China astir - Village Magazine

74 December-January 2014

INETEEN eighty-ﬁve: Mikhail

Gorbachev; the start of the end of

Soviet communism. Those were

exciting times. The collapse of the Berlin

wall, the ﬁrst Russian elections, the quests

for Georgian/Lithuanian independence,

and so on. Life was changing, fast. And

even those who opposed such changes,

like those of the Albanian regime, with

their sealed borders of barbed wire and

a ‘no-man’s land’ of mines, could not pre-

vent the winds of change blustering into

Tirana as well. There was no stopping a

movement whose time had comprehen-

sively come.

Exciting, and dangerous. The ﬁrst

inter-ethnic conﬂict was in 1988, in

Nagorno-Karabakh. This was followed

by more wars, in Georgia – Abhazia and

South Ossetia – in Moldova, Tajikistan,

throughout Yugoslavia, and the problems

rumble on, now in Ukraine.

For many non-Russians, then, the

excitement ended in misery; while in

Russia itself, there was ﬁrst economic

collapse, and then the rise of authori-

tarianism under Vladimir Putin.

1978; Dèng Xioǎping; China; the

embrace of capitalism and global markets

le ad in g to g allopi ng e conomic g row th and

then came the internal party disputes,

the ﬁrst against the rightists, some ver-

sus the revisionists, and the last against

the leftists, the Gang of Four. Exciting

and dangerous times now from Táiwān in

the East to Xīnjiāng in the West and even

Hong Kong – as well as many socio-eco-

nomic and environmental problems.

There is talk of democracy, social-

ism etc., with “Chinese characteristics.”

Well, what might they be? One clue lies

in the language which is dichotomous.

One sentence could be: you can/cannot

speak Chinese? – nǐ huìbùhuì? Another

might read, Ireland is very beautiful, yes

or no? – duìbùduì? Furthermore, the his-

tory of the Chinese Communist Party is

riddled with binary struggles, initially

against the perceived minority of land-

owners and kulaks (slightly better-oﬀ

peasants). In fact, early communist pol-

icies were often based on a majoritarian

ethos; and many, in the villages, were

sent to their deaths by majority vote. Is

it wise, then, for westerners to argue for

a majoritarian democracy in complex

territories?

And socialism? Well, there’s not much

of that either, not yet anyway. During the

course of the last century, the inﬂuences

from Moscow on the politics of China

have been enormous. The lessons from

the collapse of the Soviet Union have

already been learnt in Beijing. If China is

to have its dream, it will indeed be excit-

ing; but ﬁrst things ﬁrst, it must suppress

the danger.

The Socio-political questions

China (Zhōngguó, the Middle Kingdom)

– the People’s Republic of China – is a one-

party state of over 1.3 billion mainly Hàn

people. It is also home to 55 recognised

minorities, some of which, like the Hakka

(Kèjiā), are quite large by Irish standards

– there are 80 million of these. Another

is the ‘Muslim’ community, although

Buddhists and other religious groups are

not classiﬁed in this way. Some minor-

ities, as in Tibet (Xīzàng), have their

own language and a very strong sense

of identity, even if many Tibetans live

in neighbouring provinces like Qīnghǎi

and Sìchuān. Meanwhile, the Uyghers

(Wéiwú’ěr) in Xinjiang share their prov-

ince with others - Kazakhs and Tajiks,

for example, not to mention lots of Han,

many recently arrived. Han settlement

programmes have also been underway in

Tibet and Inner Mongolia (Nèi Měnggǔ).

Problems, then, abound.

Taiwan – the Republic of China, to

give it its oﬃcial name – is a multi-party

democracy. Initially, the Kuomintang

(KMT – Nationalist Party) fought for a

INTERNATIONAL

Also in this section:

Roman values 76

Migrant rights 77

China

astir

Democracy may not

mean majority rule.

By Peter Emerson

Urban folk

enjoy the perks

of a modern

capitalist

society without

the democracy

bit; while

the villagers

enjoy a bit of

democracy…

but not

much else

“

shocking Shanghai