Great story. Chen has set up an example. I am not commenting on the
political significance of the issue. But we, the visually challenged, should
respond to social problems.
With best Regards,
Amiyo Biswas
Cell: +91-9433464329
----- Original Message -----
From: "avinash shahi" <[email protected]>
To: "accessindia" <[email protected]>; "jnuvision"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2012 5:24 PM
Subject: [AI] The disputed story of a blind activist raises difficult
questions for both superpowers
http://www.economist.com/node/21554247
Chen, China and America
The Economist
May 5th 2012 | from the print edition
..
AT RARE moments the future of a nation, even one teeming with 1.3
billion souls, can be bound up in the fate of a single person. Just
possibly China is living through one of those moments and Chen
Guangcheng is that person. A blind activist from Shandong province, Mr
Chen emerged from poverty, fought for justice and paid the price with
his own liberty. Last month he made a bid for freedom and became
ensnared in the impersonal machinery of superpower politics. What now
befalls him and his family raises questions about Sino-American
relations and the character of Chinese power.
In many ways, Mr Chen is the best of modern China. Blind since
childhood, poorly educated until adulthood and then self-taught, he
became a lawyer, never a safe career in a country where might is
right. As a peasant activist fighting local battles—which makes him a
much more potent force in China than politicised members of the urban
elite such as the artist Ai Weiwei (see article)—he was praised for
years by the local government for advocating the rights of disabled
people. Then he crossed the line by taking on the local party over the
abortions and sterilisations it enforced as part of China’s strict
one-child policy. After four years in jail on spurious charges, Mr
Chen was kept prisoner in his own home for 19 months.
On April 22nd he fled to the American embassy in Beijing, where
Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was due to arrive for
her country’s annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China. What
happened next is disputed (see article). American diplomats say they
became close to Mr Chen, even holding his hand when they spoke. They
say that, after six days inside, Mr Chen willingly left the embassy
for hospital, accompanied by the ambassador, to be reunited with his
family. He had received assurances from the Chinese government that he
would be treated well and allowed to study law at university. However,
from his hospital bed, a weary, browbeaten Mr Chen suddenly began to
complain that American diplomats had “lobbied” him to leave, that they
had not let him confer with his friends and that Chinese officials had
threatened his wife. He was “very disappointed” in the American
government and said he wanted to leave China. For their part, Chinese
officials acknowledge no deal—but they have sternly demanded an
apology from America.
The Beijing switch
With luck the dispute will calm down. Perhaps Mr Chen will be spirited
away to America, or find a way to live normally in China. But the
incident raises three questions. Most immediately, did America’s best
diplomats let a brave man down? With Mr Chen out of their care, they
now have little bargaining power. If they were duped by their Chinese
counterparts, or too ready to accept their assurances, they will be
taken as fools. If they struck a deal in haste, calculating that
currencies and tariffs should eclipse the rights of an inconvenient
blind man, they will be taken as knaves. Mrs Clinton boasted that Mr
Chen left the embassy “in a way that reflected his choices and our
values”. Her words will undoubtedly be scrutinised in this year’s
election.
Yet the plight of Mr Chen raises two deeper questions about his own
country. The first is whether China still feels it must put its
relations with America before anything else. In past disputes, notably
the aerial collision of a Chinese fighter and an American spyplane in
2001, China has tended eventually to put America first—as the source
of trade and wealth and the policeman for the global commons. But
China is stronger now, its economy is bigger, it can defend its own
shores and it expects to carry weight in the world—especially as, in
the view of some triumphalists in Beijing, America has been dragged
down by the financial crash and its vicious partisan politics.
If Mr Chen is now punished and Barack Obama is humiliated, that will
signal a troubling shift in the terms of the superpowers’ relations. A
wounded, suspicious America and a rampant China, bent on winning the
respect it thinks its due, set the stage for dysfunction at best and
conflict at worst. It would be a terrible outcome for both superpowers
and for the world. They should strive to patch things up.
The power shift
The other question—and one that will preoccupy China in a year when
power shifts to the next generation of leaders—is how the country is
run. The blind lawyer in dark glasses is just one of millions of
ordinary people smarting under arbitrary rule. For a long time—first
when China shed Maoism and then as its economy surged—most Chinese
people cared less about the niceties of the law than their fast-rising
living standards. Even then the weak, the disabled, the unemployed and
the poor were ignored, sidelined and sometimes trampled in the rush
for wealth. Now, a slowing economy, corruption, rural anger and urban
freedoms all mean that the party is under pressure to enforce the rule
of law—especially in order to curtail the impunity of local officials.
The Communist Party recognises that it must start to be more
accountable and give people a legal outlet for their grievances. Faced
with an insurrection in Wukan, after villagers protested about local
officials’ profiteering from the sale of land, Beijing ended up siding
with the villagers. The party has been keen to depict the sacking of
Bo Xilai, who ran the south-western region of Chongqing, as proof that
China is a country of laws. Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, has
argued that corruption will not be tolerated. Try as it might, the
party cannot altogether control the country’s 250m microbloggers who
follow each drama live and continue to confound the censors.
The dilemma is that although the party needs the law to govern, it
cannot submit to the law without losing power and giving up
privileges. At the moment the party still wants to have it both ways.
More than any other incident so far, the disturbing case of Mr Chen
raises doubts about whether it can. It is a heavy burden to be resting
on the frail shoulders of a man lying in a Beijing hospital bed as the
diplomats and politicians dine together a few blocks away. But it
matters enormously to China’s future.
--
"The best things and most beautiful things in the world Cannot be seen
or even touched. They must be felt within the heart." — Helen Keller
Avinash Shahi
M.A. Political Science
CPS JNU
New Delhi India
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