quelquefois

I was listening to a Radio Free Asia podcast about Charter 08 and heard this quote by City University of Hong Kong Professor Yushuo Zheng: “这些…异见分子，其实他们也是爱国的，就是提出不同的意见.” This translates roughly to: “These activists, they are actually patriotic, but they are just putting forward different viewpoints/suggestions.”

It used to be that the majority of Chinese people were apathetic or ignorant about politics, but now more and more are becoming interested and active in politics. However, while all of the politically active/vocal Chinese people are patriotic and nationalistic, they are polarized between neoconservatives and liberals.

Neoconservatives in China tend to support the current government, distrust foreign states (e.g., Japan, Western democracies), and promote the territorial and political sovereignty of China (e.g., Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang). The New Yorker wrote a very interesting article this summer about Chinese neocons. It profiled one man in particular, Tang Jie, who defends China against criticism, opposes Western political ideals, and supposedly represents the many 愤青 (angry youth) whose presence seems to increase as China continues to develop. The article seems to show a general trend of Chinese youth who believe that foreign countries have agendas against China’s rise, which incites a nationalistic and defensive reaction.

Here is another example of nationalistic Chinese students reciting a poem titled《2009中国加油》(”2009, Go China!”), written by their teachers. Lyrics (transcribed/translated by China Digital Times) include lines such as:

Lead: Earthquakes, shifting back and forth like the positions of Sarkozy, with his dirty tricks, trying to shake the great China
Lead: Did China retreat?
All: No. The Shenzhou-7 launched. We are victorious!
Lead: Pathetic Europe will never stop the insurmountable force of our great dynasty
All: Just the aftershocks from the earthquake would destroy France!
甲：地震，像萨科奇的立场，用猥琐的伎俩，摇晃着巍巍中华。
甲：中国退缩了吗？
全：没有！神七飞天了！我们胜利啦！
甲：瘦瘦的欧罗巴，挡不住天朝的金戈铁马，
全：地震的余波也能把法兰西催垮！

Lead: Do not waver, do not slow down, do not make big changes
Lead: Do not change the flag, Do not turn back
All: Step ruthlessly over all anti-China forces
甲：不动摇、不懈怠、不折腾
乙：不改旗、不易帜、不回头
全：将反华者狠狠的踏在脚下

Naturally, the government most often sides with those who defend its own actions, and most of the time, liberal or pro-democracy activists are not on that side. Even though Professor Zheng said that Charter 08 represents a different viewpoint of how to reform Chinese politics, in the eyes of the Central Party, it is interpreted as a challenge to CPC rule. Thus, they will take any measure necessary to mitigate the threat. It is unfortunate that they so swiftly dismiss and destroy any vestige of protest or dissatisfaction with the central government, because I do believe that the CPC can learn from the suggestions that intellectuals offer and improve the condition of their country, too.

In related news, when I tried to Google the drafter of Charter 08 (I am omitting his name to prevent my website from getting blocked), I got this immediately (usually if a website is blocked, it “times out,” meaning it takes about 30 seconds and then shows up as a network time out):

I know that I can easily bypass this obstacle via proxy, but I don’t really understand the government’s objective in blocking websites. Perhaps research has shown that most people are just too lazy to take the extra step and access the site via proxy?