Nicholas Kristof cautions: "Brace yourself for turbulence ahead in China."
China's 'Justice' System
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times
...Mr. Hu's efforts to create stability by clamping down just risk more instability. Most Chinese don't want upheavals, but they are fed up with corruption and lies, with being blocked from Google and Wikipedia, with having to waste time studying political drivel like Mr. Hu's "Eight Honorables and Eight Shames" campaign. Wags call it "Hu shuo ba dao," a clever pun that translates as "utter nonsense."(TUC COMMENT: "efforts to create stability by clamping down just risk more instability"... "fed up with corruption and lies" .... sounds a lot like Bushocracy, huh?)
Indeed, Mr. Hu's crackdown has been singularly ineffective, annoying people more than scaring them. Many Communist Party officials worry that crackdowns just anger and alienate the public; that is why some have talked of allowing people to let off steam through greater freedom of the press and more elections. In one province, a poll found that 85 percent of officials themselves wanted to speed up political reform.
But Mr. Hu seems paralyzed, altogether the weakest Chinese leader since Hua Guofeng in the 1970's. The result? Brace yourself for turbulence ahead in China.
Read more here (TimesSelect Non-subscribers) or here (TimesSelect Subscribers).
Photo credit: Nicholas D. Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)
Technorati tags: Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, Hu Jintao, China, Zhao Yan, Freedom and Human Rights, Bush, news, commentary, op ed
1 comment:
(TUC COMMENT: "efforts to create stability by clamping down just risk more instability"... "fed up with corruption and lies" .... sounds a lot like Bushocracy, huh?)
I think you're right. The model for BushCo's America is China.
As for Kristof. I know he knows more than I do about China but I think he's engaging in wishful thinking here - if anyone can be wishful for uprisings that are certainly going to be brutally quashed. I hope I'm wrong and that any uprising is dealt with mercifully, but I look at Chinese history and I just don't see it. They're already killing unruly peasants and we don't blink. They're trying to buy off the major urban centers hoping that the haves will look the other way (in the direction of all their cool stuff and pretty clothes) when the political question of living under a totalitarian regime gets uncomfortable.
Post a Comment