The Seventh Hope: Restore Term Limits for the National Presidency
International opinion was astounded by the decision made earlier in the year to revise the Constitution and abandon the term limits set for the State Presidency. In China it resulted in widespread and profound anxiety. Overnight it seemed ‘As though we were shocked awake after a four-decade-long dream.’ Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, we had a ‘Supreme Leader’ with no checks on his power; how could people not have all kinds of strange imaginings and new fears?JFb免费翻墙网
It is for this reason, that I urge that at an appropriate time during this or the coming year — say, for instance, at a Special Meeting of the National People’s Congress this autumn or at the scheduled annual convocation of the Congress in March2019 — a further revision of the Constitution should be made so as to reinstate the term limit on the presidency. To do so would vouchsafe the policies of the Reform and Open Door era while frustrating the slide towards the totalitarian politics of the Cultural Revolution. We have a Constitution, and regardless of its quality it is, after all, the nation’s Basic Law, and it should not be revised willy-nilly. However, it is still a Temporary Constitution that was formulated by a political arrangement during what has in effect been a crucial transitional period in the nation’s life, therefore it cannot but be repeatedly subject to revision. Hopefully, this will be the final necessary revision of the Constitution before the eventual transition [to democracy] is achieved.JFb免费翻墙网
Student protesters on Tiananmen Square, May 1989. Source: China Daily
The Eighth Hope: Overturn the Verdict on 4 June
Overturn the Verdict on the ‘4th of June’ [1989 Beijing Massacre]. Over this and next year China will mark a series of sensitive anniversaries: it will be the fourth decade since the policies of [what would become known as] the Reforms and Open Door, the centenary of the May Fourth Movement [of 1919, a major feature of which was modern student activism and strident patriotism; it was also a contributing reason for the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921], as well as the thirtieth anniversary of 4 June. The upshot of the Sino-US Trade War will extend through this period and will only serve to add to the uncertainty of things.JFb免费翻墙网
In pursuit of the usual posture of Stability Maintenance [the authorities will daresay] ‘use policing methods to deal with political issues’ in the process of which they will ‘deploy the mechanisms of the state machine [政制] to clamp down on [鉗制] the political situation [政治]’. The system will go to extremes rather than approaching things by ‘dealing with politics by employing politics [for the resolution of things]’ [as we witness in the West when they deal with difficult political issues]. Back in the day, the ‘5th of April’ [1976 Tiananmen Incident when protesters flooded to Tiananmen to mourn the recently deceased premier Zhou Enlai and denounced Mao and his coterie, later known as the ‘Gang of Four’] was re-evaluated [literally, ‘rehabilitated’] and ever since then that date has no longer been one of any particular political sensitivity. This was precisely because [after Mao’s death, the authorities] ‘confronted a political problem by employing a political solution’ — as the old saying puts it: ‘when an army approaches a good general knows how to block its advance; when the waters rise we know how to sandbag against flooding’. Everyone took from that [decision regarding the 5 April 1976 Tiananmen Incident] what they wanted and all were satisfied.JFb免费翻墙网
That’s why, in light of the upcoming thirtieth anniversary of 4 June [in 2019], I would encourage Those In Power to find a suitable moment either this or next year to rehabilitate ‘4 June’ publicly [that is, to re-evaluate an event which is still officially classified as a necessary military action launched to quell a ‘counter-revolutionary rebellion’ by hooligans in Beijing against the Chinese state with the aim of toppling the Communist Party]. This would not only demonstrate a sincere and wise application of the principle of ‘politics embracing the political’, it would also mean that from then on there would be no need to treat the 4th of June every year like a political emergency. [The authorities, that is Xi Jinping] would clear the way for all Chinese to enjoy a peaceful coexistence, it would uplift people psychologically and benefit [the party-state] by accruing political capital to its legitimacy.JFb免费翻墙网
The Hopes outlined above merely articulate what one would call contemporary political commonsense; they also reflect widespread appeals and desires [regularly expressed] within the populace at large. Herein I am — to use an old expression — ‘Putting My Life on the Line Simply to Say What Everyone Knows and Thinks’.JFb免费翻墙网
