They were equipped with police truncheons, attack dogs, private jails and special armored vehicles. The whole escort organization, for so it was called, was staffed much like a military outfit: one political commissar, one battalion chief, three captains, a central battalion made up of two to three companies, and seven or eight men to a company. They were outfitted just like riot police, with the same uniforms and helmets. On their left and right shoulders were dark patches emblazoned with white characters: “Special Service.”
And this entire apparatus of violence was operated as a private enterprise. Put another way, this was the private militia of legend. And the fact that this private militia could operate for so many years is something that leaves us all staring speechlessly.
Hired By Local Governments
If this was a private enterprise, it of course had to have clients. And who were their clients? Media reports have revealed that the clients of this private enterprise were a number of local governments, and particularly the Beijing representative offices of these local governments. The objective in hiring their services was to utilize their strength to round up petitioners in Beijing, a systematic extralegal application of force of the kind that could not be wielded by local governments themselves as they were subject to legal restrictions.
This private contingent is a joint stock company publicly registered with the Beijing Municipal Industrial and Commercial Administration, and its name is Anyuanding (安元鼎).
This is truly a strange creature: an entity spawned by modern market mechanisms involving the privatization, profit-ization and commercialization of every stage of the administrative work of “stability preservation,” from arrest and detention to physical violence and dispatching petitioners home by force — all of these tasks have become modes of profit-making, translatable into maximum profits.
This remarkable phenomenon has no precedent in China or anywhere else. Put plainly, Anyuanding, this contingent with Chinese characteristics, was essentially a kidnapping company with rights of special license, and its core business was sanguine violence.
Any age might have its reactionaries. Even well-governed America became home to Jim Jones’ quasi-religious organization People’s Temple. So the chief problem here is not the existence of Anyuanding per se. The real issue is: how was it that the reactionary group Anyuanding was able to obtain these special permissions, and how was it able to sign contracts with so many local governments, building up its business? If they had not been favored with these contracts, Anyuanding would not have survived a single day.
Actually, saying they were favored [with these contracts] is not entirely accurate. Because this was not a one-directional bestowal of favors, but rather a mutually beneficial commercial exchange. Anyuanding was able to make money hand over fist, and these local governments benefitted even more richly — they were relieved of a great deal of trouble that had heretofore vexed them, and their political performance and future positions were insured as a result. What great satisfaction to everyone concerned!
Of course, their mutual satisfaction has been purchased at the grave cost of the sacrifice of rights petitioners traveling to Beijing, and at the cost too of our national system of laws. The latter, alas, is the gravest of dangers. The harm done by Anyuanding is about not just naked violence — rather, it is about local governments and their utter desolation of human rights and rule of law. It is about their total dependence upon extralegal violence.
It was the vast market opportunity presented by extralegal violence that spawned the strange phenomenon that is Anyuanding. What we are witnessing at work here is the objective incompetence and recklessness of local governments, whether it’s about government sending their own people to intercept petitioners, or whether it’s about the marketization of this process whereby private companies are entrusted with the task.
We see now that not only are local governments incapable of attaining to the ideal plain of rule of law, but they in fact find it nearly impossible to sustain even the autocratic status quo of the past. All they can manage is the control of people. They’ll take care of those they see as troublemakers first and then look to other things. If they can use money to take care of it, so much the better. If money is of no avail, well, I’m sorry, but they’ll just have to apply their own force directly to handle it. The business has nothing whatsoever to do with sympathies, reason or the law — if the situation is desperate enough, none of that matters.
The recent incident in Yihuang (宜黄), in which several people set fire to themselves to protest eviction from their home, is the perfect footnote to this problem.
After the tragedy of the self-immolation, two female family members of the victims tried to travel to Beijing at the invitation of a Phoenix TV program, but local authorities, who thought they were heading to the capital to petition for official action, conducted a hair-raising mission to intercept them and prevent their departure. Just picture how a handful of women were under siege by scores of riot police, requiring no legal procedures whatsoever, until the women were forced to take refuge in the women’s restroom at an airport. As cruel and brutal as Anyuanding is, the local government of Yihuang is no more gentle or honorable.
