Beginning with the 2013 New Year’s message of the “Southern Week” events, continuing with the madness of the changing message of Tuo Zhen, the Director of the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, a war of anti-constitutionalism began in China, which made “constitutionalism” the most sensitive word to the CCP authorities. From what the official media’s criticism of constitutionalism had done in May, it was apparent that the authorities had developed fragile nerves and sensitivity to this word, perhaps bringing them a step away from madness.
On August 1, the authorities ordered representatives from all major media together to reprint an article entitled “China’s Unrest - Worse than the Soviet Union”. The article was written by Wang Xiaoshi in order to frighten and deceive the general public. This event was followed by the August 5th and 6th publications in the People’s Daily Overseas Edition of articles entitled “American Constitutionalism – More in Name than in Reality”, written by Ma Zhongcheng, and another entitled “Constitutionalism is an American Weapon Used to Disintegrate Socialism”. The latter article was not attributed to any author. These negative articles published in widespread media seem to indicate that the nation is in peril.
Using hostile thinking and language, these three articles all seem to utilize national sentiment and patriotism in order to demean Western countries and to make the people antagonistic to the West. Demeaning Western countries is indeed a long-lived dream of the CCP’s dictatorship.
First, in “China’s Unrest – Worse than the Soviet Union”, Wang Xiaoshi’s opinion is no problem in itself. It can be said that many Chinese people would agree with it. But the key problem is that there is not a direct causal link between China’s political transition and social turmoil in the future. On the contrary, the fundamental purpose of China’s political transformation, which many Chinese both at home and abroad promote, is to avoid social unrest in the future. In other words, it isn’t necessarily true that future social unrest is brought about by political transformation, nor is the converse of this true.
So, what are the causes and conditions we should clearly know that might bring about social unrest in China? Who makes these uncertainties? Where are the roots? As we all undeniably know, and since the CCP is the only party in power, any unrest in the future would be a result of their involvement. If there is political or social unrest, the CCP should only blame themselves because governance is their responsibility. People do not cause political unrest, but they certainly suffer for it.
Secondly, the turbulent conditions stem from various social contradictions that have reached a boiling point and cannot be controlled. Lastly, the one party dictatorship is the source of unrest; people have never been the “masters” of China and there is no legitimacy for the ruling powers. Thus, various conflicts will not be able to be changed immediately. As people find out the real source of these problems they will not be influenced by these negative words.
In the beginning of the article, “On Microblogging – Angels, Mentors, Public Intellectuals, Make and Transfer Negative Social News Everyday Creating a Doomsday View of China’s Imminent Collapse”, Wang’s logic is just like that of a person who is afraid of cancer, yet doesn’t know how to keep in good health. Even more absurd, and using the same analogy, when the patient gets cancer, he hides his symptoms from his doctor and becomes hostile, or even threatening when the doctor attempts to make a diagnosis. At one time the CCP said that the people are the driving force for making history and that the masses have sharp eyes. Wang’s words prove that China has no freedom of speech or press, so people have no other choice than to tell the truth on microblogging. Furthermore, what social news on microblogging is invented? There is no evidence of this. Apparently the author made and transferred rumors by himself. His article is the most irrefutable evidence.
Furthermore, Wang said, “In this process, continuing to incite people to resent the regime and to use people as cannon fodder will lead China to social unrest”. It seems to summarize the nine-decade history of the CCP. In retrospect, some of the CCP’s propaganda strategy deceived the general public into joining the revolution. The most resounding slogan was, “Snuff the local tyrants and divide the land, be the owners by ourselves”. In 1940, Mao Zedong published “The Constitutionalism of the New Democracy”. It is also a spoof of this strategy and he used the slogan of constitutionalism to draw all social and democratic forces fighting together against the Kuomintang regime. For example, in the civil war, “according to incomplete statistics, the casualties of Chinese military and civilians were more than twenty-million people (including the Kuomintang and people’s army)”. This is from, “The History of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army”. Those compatriots who lost their lives in the war, were they not the sons of their parents? But, in fact they died as cannon fodder so the CCP could implement the dictatorship at a later time. What was the result? Toss around for a few decades and it remains the same as before the liberation.
Additionally, Wang listed a lot of tragic phenomena and data from the Soviet Union following its collapse. No matter how much this description is true, it is undeniable that the one-party dictatorship of the former Soviet Union is precisely what led to its demise. If the CPUS always kept one-party rule, even if at that time it didn’t collapse, it can still question a decade or two later whether the Soviet Union will be able to escape the fate of collapse? Will the CPUS be able to rid itself of this defeat? There is only one answer – to drag it out any longer would have made the collapse more thorough and more miserable. Someone arrogantly stated in 1989, “Kill two hundred thousand, then try to keep two decades peace”. Then, twenty years later, what will the Chinese people do?