In this vast world of great disorder, if there is no reasonable way to express such views [說法] there can then be no [reasonable way to legitimate them through appropriate] legislation [立法]. And, in that case, neither I nor the Masses have a way to live [活法] [without fear]. What to do? Alas and Alack indeed!JFb免费翻墙网
4: In What is a Period of TransitionJFb免费翻墙网
四、過渡時段
Don’t panic just yet since, although over the past two years the world has entered a mini-cycle of political adjustment, the dust has far from settled. For China to get through this period what is of crucial importance is that the nation must continue along its chosen path of sustained internal reform while focusing on raising the standard of living and ameliorating the wellbeing of the people. What matters for China and the world is that this particular Grand Ship of State continues to catch the wind in its sails as it peacefully steers a course on the way to continued political normality.JFb免费翻墙网
Conflict and warfare are part and parcel of the inherently violent nature of the human animal. The Sacred Duty of politicians living during a period of historical opportunity like today is to delay or avoid entirely the outbreak of hostilities. This is a great test for the wisdom and moral probity of the Meat-Eaters [肉食者, an ancient term from pre-dynastic times that refers to the social and political elite who, according to court regulations, were permitted to eat meat]. Human beings are, above all, political animals, and politics is the ultimate expression of human ingenuity. What is necessary in the here and now is that, no matter what the present situation happens to be, we cannot allow ourselves to deviate from the grand course of Peaceful Development. We have a period of historic opportunity that can only be seized on by the wise. We don’t need heedless antagonism; at all costs we must not cast aside the good hand that we have been dealt.JFb免费翻墙网
‘Old Red Guards’, Palace Museum, Beijing, 8 November 2017
The Great Powers on either side of the Pacific [China and the United States] now find themselves by chance ‘Under the Rule of Old Red Guards’ [this is a somewhat baffling description, first in regard to Donald Trump, a roué whose tone is more tangerine than red and, secondly, mystifying in the case of Xi Jinping who was more of a ‘Blackguard’ 黑幫, that is from a family under attack in the early Cultural Revolution, than a ‘Red Guard’ 紅衛兵]. This is and can only something that happens in a transitional moment; it’s the typical kind of unruly coincidence that occurs during periods of heightened historical drama. On this side of the ocean we have One who has no real historical awareness or truly modern political sensibility, let alone a moral vision that reflects an awareness of the principles of universal civilisation. The One is blind to the Grand Way of current affairs and is scarred indelibly by a political brand from the Cultural Revolution. Overweening pride and official competence leads this One to bend his efforts to serve the wrong ends; talented enough to play the bureaucratic game, and doubtlessly masterful at achieving high office, but as for Guiding the Nation along the Correct Path, [what the One does] is worse than arrant time-wasting for there is something perverse at work.JFb免费翻墙网
And there, on the other side of the Pacific, a crowd of the Ghoulish Undead nurtured on the politics of the Great Game and the Cold War have taken the stage. Certainly, they have their own analysis of world affairs and an particular understanding of the cultural upheavals of today, but like their opposite number here, they lack a truly historical perspective; they are shortsighted and avaricious. Since their diagnosis is faulty, the prescriptions they offer are completely off the mark. Trained in a mercantilism that favoured the capitalist elite, with a personality amplified by bloated self-regard and the lifetime habits of rapaciousness, the result is [a person possessed of] a prideful quasi-imperial mindset that is coupled to heinous vulgarity. We now have [to deal with] the crudest of blackmailers, a person who knows no shame. What, therefore, [in the case of the United States today] we are presented with is but a degraded civilisation under the tutelage of a flailing and desperate imperialism that is itself in terminal decline. Their boastful and vainglorious patriotism stokes the fires of national disaster; we know them all too well as ‘Patriot-Scoundrels’ [愛國賊, literally ‘patriot thieves’; a kind of shyster who boastfully promotes themselves while sullying everything in the guise of loyalty].JFb免费翻墙网
Be it in China or abroad, in the present or in the past: we’ve seen their kind before. One is reminded of those [recent] jokes about how ‘Bad People Have Gotten Older’ [a reference to a popular comic observation that: ‘It’s not that old people have suddenly turned bad, it’s just that bad people have gotten older’