All of these outrageous and illegal acts are masked by a high-sounding abstract noun — the so-called “stability preservation” practiced by these local governments. So long as it’s done in the name of stability preservation, any extreme measures can be employed. So long as it’s in the name of stability preservation, there is no need whatsoever for legal restrictions. So long as it’s in the name of stability preservation, anything goes, fair or foul. Neither the Constitution nor any of the rest of our laws have the power to control this so-called “stability preservation” practiced by local governments. Every ugly deed outside the law, every ugly deed undertaken in the name of personal power, is whitewashed as politically correct.
The most pressing question of local governance now facing us is about how we can use the Constitution and the law to bring the “stability preservation” actions of these local governments under control, how we can effectively check these actions within the framework of our Constitution and laws, so we can fundamentally put a stop to this battle being waged by local governments against the people.
Fundamentally A Question of Development Modes
In fact, these petitioners flocking to Beijing with their grievances are perhaps all, without exception, the creation of the local governments themselves. They are fish who have escaped the encircling nets of their local government. Fundamentally, then, this is not a question of how to stop petitioners, and it is not a question, as local governments suggest, of “stability preservation.” These are all derivatives of the core issue, and that is the question of the present nature of development in our country.
It is generally believed that our current mode of development in China is traditional in nature. Traditional in what way? It is traditional in the sense that its nucleus is the same system we had in the past. Development of our economy requires the government’s hand of guidance, and creating dividends requires the government’s protection. No other powers can contend with the government, and so regardless of whether it’s about economic development or the distribution of dividends, the government has pride of place, and it cannot be resisted or hindered in its forward progress.
This is precisely why these local governments have the unbridled audacity to fight their own people, puffed up as they are with a pluck and nerve reminiscent of the age of the Great Leap Forward.
The self-immolation case of Tang Fuzhen in Chongqing, the self-immolation case of the Zhong family in Yihuang — in the minds of local governments cases like these are incidental exceptions. They believe their machine of tyranny can move mountains, and apart from surrender and capitulation what choice do those who face them really have? Clearly, they have underestimated the spirit of resistance. They never supposed that after these people had been deprived of every legal avenue of recourse, that once the iron walls of helplessness closed in, they would take up the only and final weapon left to them.
Who would dare trifle with their own life? That is the basis on which these local government leaders make their decisions. They are brimming with confidence, ready to exert force and psychological pressure to the last in a no-holds-barred struggle. They never consider the extremes those they stand against might go to. Once things actually do backfire, only then are they stricken dumb, at a loss as to how to respond. That’s when they move like madmen to contain the truth, because the truth is something they cannot withstand.
This is the operating logic of our traditional mode of development.
This mode is still capable yet of producing sustained economic growth within a limited period of time, but it is also constantly creating new social problems, and its price is the constant of social conflict. The sustained emergence of these problems and conflicts has at last outpaced the capacity of our current system to deal with them. It has reached such a point that so-called normal channels are utterly powerless to resolve them.
No Time to Be Lost for Political Reforms
Why do we need political reform? The reason is right here before us.
The crux of this development mode is our traditional political system. The stability preservation mechanisms of many of these local governments today are merely adaptations of the traditional political system to suit the age of the market economy.
Against this backdrop, these recent revelations about the private security firm Anyuanding are timely. They can rouse us to a realization of the evils of our traditional system as it has become inbred with the market, and show us the extremes to which these evils can reach.
For this reason, political reforms cannot wait. We can glimpse from this the importance of the fact that Premier Wen Jiabao, at a recent national meeting on lawful administration, and as he emphasized the need for political reform, particularly stressed the importance of building a law-based government, and the need for all offices and agencies to conduct themselves in accord with the law and the Constitution.
What this means is that building a law-based government (法治政府) is at the core of political reform, and a law-based government is as much at odds with our traditional system, which is subjected to no legal checks, as fire is to water.
The chief goal of political reform is to completely clear away the unreasonable aspects of our traditional political system, and this is just a matter of course. To wrestle political power into the cage of law, we must use rule of law to place checks on the government, and not allow local governments to bypass our national laws as suits their needs. If we hope to avoid cancers like Anyuanding, we must start by reaching a consensus on this question so that we can begin the work of political reform.
This editorial originally appeared in Chinese at Time Weekly.

