A major turning point in the history of China
transpired in the last few years, and will
continue to unfold through 2015.
The change involves the two confusing concepts
that you see on your screen.
Document Number Nine and the New Mass Line
Movement are major changes that have already
impacted the lives of millions of people,
with relatively little scrutiny from the English-speaking
world, perhaps just because of the short-term
preoccupation with wars elsewhere.
To quickly show the scale and seriousness
of the subject, here's an excerpt of some
reporting by Gillian Wong.
Quote, "[Mr.] Zhou, land bureau director for
the city of Li Ling, was confined in the party's
secret detention system at a compound in central
Hunan, touted as a model center for anti-corruption
efforts.
Nobody on the outside could help him, because
nobody knew where he was."
"In a rare act of public defiance, Zhou and
three other party members in Hunan described
to The Associated Press the months of abuse
they endured less than two years ago, in separate
cases, while in detention.
Zhou said he was deprived of sleep and food,
nearly drowned, whipped with wires and forced
to eat excrement.
The others reported being turned into human
punching bags, strung up by the wrists from
high windows, or dragged along the floor,
face down, by their feet."
Quoting from elsewhere in the same article,
"The party defines 'Shuāng Guī" as an order
to its officials to appear at a designated
time and place to account for their actions.
Experts who study corruption statistics estimate
at least several thousand people are secretly
detained every year for weeks or months under
this system."
"Party anti-corruption experts acknowledge
that the practice is legally problematic but
say it's indispensable in fighting corruption.
About 90 percent of major corruption cases
involving party members in recent years were
cracked through the use of 'Shuāng Guī,'
a party official said last month."
"Anti-graft authorities investigated 173,000
cases of corruption among members last year,
officials say, and at least three people died."
I have underlined the words "officials say"
just to draw attention to an obvious problem
with this type of statistic: if the official
propaganda says 173,000, the real number could
be ten times lower, or could be ten times
higher.
Although you might expect government propaganda
to minimize the number of victims, this is
an official anti-corruption program that the
government is proud of, so we could instead
be looking at an upward exaggeration of the
figures.
With this caveat stated, the number of people
disappearing and being detained is certainly
not small, and the shadow of fear created
by the victims is much larger than their numbers
alone.
In contrast to the sympathy elicited by headlines
that might involve the clichéd "women-and-children"
of war, in this case, one of the obstacles
to western reporting is the latent bias against
the victims themselves.
They are predominantly men in suits and ties
who have become rich as part of the Chinese
establishment --rightly or wrongly.
When the target of repression is "corrupt
government officials", there's a significant
presumption of guilt in reporting, even amongst
those who would not normally condone this
type of repression.
Although the vast majority of the victims
are not famous targets of derision like Bó
Xī Lái, they are (rightly or wrongly) presumed
to be persecutors of the innocent, as much
as victims of persecution.
This is the type of moral ambiguity that fails
to make headlines.
Document Number Nine was a leaked document
that seems to have served as a manifesto for
the current round of reform and retrenchment
of the Communist Party.
It was linked directly to the president of
China by this reporter, Gāo Yú, who was
thrown in prison soon thereafter.
Quote, "[Gao Yu] said in a speech in New York
last October that Xi Jinping, the Chinese
president, 'personally went over the whole
draft [of Document Number Nine] himself'.
[…]
In recent months, Mr Xi's administration has
repeatedly stressed that China must reject
the influences of 'foreign forces'.
On May 6, a new national security report from
Beijing's International Relations university
said 'the export of democracy from the West
is a threat to Chinese political thinking.'
It added that 'Bourgeois Western ideology
from radio, newspapers, movies, literature
and education poses a severe threat to China's
lifestyle and culture' […]"
There's a theory that Gao Yu herself is responsible
for Document Number Nine reaching the public
in the first place, but whether or not she
was the source of the leak, she reported on
it, established the direct connection between
this manifesto and the new leadership of the
Communist Party, and then disappeared into
the prison system soon thereafter.
Gāo Yú is an interesting historical figure
in her own right, and she has been imprisoned
at least twice before, serving six years in
the 1990s.
