of our society?
28. Why when you are materialists through and through are you constantly seizing control, with a mountain of paperwork and a sea of meetings all to send out instructions, [urging] consensus, the study of ideology, understanding the essence [of this or that declaration], expending so much energy on all of these ideological things?
29. Why when you are materialists through and through do you have such a taste for all of these superficial articles, exaggerating and concealing things, and why do you send all of these slogans flying?
30. Why when you are materialists through and through are you so vigorous in controlling thought, requesting [, as the Party did during the Cultural Revolution, that the people] ask for instructions in the morning, report their actions in the evening, and engage in determined self-criticism?

On December 21, 2011, a journalist in Henan’s capital city of Zhengzhou stumbled across a sign outside a local restaurant that said: “The following types of people will not be served: 1. Those who aren’t filial to their parents; 2. Those who keep mistresses; 3. Those who use public funds for themselves; 4. Those who don’t believe that property prices will drop.” The boss of the restaurant told the reporter that these types of customers rubbed him the wrong way and insisted this was a principal on which he ran his business, not a purposeful advertisement. News of the sign quickly spread across China’s internet, resulting in a number of cartoons. In the above cartoon, posted by artist Chen Chunming (陈春鸣) to his blog at QQ.com, a restaurant owner leans across his service counter, apparently asleep, as he has no customers to serve. The sign on the counter reads: “The following types of people will not be served: 1. Those who aren’t filial to their parents; 2. Those who keep mistresses; 3. Those who use public funds for themselves; 4. Those who don’t believe that property prices will drop.” A dog looks on, thinking to himself: “So, this boss isn’t short on cash?”