News and propaganda training sessions are too ubiquitous in China to be at all newsworthy. Nor are they particularly interesting. But they do provide a glimpse into how national media policy is being talked about and implemented in China’s cities, provinces and autonomous regions.
The following is a translation of coverage earlier this month of a session on news and propaganda in Ningxia, attended by Wang Chen (王晨), director of the State Council Information Office and effectively China’s top Internet control official.
The Ningxia study session relays the CCP’s media control policy as outlined by President Hu Jintao in his June 2008 speech at People’s Daily, which we have termed “Control 2.0” at the China Media Project.
Control 2.0 is the idea, essentially, that traditional controls on information are insufficient in the new media age, and that officials must use a combination approach to information involving both “control” and “use” of the media. They must, on the one hand, strategically control highly sensitive information, and on the other hand actively push their own agenda and “authoritative” information.
The two most important buzzwords for this policy are “guidance of public opinion,” or yulun daoxiang (舆论导向), the post-Tiananmen term for media control to maintain social and political stability, and “public opinion challenging,” or yulun yindao (舆论引导), the more active agenda-setting dimension. You can think of the first as strategic information control, and the second as strategic information release.

Ningxia Holds Training Session on “News Release and Public Opinion Channeling”
On September 3, the Information Office of the State Council and the Party Committee of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region jointly held a training session in Yinchuan on “News Release and Public Opinion Channeling.” Wang Chen (王晨), a deputy minister of the Central Propaganda Department and director of the State Council Information Office, issued a report on current overall patterns of international public opinion and on raising capacity for public opinion channeling and creating a favorable public opinion environment. Yang Chunguang (杨春光), a member of the party committee and propaganda minister of the autonomous region, led the opening ceremony.
The current training session, which will last for one and a half days, is an important instance of training for thoroughly carrying out the spirit of the 17th National Party Congress and the Fourth Plenum of the 17th Party Committee, thoroughly carrying out the demand on Party and government cadres at various levels in the autonomous region to raise public opinion channeling capacity, improve news and propaganda work and particularly to raise the level of external propaganda work, in order to promote the creation of a favorable public opinion environment for development strides in our region.
Wang Chen gave an excellent report on the significance of doing an effective job of public opinion channeling under the new situation [of global communication and new technologies], of using discourse power effectively, of grasping the initiative [in public opinion channeling], and on the achievements of our country over the past few years in conducting external propaganda and public opinion channeling work. When he spoke about how to do public opinion channeling work in our region effectively, he talked about [the need to] increase the strength of positive propaganda; to conscientiously prepare for sudden-breaking incidents; to actively carry out diversified forms of cultural propaganda; to effectively use the Internet and new media to strengthen Ningxia’s propaganda efforts; to draw support from external forces in order to cooperate with media outside the region; to actively conduct publicity and cooperation with Islamic nations; to achieve unity in thinking, cohering forces and firmly grasping guidance of public opinion, constantly working to create a new prospects for public opinion channeling.
Yang Chunguang (杨春光) said leaders and cadres from various levels must clearly recognize the importance and necessity of doing an effective job of actively channeling public opinion. [He urged those present to] work hard to study the art of channeling public opinion under the new circumstances (新形势下) [of information technology, etc.], increasing their capacity for handling sudden-breaking events and sensitive issues, steadily raising their ability to connect with the media, particularly media from outside the region, effectively using the media to correctly channel public opinion. They must [said Yang] use the opportunity afforded by this training session to resolve outstanding problems in their work, pushing the external propaganda and public opinion channeling work of our region to a new level, and making a contribution to the new round of building up [China’s] western regions and thoroughly building a moderately well-off society (小康社会).

This person you’re talking about was convicted for violating Chinese laws. I think his actions run counter to the principles of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Taiwan’s United Daily News recently ran an opinion poll showing that negative feelings toward mainlanders were on the rise among Taiwanese. As the United Daily News is a newspaper rather favorably disposed to the mainland, poll results like this cannot simply be brushed aside. When I spoke about this with a few Taiwanese who had regular contact with mainlanders, they said their negative feelings about mainlanders were mainly that they were insensible and unreasonable. Objectively speaking, there aren’t, proportionally, too many mainlanders who are completely unreasonable, and a lot of this stink, particularly over the conduct of mainland tourists, has to do with Taiwanese media themselves, which have exaggerated the issue and helped to form the stereotype.
