Nov. 1, 2005. 01:00 AM

Orwell alive and well in China

FRED EDWARDS

George Orwell is alive and well and living in Beijing.

At least that is all one could surmise from the bizarre white paper on democracy released by the Chinese cabinet.

The document is studded with references to the democratic rights enjoyed by the Chinese people but also reaffirms the apparently permanent leadership role of the Communist party.

For example, the preface says: "In the course of their modern history, the Chinese people have waged unrelenting struggles and made arduous explorations in order to win their democratic rights. But only under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) did they really win the right to be masters of the state."

Note the strange transition from "democratic rights" to "masters of the state," as if rights and power are somehow the same thing.

The document, released Oct. 20, quotes the Chinese constitution: "All power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people." But there is a caveat: The Communist party's "leadership role and rule in China is an objective requirement of the country's development and progress."

What if there is some contradiction between the wishes of people? Well, that's not even worth mentioning because, the document says, the party's "leading status ... was made by history and the people."

The party needs to retain its monopoly on power "to promote socialist modernization and realize great national rejuvenation"; "to safeguard China's unification and keep Chinese society harmonious and stable"; to minimize "all kinds of unwanted internal political strife" and ensure "stable state power."

The document notes that China is a big country with a large population "where things are complicated." Such a country needs a "strong political core," it says, which sounds more like an argument for dictatorship than democracy.

All Chinese over the age of 18 have the constitutional right to vote and stand for election but the white paper admits that direct elections are limited to the country and township levels. This is due to "China's realities."

One of these "realities" is that the Chinese people realize that "mechanically copying the Western bourgeois political system and applying it to China would get them nowhere." Yet the "Western bourgeois political system" never has been tried, let alone "mechanically copied," in mainland China. And where it has been tried — Taiwan — it has been a success.

The paper goes on to spout absolute falsehoods about the rights enjoyed by the Chinese people — freedom of religion, speech and press, association and the like.

In April, Human Rights in China published a paper titled Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, which said the Muslim faith of the Uighurs, the largest non-Chinese ethnic minority in the region, "is under wholesale assault." At the extreme, peaceful activists have been detained, tortured and at times executed, while ordinary practitioners face harassment on a day-to-day basis. As with other officially recognized religious groups in China, the government claims the right to vet clergy and what may be said on religious occasions.

Other freedoms are honoured in much the same way.

What makes this document particularly depressing is that just last month Premier Wen Jiabao said the government intended to expand democracy.

"We have direct elections at village level but we must have an evolving system for our towns and urban areas. ... China will press ahead with its democratic policies," he said during a news conference with Britain's Tony Blair.

Another reform signal was a report that the party intended to mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of the late Hu Yaobang later this month. It was the death of Hu, a former Communist party leader and noted reform advocate, in 1989 that triggered the Tiananmen Square protests.

So the release of the white paper comes as a tremendous disappointment. After almost 30 years of economic reform, the Communist party still doesn't trust its people to play an active role in running the country.

Fred Edwards is a member of the Star's editorial board.