In makeup, she might seem to be about the
same age as Xí Jìn Píng, but there's a
significant difference in age between them.
Gāo Yú's generation will at least have an
indirect memory of the failure of the "Great
Leap Forward", and she will have very direct
memories of the Cultural Revolution, as an
adult witness to that period.
At 61 years old, Xí Jìn Píng is actually
too young to share that perspective.
Although it seems inescapable that someone
from Gāo Yú's generation would regard Document
Number Nine with fear and apprehension, the
attitude toward that chapter of history will
be different even for someone as old as Xí
Jìn Píng.
If the future belongs to people under 60,
it's hardly surprising that Document Number
Nine itself shows so much interest in eliminating
"historical nihilism", and establishing the
authority of Chinese Communism in a narrow,
self-congratulatory interpretation of the
country's history.
Nobody will be allowed to question the Communist
Party's mistakes in the future, and nobody
will even be allowed to evaluate the Party's
mistakes in the past.
There will certainly be no freedom of the
press, nor even free discussion on the internet,
as the document takes some time to specify.
In contrast to all the vague promises of prior
eras of political reform, Document Number
Nine sets down a starkly totalitarian view
of China's future.
As with many other turning points in China's
past, the new direction indicated by the manifesto
has been demonstrated --first and foremost--
by the Communist Party turning against itself,
purging, persecuting and imprisoning its own
members.
Given the difficulty of reporting on Communist
Party officials persecuting one-another in
the tens of thousands, here's an example of
a report focussed on an aspect of the story
that can more easily be construed in terms
of "innocent victims", although in much smaller
numbers.
Quote, "In one sign of [Xi Jinping's] determination
to quash all debate, China's vast and well-funded
security apparatus has been encouraged not
only to arrest all government critics but
also to harass and in some cases assault their
lawyers.
In July [of 2013] at least 44 lawyers were
obstructed, detained or beaten up while trying
to represent their clients, according to records
compiled by the lawyers and seen by the Telegraph.
[…]
[One such lawyer] said he had been assaulted
by police in the past, but that the current
situation "is definitely getting worse".
[…]
At least 50, and perhaps as many as 100 people
have been arrested for supporting 'constitutionalism'."
Telling the story in this way appeals to the
audience's presumption that these 44 lawyers
were not corrupt, but are hapless victims.
Of course, we don't have any more reason to
assume that the 44 lawyers reported here are
upstanding men of principle than we would
for the 173,000 victims reported before.
In a situation where nobody gets a fair trial,
and nobody expects any of the facts of a case
to be established, the western press is simply
left to lament that this type of persecution
is happening at all.
In the anecdotal discovery of what the government
is doing, we get a sense of the unfolding
drama without an explanation of the strange
Communist Party jargon (and "dialectical materialist"
reasoning) that has caused these persecutions.
Quote, "[Xí Jìn Píng] has been an advocate
of Maoist self-criticism since 2004 and of
the mass line since at least 2006.
He has been a long-term proponent of a tough
party stance on corruption."
"Since becoming president, Xi has required
officials to study Maoist theory, particularly
Mao's 'mass line,' which says that the party
should be both a part of the people and capable
of leading them.
In turn, Xi has put limits on official banquets,
gift giving, and the use of official cars,
and has encouraged officials to interact with
the public.
He has put in appearances at Beijing restaurants
and on busy shopping streets and has also
mandated --and, along with his colleagues
in the leadership, led-- numerous 'self-criticism'
sessions, in which party cadres publicly evaluate
their own success in connecting with the people."
"Xi has effectively asked officials under
him to give up many of the perks of office.
The stakes, he says, are the very survival
of the party.
An educational campaign based on the famous
'Document Number Nine' has promoted what party
theory calls a 'sense of danger' about the
threat of the party's collapse due to internal
subversion and foreign attempts to undermine
it.
For many officials, that has been enough:
Local officials complain about the drastic
drop off in official gift-giving across the
country, and the luxury sector has taken a
big hit as a result."
"For those who refuse to buy into Xi's project,
though, he has launched the biggest purge
in decades.
His weapon of choice is the Central Discipline
Inspection Commission, the party's anti-graft
organization, which Xi has greatly strengthened
under the leadership of long-term friend and
ally Wáng Qí Shān.