If we’re honest with ourselves, however, we’ll admit that rudeness is something quite common in China. We see it all the time, as when someone cuts in line and then curses you to high heaven when you call them out. On China’s roads, reason must yield all the time as unreason cuts into traffic — how else can we avoid fender benders? In the virtual world of the Internet rudeness is par for the course, and 80-90 percent of comments are vicious attacks. People will spend half a day cursing something you’ve written without even bothering to first understand it. Sometimes reading the headline is enough to set them off. And unreason has now spread to the new medium of the microblog, where readers will curse you and all of your ancestors for a single line you wrote.
Bickering is the way of the Web in China. There are no rules of conduct, no preconditions or demands for logic and consistency. If you can bowl your opponent over with insults you win. This atmosphere of unreason is so all-consuming that even those who take pride in being reasonable are dragged down into the mud.
Certainly, I understand why things are the way they are. We spend our whole lives, from childhood to old age, in a culture and living context of unreason, so that we are totally habituated to it. To this day, our education system actively feeds animosity. Class struggle is no longer the iron rule, but struggle exists everywhere. We haven’t make a clean breast of our own history, and piled-up grievances still run amok.
Look at our films and television dramas and the way they portray war as a simple game of sticking it to the enemy. There is no soul-searching, no nuance.
Our government hopes we, the public, will remain calm and reasonable and not get worked up into an emotional frenzy, but in the practical course of daily life, the government lords it over us with complete unreason. You need only try to take care of business at a government agency to experience this utter deafness to reason. Or you can look, of course, at the peremptory insolence of the whole process of forced demolition and removal. On our internet, if Web control authorities are unhappy with something, they can delete a post just like that, not even bothering to give a reason. Where there is power, there is neither right nor reason.
But even though this is the world we live in, we must nevertheless learn to be reasonable. Each and every one of us, even as we act without reason, hopes to be treated reasonably by others. In moments of disadvantage, all of us, reasonable and unreasonable alike, hope that we will be treated with reason. No one can sustain the advantage forever, forcing others to eat humble pie. Cheat others too far and they’ll resort to violent resistance, playing a deadly game in which we all will crash and burn. In the havoc of unreason, everyone loses out, even those on the cheating end.
I’m quite sure the vast majority of people who pour out their curses online are actually people in positions of weakness in their actual lives, people who are trampled by unreason. They hope for democracy, but they have no idea how to even begin to change their circumstances.
But if we want to improve our lives, the only way is to improve ourselves. Our first step is learning to be reasonable. This is a process that begins with each debate or argument, each time we go online. If we cannot learn to be reasonable, even if one day democracy does indeed come, we will find ourselves unable to accommodate it. We will turn it into a mobocracy, something even more frightful than what we have now.
This essay originally appeared in Chinese at Southern Metropolis Daily.

Thirty years ago, as China’s economy tottered on the edge of insolvency, Deng Xiaoping stepped in and fashioned order out of chaos. He called for robust development of the economy in order to save both country and Party. It has never been smooth sailing, however, and voices have clamored from time to time about the need to be clear about our path ideologically, about whether China is “surnamed Capitalism or surnamed Socialism.”
At each critical juncture we have come to, the courageous Deng Xiaoping would pull out with his “black cat and white cat” theory. He would urge everyone to shut their mouths and stop bickering about whether China is “surnamed Capitalism or surnamed Socialism,” all the while actively pushing economic reform and drawing lessons from the experiences of other countries.
Today, thirty years on, China has reached another critical juncture. We have made wondrous achievements in economic development. But this development has, at the same time, exposed the unsuitability of our political system. Government controls are now seriously out of joint with China’s ever rising and expanding civil society.
In this moment, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, among others, have emphasized repeatedly that China must move forward with the process of opening and reform, and that China must also deepen political reforms. And also in this moment, so reminiscent of the clamor thirty years ago, we hear certain people standing up and saying we need to distinguish clearly between socialist democracy (社会主义民主) and Western democracy (西方民主).
What a striking echo of thirty years ago! Which should we accept, and which reject? Remember, Yang Hengjun has taught us that when we cannot see the road ahead, we must turn our gaze back on the past.
