28 November 2020, NIICE Commentary 6532
Saumya Singh
In spite of restrictions on freedom of association and speech, wide variety of dissident movements have proliferated in China. Dissidents espouse great variety of grievances, including corruption, forced evictions, unpaid wages, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, ethnic protests, petitioning for religious freedom and civil liberties and protests against one-party rule. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has long sought to suppress ideas that could undermine its sweeping authority. The state can go to extreme lengths to maintain its grip. The State has continued to clamp down on dissent.
In China, the label of ‘dissenter’ is primarily applied to intellectuals who “push the boundaries” of society. It has no fixed contours and is often applied quite liberally to encompass anyone who challenges/ criticizes CPC in any capacity at any level. The Chinese expression “Kill the chicken before the monkey”, expresses the attitude of CPC towards political dissenters – Target the weak and vulnerable in order to frighten the strong and many.
China’s Constitution guarantees various rights- including freedom to speech and expression. In practice, however, the practice of these rights is tightly proscribed, generally under the auspices of maintaining “social stability.” While guaranteeing freedoms, constitution also declares it to be the duty of Chinese citizens to “fight against those forces and elements […] that are hostile to China’s socialist system and try to undermine it.” Poorly defined anti-subversion laws are used to criminally prosecute individuals seeking to exercise rights.
Fundamental duties in China are enforceable unlike in India. Moreover, the definition of “social stability” is not fixed and is a prerogative of CPC. Thus, social stability has more to do with the maintenance and preservation of the centralized power of the Party than with the resilience of the social fabric of Chinese society. Social stability in this sense is inextricably linked with the image that CPC has created for itself- that of an omniscient benevolent ruler which is to be a vessel for the people to reach the highest stage of development.
This attitude of the CPC is clearly evident in the suppression of 2011 Pro-Democracy Protests. Inspired by “Jasmine” protests in North Africa and the Middle East, in February 2011 Chinese dissidents began calling for pro-democracy demonstrations in multiple Chinese cities. In response, Chinese authorities launched a concerted crackdownon dissidents who had agitated for democratic reform.
Chinese authorities have pursued a variety of strategies to quell protests. This includes use of coercive measures of suppression, censorship, imprisonment or “re-education through labor”, and creation of a vast domestic security apparatus. There has been revelation by Google that Chinese hackers, widely believed to be acting on the orders of CPC, target email accounts of human rights activists.
Media is under State control and so is the Internet. Prominent critics of the communist government are detained and then their confessions are aired on TV. Since 2011, China’s annual spending on “stability maintenance,” has increased. Xi Jinping’s initial speeches as President about “putting power into a cage” had given hope to many liberal pragmatists, but what he really meant quickly became clear: he intended to cage any threats to his own authority. And he has managed to do so through a ruthlessly extralegal anticorruption campaign, all in the name of “strengthening the rule of law under CPC leadership.”
There are many theories as to why such a strong regime is so paranoid. Ian Buruma thinks it’s due to their concept of politics influenced by the Confucian notion of harmony – a shared belief of order being imposed from above. Others see it as a reaction to what has been happening inside China. What the Communist Party of China fears most, is that dissidents in the country’s intelligentsia might act not only as a lightning rod for a myriad of social concerns by challenging the legitimacy of the state’s institutions, but that they might provide an organisation to rally behind. It is not an entirely new concern. It was this that drove Deng Xiaoping to order martial law in 1989 against the protesting students in Tiananmen Square and has also driven the persecution of the Falun Gong religious sect after it organised its own silent demonstrations at the end of the 1990s. But what constitutes “organized” – and thus threatening to the state – has become finely defined to include even Liu Xiaobo’s Internet petition that was Charter 08. Chinese authorities chose to interpret the Charter 08 petition not simply as a critical statement but as evidence of “organization” against the state.
According to Phelim Kim, CPC has had a monopoly on power for last 60 years. Everything it does is dedicated to holding on to power. The party has monitored and learned the lessons of the fall of USSR and the colour revolutions and is determined not to go down the same route. They have seen the necessity of controlling the narrative within their own borders. They have also realised that they cannot be like North Korea and shut the country off. So, they have created a paradigm where CPC controls, but provides a level of economic development and economic rights. The price is control of freedom of expression and other human rights.
For CPC, that has long thrown off most aspects of socialist ideology in favour of economic liberalization, the perceived threat of dissent has not diminished but increased. Institutions have become vulnerable to a line of criticism that questions what legitimacy they now claim. The result, is that there is less freedom now to criticise party leaders than there was in 1989.
Zha aptly observes that the real boss is ultimately Xi, who chairs the National Security Commission. Since Xi became Chin’s paramount leader, it has been possible to detect a Maoist revival in state politics and stealthy moves to resurrect the Chairman’s cult of personality, particularly after Xi got the constitution changed to eliminate Presidential term limits. When it came to the human soul, Mao was a consummate master of control. One could see this in social attitudes he encouraged toward “political criminals.” In Mao’s time, hatred of “counter-revolutionaries” was widespread and intense. They were viewed as scarcely human, but rather as “enemies of the people.” Xi intends to emulate Mao in all sorts of ways. Xi has urged a renewal of ideological indoctrination at all levels, for example the robotic Party-speak has returned to television, Xi’s anticorruption campaigns and nationalist-strongman politics have won popular support. All these moves are efforts by CPC to create a narrative for general public to consume mindlessly and incessantly. The narrative is nothing more than what the CPC wants the public to think and know, it is literally being fed to them via various conspicuous and inconspicuous means – academic curriculum, state media, censorship of independent sources, mandatory education of all media personnel and journalists in Xi Jinping school of thought. This is one of the reasons why even the communication of ideas opposed to the official narrative is heavily clamped down upon.
The need for political control by a single party is paramount consideration. CPC leadership has no intention of embracing political pluralism. It is able to maintain control due to its strong institutions, secret police, rigorous censorship, disciplined ruling party and no fundamental political reforms. CPC has since successfully linked communism with nationalism making the development of a strong state a part of its appeal to national pride and its efforts to rally patriotic support behind the system. The West and political dissenters, therefore, become potent threat to national development. Moreover, personalistic rule tends to last longer when linked to ruling party. Thus, political dissent is treated like a personal affront and by extension a threat to the nation. The hierarchical nature of CPC prevents direct opposition of the top leader and gives him advantage in contouring national policies, and hence, framing the national narrative/ propaganda.
Overall, dissidents have grown in China because an authoritarian regime, which is driven to rely on economic performance for legitimacy, faces special difficulties when economy weakens. In the context of US-China trade war, growing unemployment and slowing per capita income growth, social unrest and political dissent have risen in China. This has in turn led to increased repression from the State. The current arms race between the censors and the censored in China can be summed up in an old proverb: The monk grows taller by an inch, but the monster grows taller by a foot.
