On Wednesday evening, September 12th, I attended a lecture at the Humanities Institute at the University of Texas by Dr. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a Professor of History at the University of California at Irvine. Dr. Wasserstrom spoke about the future human rights challenges facing China and their capacity for easing and molding their current stance on many of the issues. He is renown for his research and extensive writings on Chinese history, especially the period covering the last 100 years.
Dr. Wasserstrom began his lecture by recognizing that as recently as”1986, China was still a closed off place in many ways,” but since then it has begun to change and “how do we deal with a country whose people are loosening up, but whose political party is still very much communist?”
He went on to highlight the fact that “China no longer fits inside the box of what we [Americans and/or Westerners] once thought of communism.” Indeed, China’s communism isn’t the pure communist structure that was once espoused by the former Soviet Union or in China during the Mao era. Yet, it is arguably unclear how China is changing and what underlying factors are motivating change.
For example, Dr. Wasserstrom pointed out that George Orwell’s classic, Animal Farm, was once banned literature in China, but in 2002, a play based on the work was allowed to be performed. Was the policy relaxed because Animal Farm no longer depicts the type of regime in China, whereas 20 or 30 years ago it was a more accurate portrayal?
Dr. Wasserstrom built upon the example of Animal Farm when he described China’s current authoritarian regime covering a spectrum from Orwell’s 1984 to Huxley’s Brave New World; encompassing the “boot on the face [of the people], big brother, [and] believing what the government says” to a Brave New World where “politicians stay in power by manipulating the desires of the masses. This is an interesting analogy; Tibet, for example, still very much characterized by 1984 and Hong Kong a living example of a Brave New World. Dr. Wasserstrom didn’t make any inferences about the consequences of this disparity and inequality in the way various regions are governed. Instead, he highlighted the differences as an example of why we (Westerners or Americans) cannot simply generalize China.
Wasserstrom cited that “when Hong Kong was transferred back to China from the United Kingdom doomsayers anticipated a pessimistic transition with mass arrests, legislative bodies disbanded, and widespread protests, but the reality was the status-quo was more or less respected.”
When China did eventually try to impose policies in Hong Kong that challenged personal freedoms, the attempts were met with protests. These protests, curiously, were not met with the same iron fist shown at Tienanmen Square, but instead with appeasement and compromise. The same cannot be said, however, for other regions in China, such as Tibet. The important question about why a disparity in policy exists between Tibet and Hong Kong was disappointingly left unanswered by Dr. Wasserstrom.
He described the “Town Square Test” coined by Natan Sharansky, “if a person cannot walk into the town square and shout his or her beliefs or blasphemies against their political leaders without being arrested or worse, then that person lives in a fear society.” He correctly noted that China “still doesn’t pass this town square test in its literal sense, as well as through media channels.” Yet, he continued “this shouldn’t be the fundamental litmus test for today’s China.”
More salient, he recommended that we focus on the areas where human rights and freedom of speech have improved. He described China as a post totalitarian, but still authoritarian society where “people feel more comfortable speaking freely in private halls, but not in public… [and a feeling that] as long as it isn’t a movement anything goes.”
In other words, the Chinese government is less reactionary to protests or movements that lack momentum or the potential to create change. A protest in Hong Kong will be treated much differently than a protest in Tibet. The disparity and incongruity appears unsustainable in a China where future challenges such as the one child policy, Taiwan’s autonomy, worker’s rights, and income inequality will eventually require a broad policy to properly address.
When I asked Dr. Wasserstrom which of these challenges facing China is most likely to cause a strong enough social movement to loosen the government’s authoritarian stronghold, he pointed out that these challenges on their own are not completely encompassing enough to recruit the strength required for a successful movement, but perhaps environmental issues could become that widespread catalyst in the future. For now, he reemphasized “many people [in China] feel better off than they did 15 years ago” and this is one of the main reasons a widespread movement is unlikely to take place any time soon.
He ended with a prescient conclusion, “there are many things that are unsustainable [in China]. The communist party will fall, that is for certain, but what cannot be forecast is how it will fall or when.”