The difficulties facing us now are no less significant than those that faced us thirty years ago. It’s only that the problem now concerns political reform rather than economic reform.
Political reform is reform centering on democracy, freedom and rule of law. It is something that concerns the fate of 1.3 billion people, the fate of our nation, and the fate of every member of the Communist Party of China. If we lend any credence today to those vested power interests that would hold our nation hostage, if we listen to those people sitting in their rooms and relying on a book written by some German more than 100 years ago to chart a path along which 1.3 billion Chinese must travel, well then, the “dead end” that Premier Wen spoke about can’t be too far off.
The most recent edition of Seeking Truth (求是) includes an article bylined “Autumn Stone” (秋石) entitled, “The Basic Character and Superiority of the Democratic Politics of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” The article says that we must “make a clear distinction between the democratic politics of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the democracy of Western capitalism.” “Autumn Stone” is in fact the pen name for a certain Peking University professor working with several editors and journalists at Seeking Truth. The essay is a collective product of this group.
I’ve always had strong views on “refraining from disputation” (不争论). My feeling is that so long as everyone has the same basic animus, speaking up for our country and our people rather for their personal vested interests, then moderate, fair and reasonable debate should be encouraged. When I read this essay in Seeking Truth, however, I detected at many points an utter indifference to reality, a disregard for common sense, and even an outright spuriousness. I had to step up and say a few things, both as a citizen and as a Party member of more than twenty years.
Are there really only two kinds of democracy in the world?
To start off, I must acknowledge that the authors do concede that democracy is the global trend, and a goal Chinese have looked to for more than a century. As they point out, the key question is how to achieve democracy, and what kind of democracy. After that, they suggest that China has only two roads and models before it, one being democracy with Chinese characteristics, the other being a totally Western style of democracy (全盘西化的民主).
Having read up to that point I was completely at a loss for words, because they had — after the manner of a street fight — established their premise and then gone on to argue it through. Through this sleight of hand they remove the need for argument altogether. With their premise established at the outset, they’ve effectively won the argument.
Based on everything I know, the “totally Western” style of democracy the authors have such a problem with has precious few converts anywhere in our 1.3 billion population, including among those who are ardent supporters of democracy. Where are these people who are advocating the total Westernization of their country? Or advocating the total anything-ization of their country?
I would like to ask: When did America ever totally anglicize? Is French democracy a complete Americanization? Can the democratic systems of Europe and the democratic system of the United States be broad-brushed with this label “Western democracy”? Can we even say that Japan’s democracy, fashioned under the grip of the United States, is a “totally Americanized” form of democracy? The same question goes for the other democracies of Asia, Africa and Latin America, including Chinese Taiwan.
The authors use a falsely dualistic, black-and-white logic to establish a supposed “total Westernization” as their hated enemy. Then they set up democracy with Chinese characteristics as the only alternative to this monstrous enemy.
In fact, every country has its own unique character and circumstances. All countries show differences in degree of economic development. The qualities and characters of their people are different. Their historical factors are different. And this means that the democracies that emerge in various countries are different.
But the authors of the Seeking Truth article are concerned with more than just unique characteristics. Their objective is to launch an attack against the very concept of “democracy,” using nice-sounding phrases to steal away with the agenda. And who are you robbing of the agenda? If you really want to declare that “autocracy” is “democracy,” then the Chinese character for “black” might just as well mean “white.” Just wait and see how many countries in the world will argue this point with you.
What you really need to be clear about is this — Is your so-called democracy, regardless of its special characteristics, the same basic thing other countries with their own systems and understanding of democracy are talking about when they say “democracy”? If not, I suggest you use some other word. Why must you press your hot face against the cold backside of Western democracy? What is your purpose in trying to hijack the discourse power in terms of the definition of this word?
The principal here is simple. You can’t just pull an old, worn-out pair of shoes out from under the bed and say, look, this is democracy. You cannot brandish a rifle and force everyone to repeat after you, inculcating the idea into our children’s minds at school, that this old pair of shoes is “democracy.” What age do you think we live in? Calling an ass by a horse’s name is taking a page from the almanac of 2,000 years ago.
What is the “true people’s democracy”?
