Democracy with Chinese Characteristics: A Political Proposal for the Post-Communist Era

Abstract

Beijing University, June 3, 2007. SAM DEMO, program officer for a U.S.-based prodemocracy think tank, steps into the office of PROFESSOR WANG to begin a prearranged interview. PROFESSOR WANG, a respected political philosopher at Beijing University in his mid-forties, has been selected to participate in a constitutional convention due to begin the following day in Beijing. DEMO: [Out of breath] Thank you for receiving me today. I realize it must be a very busy time now. [Pause.] I'm sorry I'm late. I was stuck in traffic for over two hours. WANG: I guess that's the price a society pays for economic development. One reads in the textbooks that modernization is supposed to increase the pace of living, but the opposite may well be the case. DEMO: [Laughs] It could be worse: in the mid-1990s, the average commuter in Bangkok had to bring a potty in his car. But the traffic situation improved after the economic crash. [Short pause.] Well, I still find it hard to believe we're here to discuss the prospects for democratic political reform in China, and no need to worry about the secret police. Think about it. Five or six years ago, who would have been able to anticipate the possibility of a national convention designed to formulate a democratic constitution appropriate for China?' And on June Fourth, no less! WANG: In retrospect, it may not seem that remarkable. Remember we had a fairly open debate about political reform in the late 1980s, prior to the Tiananmen massacre. People tend to forget that the Communist Party itself set up a Political Reform Office which sometimes evaluated radical proposals for political change. And Deng's death seemed to open up some possibilities. New signs of tolerance emerged at the Communist Party's fifteenth Congress in October 1997, and intellectuals began to speak out for political reform once again.2 Besides, the Party couldn't postpone the day of reckoning forever, marking the days prior to the June Fourth anniversary with detentions, tighter surveillance of leading dissidents, controlling access to Tiananmen Square, and so on. Once again, it's easy to say this in retrospect, but in my view it was inevitable that the Party would apologize for the Tiananmen massacre, just as the KMT apologized for the February 28, 1947, massacre (though it took over four decades) and the Korean government indicted those responsible for the 1980 Kwangju massacre more than ten years after the fact. And after Li Peng had retired, it was no longer possible to hold back demands for political reform.