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Chinese Village Focus of Communist Party Conflict

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Villagers show what life without the Party would be like

By Wang Hua
Epoch Times Staff

Commentary

In Wukan Village in Guangdong Province, China, villagers have been protesting for months to have a say in their own affairs—to elect their own village officials and to refuse having their land taken away from them. When Communist Party officials at the county-level on Dec. 20 agreed, with important reservations, to the villagers’ demands, the temperature was raised in an ongoing conflict about the direction of the Chinese Communist Party CCP.

There are two political forces inside the CCP. The conservative faction, represented by Bo Xilai, wants to return to the time of Mao Zedong. The reforming faction, represented by Wang Yang, the Party head of Guangdong Province, hopes that China can gradually take the path of democracy.

If the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, is the CCP official who talks the most about democracy, Wang is the one who has done the most for democracy.

In Guangzhou on Nov. 18 hundreds of workers paraded on the street asking for higher wages. Wang sent police cars to escort them. This was unprecedented in the history of the CCP.

On Nov. 21, nearly 4,000 villagers in Wukan paraded to the Lufeng City municipal building. The acting Mayor of Lufeng City, Qiu Jinxiong, met with the villagers, interrogated and detained the village cadre whom the villagers accused, and promised a thorough investigation.

The villagers returned safely. Afterwards, Qiu recognized the legitimacy of the village council that the villagers had elected on their own, without the regime’s participation, and gave wages to the council representatives—1,000 yuan (approximately US$157.79) per month for two months for each representative.

The vice chairman of the council, Xue Jinbo, however, probably became a victim of the ongoing power struggle. He was arrested on Dec. 9, and his family received a notice two days later, saying Xue had died of heart disease. The family was allowed to view but not remove the body. It was covered with bruises, the skull and sternum were broken, and fingernails had been pulled off. Xue was apparently tortured to death.

We can guess that those who arrested and killed Xue Jinbo were not Wang’s people. They might be from the political and law enforcement system. Zhou Yongkang, the boss of public security, is a member of the conservative faction in the CCP. The conservatives may have wanted to intensify the intra-party conflict and challenge Wang Yang.

If Wang can stick to the path of peace, instead of armed repression, and pacify the people through compromise, he may increase his chances of being chosen in 2012 to join the Central Committee—the nine CCP members who rule China.

Wang seems to want the news to get out about events in Wukan. Foreign reporters were allowed to enter the village, which goes against the CCP’s time-tested playbook of repression. With the reporters present, Wukan became a show at which the whole world could witness Wang’s open-mindedness.

Nevertheless, Wang can’t make good on his promise of liberality. The success of the Wukan villagers will inspire all of the landless farmers in China to follow the Wukan example. They will also stand up to fight back, and the CCP’s regime will not be stable.

The CCP has no choice but to continue the policy of suppression, and this includes Wang. Sooner or later, notwithstanding the assurances just made to the Wukan villagers, Wang will still have to raise the knife. Not only Wang, but Party head Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao face this dilemma in dealing with the confrontation between the regime and the people.

Meanwhile, the experiment in Wukan is showing how unnecessary the Party’s rule is. The democratically elected village council has not only led the villagers to peacefully defend themselves against invasion by the police, they have also given help to the poor.

The whole village of over 10,000 people is in good order. There are no thieves and people don’t even close their doors at night. There are no more village cadres bullying villagers, and people help one another. All villagers discuss everything together. Under the “anarchy” of self-government, the management of everything is much better than in the past.

The people of China are watching and in Wukan they see clearly: Without the Communist Party, life is better.

via Chinese Village Focus of Communist Party Conflict | Democracy & Human Rights | China | Epoch Times

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China’s Budding Democracy Consciousness Amidst Election Crackdown

By Sophia Fang
Epoch Times Staff

Although the Chinese regime’s crackdown on independent candidates for the People’s Congress has escalated, the surge in independent candidates demonstrates China’s budding democracy consciousness.

2011 has been an election year for deputy positions in the People’s Congress at district, township, and county levels in China. The surge of independent grassroots candidates, many of whom have promoted themselves via microblogs, has garnered much domestic and international attention. However, the regime has been suppressing these independent candidates like never before.

He Huahui, Deputy Secretary of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee told Chinese media, this year 900 million citizens will vote for county level candidates, and 600 million for township level. According to statistics published in November, in the six provinces that have finished their elections, voter turnout was 90 percent. In Beijing alone, nine million people voted.

China’s election law stipulates that any Chinese citizen over 18 years of age can participate in the election and be elected as deputy to the local People’s Congress, as long as he or she can get at least 10 endorsements in their local district.

However, the communist leadership became nervous after several dozen people proclaimed their independent candidacy online. The head of the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee stated in June, “there is no such thing as an independent candidate, as it’s not recognized by law.”

Yao Lifa, who was elected as a local People’s Congress deputy back in 1998 and has been advising others to run as independent candidates in China’s local elections, told New Epoch Weekly the number of independent candidates this year is the largest ever in Chinese communist 62-year rule. Yet, this year the communist party has escalated its crackdown on independent candidates.

In early November, before the local elections in Beijing, Yao said police came to take him away at 7:30 a.m. every day, and wouldn’t let him go home until 10 p.m.

Sun Guangwen, a retired professor from Shandong University who ran for People’s Congress deputy at Lichen District in Jinan City, Shandong Province, told Sound of Hope (SOH) Radio networks that on his district’s election date, Dec. 12, about 20 domestic security police showed up at his doorstep in the morning to block him from casting his vote. Earlier, on Dec. 9, Shandong University authorities confiscated his home of 26 years.

Sun said that the oppression began on day one after he announced his candidacy. Local authorities destroyed his promotional materials and posters, sent police to stop him from entering the campus, and threatened his supporters with forced labor terms.

Beijing police have taken nine independent candidates into custody and “disappeared” some of them in September. Some independent candidates said their names were erased from the ballot; some candidates’ websites and personal social media sites were shut down just prior to the elections.¹

Voice of America (VOA) reported a story from Japan’s Sankei Shimbun, how one candidate lost her chance of running for office: the local election committee told her that they were out of candidate application forms—even before the deadline for submitting an application.

Of the 60 independent candidates in November’s local Beijing elections, none won a place.

On Nov. 15, one day before the elections, Zhang Dejin, from Shunchang County in Fujian Province, was told that his candidacy was canceled. In the few days before and after the elections, police closely monitored his residence.

As of now, only one independent candidate has claimed victory. In late September, Guo Huojia won a landslide victory in Nanhai District of Foshan City, in the relatively more liberal Guangdong Province. But local police summoned him immediately afterwards, according to VOA.

“Only a very insignificant number of independent candidates can win in the local elections, so they can’t really make an impact at all,” Ling Feng, a political and social commentator now living in Taiwan, told SOH.

But the surge of independent candidates demonstrates China’s budding democracy movement. And this year the communist Party is especially scared because of the changes taking place in Middle Eastern countries, where people didn’t used to have the right to vote, but are now starting to enjoy that privilege, Ling said.

The sheer increase in the number of independent candidates could lead to more demands for democracy and the threat of a jasmine revolution. There were about 100 independent candidates this year. The numbers could multiply and build up an explosive momentum that is too much for the communist party to handle, Ling added.

via China’s Budding Democracy Consciousness Amidst Election Crackdown | Democracy & Human Rights | China | Epoch Times

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