I don’t know where the fee came from for this great work in Seeking Truth, but not only does it call an ass by a horse’s name — it also plays the game of calling a horse by an asses name. The essay employs all sorts of terms that are neither here nor there. Like the “true people’s democracy.” You tell me, is that not a joke?
Democracy was defined in the Chinese-language dictionary long ago as “rule by the people,” but they want to take one “people” and use it to restrict another “people.” They don’t rest there either. They have to add on the word “true” as well. They leave our heads spinning. We can’t make out who “the people” are, or who the people who are the true people are. We’re all completely confused. They are the only ones who aren’t confused, because clearly it’s they who presume to represent “the people,” and to realize the “true people’s democracy.”
The authors say at the outset that they want to show that Western democracy is not the “true people’s democracy.” Actually, though, there’s no reason for them to bother. Look back decades and you’ll find that no Westerner has ever claimed that their form of democracy is the “true people’s democracy.”
The essay emphasizes over and over again that Western democracy is the democracy of the bourgeoisie, a democracy manipulated by the rich, and that “presidents are all people with money, or agents of people with money.” They offer no more evidence than that because one size fits all. If it’s the wealthy George W. Bush stepping into the presidency, he’s a rich man. And if it’s the once-poor Bill Clinton or Barack Obama stepping into the presidency, they are agents of the rich. You have only to step into the presidency to be an agent of the rich. Their logic is ever-triumphant.
They talk about the West’s democracy for-hire, and they talk about how Western publics have already recognized the fraudulent nature of Western democracy. They cite as evidence the fact that turnout for presidential elections in the United States stands at around 50 percent. This, incidentally, is the only place in the essay that they use figures from the West to disparage Western democracy. In China, of course, you can’t conduct polls, but you can in the United States. Wouldn’t you understand this if you just went over and asked Americans?
Not only does a weak public appetite for elections not suggest that the quality of democracy is poor, but quite the opposite, only in mature democratic nations would you see this sort of thing happen. In all newly-emerged democracies the level of election turnout is extremely high (just look at democratic countries outside the West), because these new voters want to get a handle on the direction of the country and ensure they get the leaders they want. But in the West, where civil society development is robust, election turnout is inevitably lower. Candidates standing for election all cater to the public, and their policy positions often show little clear difference, so voters find it difficult to make a choice. The vast majority of those who choose not to vote do so because they believe it makes very little difference who they pick.
To combat low voter turnout, Australia has imposed fines of 50 Australian dollars on those who fail to vote — that’s about 300 RMB — so Australia now has the highest voter turnout in the world. But Australia, with the world’s highest voter turnout, has now found itself in the same pickle, unable to distinguish the winners from the losers, with no party having a clear majority, much like the U.S. presidential elections 10 years ago. This tells us that the people have matured, and the candidates have also matured.
This attitude of apathy toward candidates is something quite different from what the writers of the Seeking Truth essay imagine to be hard evidence of the fundamental failure of democracy. These guys just can’t tell horses and cows apart. According to what they are suggesting, the voting “people” of the West have two choices before them. The first, everyone votes together and elects as president a candidate whose ambition is to realize socialism with American characteristics; The second, you advocate depriving them of this voting right they don’t seem to care for. I guarantee you that if you place these choices before them, every single American will spit in your face, and the whole country will turn out on election day.
Next year is the hundredth anniversary of the Chinese people’s pursuit of democracy and science. Over the past century China has traveled a winding and wicked path, one major reason being that our rulers have wielded false democracy to cheat the people, taking advantage of our lack of education and our economic frailty. Even today, this fraud is effective. But China has made progress toward democracy nevertheless, and we can see this in the progress the people of our country have made, in their ever-stronger sense of civic consciousness, and in the new appetite and understanding they have of democracy. They are no longer so easy to hoodwink.
And you choose this moment to reach under the bed and drag out this stinking pair of shoes. You say to the people of China, look, this is democracy.
I say to you as a Party member of twenty years, and as a citizen, that this “democracy” of yours will only bring chaos and destruction to us all.
This is a condensed version of an essay posted at Yang Hengjun’s Blog.
[Frontpage photo by Magalie L’Abbé available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

Why must you press your hot face against the cold backside of Western democracy?