Wang has presided over the detention of hundreds
of officials across the party, government,
industry, and academia.
Those investigated effectively disappear from
the face of the earth and are subjected to
horrors one survivor recently described to
the Associated Press as 'a living hell.'"
That's an effective quotation in drawing together
the threads of Document Number Nine, the Mass
Line, China's new leadership, and the persecution
now unfolding under the banner of an anti-corruption
policy.
The most fundamental fact here is, simply,
that China is now in the midst of "the biggest
purge in decades".
That is something the outside world ought
to be extremely concerned about, and politically
engaged with.
Although I would not say that the western
world has been silent on the matter, compare
the response to the kidnapping of 200 Nigerian
school-girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram.
That story not only had an enormous response
in the press, but also entailed formal statements
by political leaders, and some degree of military
action.
By contrast, I'd encourage you to attempt
to find any statement from your own political
leaders (wherever you are in the world) about
China's New Mass Line, Document Number Nine,
or the related persecution, imprisonment and
torture of many thousands of people in China.
It hasn't entered the realm of political commentary,
let alone diplomatic overtures or hard foreign
policy.
The Nigerian kidnapping case is clearly defined
in terms of inncoent victims.
What's happening in China, right now, is on
a vastly larger scale, with much more important
long-term implications, but it can't be reduced
to such a simple equation.
It is, apparently, safe for western leaders
to declare their moral superiority to Boko
Haram, and to call for the rule of law in
Nigeria; it would rather more daring to call
for the rule of law in China, or to openly
revile the new policy of the Communist Party,
as set out in Document Number Nine.
I find that those who identify themselves
as left-wing have the least to say when China's
political policy is stated openly and directly,
as it has been under Xí Jìn Píng.
The Guardian newspaper has its full archive
of articles available online; I could find
only two very informal mentions of Document
Number Nine, and perhaps two mentions of the
Mass Line campaign in passing.
Although google-searches are imperfect, I
don't think that either one has been addressed
even once by "The Young Turks", a left-of-center
American news service, not even under vaguer
keywords of "China anti-corruption crackdown",
and so on.
To some extent, the western world is trapped
in a pattern of wanting to pretend that China
is going to transform itself into a democracy,
despite every clear indication that it will
not do so.
The Communist Party is consciously and intentionally
pursuing a very different direction, and they
provide us with some very clear indications,
that we're choosing to ignore.
They're not repressing the freedom of the
press and human rights by accident, but publishing
manifestos that explain how the current wave
of repression really is part of their long-term
vision of the future of their own country,
as a totalitarian state.
Quote, "Six months after Xi Jinping became
president, he has confounded hopes that he
might tread a more liberal path.
Instead, his administration has cast China
in the middle of an existential battle against
seven 'Western' dangers including universal
values, press freedom, civil society and judicial
independence.
Not only have these topics been made taboo
on university campuses, but an internal memo
named Document No. 9 warned Party officials
that these subversions could lead to the country's
collapse."
Perhaps western diplomats and western authors
alike are reluctant to name another Great
Enemy of Democracy, given that the newspapers
are --for the moment-- crowded with contenders
for that title.
As the year 2014 comes to an end, the western
world is unusually eager to have China as
an ally, although Document Number Nine and
the Mass Line movement have shown that China
now regards western democracy as its enemy,
and that they're willing to spill blood within
their own Party to prove it.
There's a somewhat surreal contrast between
the renewed hostillities with Russia and the
quiet reception of China's ideological retrenchment
under the leadership of Xí Jìn Píng.
Although the Ukranian border dispute is vaguely
reminiscent of Russia's Communist history,
the conflict with China actually is about
confronting Communism, here and now.
Although the Ukraine and Russia may have poor
records on freedom of the press, fair elections
and other human rights, their current governments
would never publish a manifesto declaring
that they were opposed to freedom of the press
in principle, nor that they regarded universal
human rights as an ideological threat.
Meanwhile, China just did, and then proved
their commitment through purges and political
mobilization on a massive scale.
That should be difficult to ignore; but it
seems to be easily ignored in the context
of current political distractions.
