On this episode of China Uncensored,
who would have thought a one-party state
wouldn’t approve of democracy?!
Hi, and welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
You know,
a lot of people have said
that China just isn’t ready for democracy.
There’s too many people
who aren’t educated enough,
and as former Chinese minister
of Foreign Affairs, Li Zhaoxing said,
“transportation is not developed in some places,
so direct election will be difficult.”
Yes,
bad roads are the reason
China doesn’t have democracy.
Doesn’t stop New York, though.
But back to Chinese democracy!
Highly anticipated for years,
promised but pushed back multiple times,
and then ultimately banned in China
for being too controversial.
Wait,
that's the well-intentioned but ultimately mediocre
Guns N’ Roses album.
Never thought that Axl Rose
would be one of the most woke celebrities
on China.
But for real Chinese democracy,
look no further than Wukan Village
in China’s Southern Guangdong Province.
In 2011,
the entire village erupted into protests.
Their local communist officials
were taking villagers’ land
and selling it to real estate developers
for huge profits.
Something that's happened in countless villages
across China for years.
But in Wukan,
villagers put up barricades
and kicked out the officials.
But instead of villagers getting Tiananmen Square’d,
this guy stepped in:
Wang Yang,
the Party Secretary for Guangdong Province.
Surprisingly,
instead of brutally crushing the protesters,
he let the Wukan villagers
vote for new officials.
And they elected this guy,
Lin Zuluan,
one of the protest leaders.
This was an unprecedented moment
in modern Chinese history,
where the Communist Party backed down
in the face of protests,
and allowed for real democratic elections.
Media began referring to it
as the Wukan model.
Some people thought that soon
this kind of local-level democracy
could be implemented everywhere across China.
So let’s look in and see how it’s doing five years later.
Oh, well that didn’t last long, did it?
Yes,
apparently the Wukan model is to briefly allow democracy,
and then crush it.
“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
And you know what?
Even during the period when democracy worked in Wukan,
it didn’t really work.
After villagers elected Lin Zuluan to represent them,
he found himself immediately blocked from doing,
well,
anything -
by officials the next level up.
So five years later,
much of the land taken from villagers
has still not been returned.
Frustrated by this,
three months ago Lin Zuluan had threatened
to bring his people back out on to the streets.
Unbelievable!
How dare he ask for the thing
that he was promised five years ago?
Arrest this man!
Ha ha, just kidding.
What’s that Shelley?
Oh.
They did arrest him.
Not for threatening to hold public protests, mind you.
But for taking tens of thousands of dollars
in bribes and kickbacks.
And if you think those are just trumped-up charges,
you couldn’t be more wrong.
While being detained by authorities,
Lin admitted to the charges!
And by admitted,
I mean confessed on state-run CCTV.
So you know it’s legit.
Good thing they suddenly discovered his bribes and kickbacks
right before he was about to mobilize those pesky protesters!
And last week,
they formally sentenced Lin Zuluan
to three years in prison.
That makes Lin now the third democratically elected village official
involved with the 2011 Wukan protests
to be imprisoned by authorities.
Two others were jailed in 2014.
And there you have it:
Proof that democracy is a terrible idea,
because clearly
the uninformed citizens only elect criminals.
But for some reason,
Wukan villagers seem to suspect
something fishy is going on.
After Lin Zuluan was arrested in June,
they started protesting his detention.
Oddly enough,
while waving the flag and shouting
“long live the Communist Party.”
I know it looks like there’s some kind of disconnect here.
But actually, it's pretty smart, in a way.
Can the Communist Party really accuse you of subverting state power
when you're cheering for them?
What are they going to do,
crack down on these people?
Back to that in a moment.
We have so much footage of the protests in Wukan
partly because Western media have been reporting from there.
And authorities have been trying to drive the reporters out.
Back in June,
one BBC reporter expressed his concern that
if he were to leave,
riot police might be sent in.
But that’s silly, as one local official assured him.
It's only that reporter's fantasy!
The reporter eventually left for a while.
And guess what?
His fantasy came true!
The riot police were sent in to restore social harmony,
bearing peace offerings of tear gas and rubber bullets.
So now it’s time to ask the most important question of all:
Who’s fault is it?
Fortunately, my favorite state-run media,
Global Times,
has done a thorough investigation.
According to this editorial,
“some foreign media have been unscrupulously inciting,
planning, and directing chaos.”
Yes,
“foreign media” are to blame!
Those unscrupulous Western reporters have been stirring up trouble
just so they can camp out for weeks
in some podunk village in the backwaters of China
and promote their agenda of so-called “human rights”
to undermine the Communist Party!
But you know what really undermines the Communist Party?
Democracy.
Free elections.
Because if people are allowed to elect their own representatives,
and those representatives are actually permitted to do their jobs,
then how can the Communist Party control things?
The truth is,
while the Communist Party is in power,
it’s never going to give up control.
In fact,
the “leadership of the Communist Party”
is literally written into the Chinese constitution.
So yeah,
that’s not going away.
And anyone who tries to change the status quo
can be in trouble.
Remember Wang Yang?
The Party Secretary of Guangdong Province five years ago?
Well,
he was the one who arranged for Wukan to have those elections
in the first place.
And at the time, it seemed like a clever way
of avoiding unrest while making the Party look good.
But a lot of his political opponents,
including people in the decrepit-toad-with-glasses faction,
were upset that Wang allowed this democratic experiment to happen.
Some analysts say that now,
Wang Yang’s political rivals are actually the ones
behind the events that led up to the new Wukan protests this year.
Because the chaos shows that Wang’s experiment failed.
And making Wang look bad is part of a political strategy,
because word on the street is that
Wang’s homie-in-chief, Xi Jinping,
may be looking to place Wang in a new position,
where he would replace one of these political rivals.
That would be harder to do if Wang is discredited.
And Jiang Zemin's faction really needs a win right now,
because one of their own just got purged.
Oh sorry,
I mean “placed under investigation for corruption.”
Basically, it’s China’s Game of Thrones.
So what do you think?
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time!