Wang also stated, “The political model of capitalism in Europe and America had been attempted in China from the time of Yuan Shikai’s death to Chiang Kai-shek’s rule, but brought about the consequences of famine, rampant warlords, banditry, and the Japanese invasion and massacre. Could it ever bring prosperity and peace? Until Mao Zedong pacified the nation, China entered the track of real peace, stable and independent. Who dares deny it?” But was capitalism the reason for the chaos before the CCP got into power? Did the capitalist mode of constitutionalism bring it? Wang seems lacking in his political and historical knowledge. As we all know, one of the causes of this chaos was Yuan’s emperor dream. As in the previous Xinhai Revolution in 1911, the nation had been in peril, the government had already been corrupted and people had fallen into chaos. Wang not only negates the significance of this revolution, he also denies the historic progress of modern social transformation. He is just like a lackey of the Emperor still living in the 19th century. He seems to say that China should not have had revolution, should not have made social progress and that people should have remained as lackeys under the Qing dynasty. If Mao pacified the nation, what brought about the mess that later happened? How many people starved and struggled under Mao’s rule?
“People who participate in this campaign didn’t gain any benefit or power for their oppositions. On the contrary, they were still thrown off the edge. And some became the “new dissidents” in the new historical condition”. Wang’s thoughts are very old; there are only the concepts of benefits and power in his mind. Without the endeavors of dissidents, the government can’t reform actively and the society can’t progress. If all the people are looking only for benefits and rights the nation has no hope; nothing can save it! There is a true story from the late Qing dynasty. Rogers, who was a French envoy, said to the Chinese Emperor, “Your Eunuch system made healthy people into disabled ones. It is inhumane”. Yao Xun, who was a close eunuch, answered, not waiting for the Emperor, “This is bestowed by the Emperor who is loved by the minions. How do you dare to denigrate the Law of Qin and interfere in our Qing’s affairs?” It seems like some people, much like this eunuch, still don’t know they are slaves and regard the problems as a result of freedom and human rights.
So, the views and content of Wang Xiaoshi’s article are highly questionable. Arguments and data are seriously wrong and the disorder of it is such that it is hardly worth refuting each fact one by one.
In regards to Ma Zhongcheng’s article, “American Constitutionalism – More in Name than in Reality?” We will analyze certain paragraphs. The article states, “But it is a contradiction for the U.S. Constitution, on the one hand, to protect the rights of the bourgeois to monopolize the means of production and exploit the masses; on the other hand, talk about people’s sovereignty and freedom in other places. But both of them can’t exist simultaneously.” Ma also admits in his article, that the U.S. Constitutional system has been running for more than 200 years. So far, from the founding until present, two parties have shifted power, cycling back and forth, through elections. They have been able, at the same time, to preserve democracy, freedom and human rights, and are universally recognized for this. If using this Ma’s criteria, how is it possible for the U.S. to succeed, let alone for two hundred years?
Property and non-property are relative concepts both measured with capital so that capital becomes the common unit of value. The bourgeoisie and proletarians’ social roles can be changed at any time depending on the amount of capital they have. Tangible capital (physical level) is decided by intangible capital (metaphysical level). Real equality means equal at social capital formation and external environmental conditions, not in the amount of absolute capital. Moreover, bourgeois and proletarian are broad and vague concepts, the crowd always changing. Buddhist culture emphasizes the causal; a different gene causes a different result. For example, a lazy proletarian and a hard-working bourgeois, do they have the right to enjoy the same social wealth? So mankind needs to realize that communism is impossible, it is a falsehood that can’t ever be reality. Can’t the existing crony capital of the CCP prove this point yet? But the sin is that the external conditions of social environment and people pursuing capital are severely unequal.
“The theory of American Constitutionalism is inconsistent completely with its practice. "The 'name' totally inconsistent with the 'real' of American constitutionalism. In reality, full democracy reflects God’s freedom does not exist, which was promoted by the constitutional scholar of United States and Chinese client.” Ma Zhongcheng puts out utopian’s “Constitutionalism”, unilaterally imposes it on a head of “the constitutional scholar of United States and Chinese client”. Now Constitutionalism practices in many countries around the world, this is the trend of development for mankind’s political civilization, isn’t the true? What does it exist yet?
In the United States, natural law adapts to social selection, survival of the fittest is embodied, and anyone who comes here learns there is “no free lunch”. In the early 1990’s the television show “Pekinger in New York” and guys like Bruce Lee featured stories of Chinese survival in the United States. Here we can know a strategy of the CCP, how to treat the dissidents of the mainland, let them exile to the United States and fall into hard living. Those heroes could not do other things.
Most of the dissidents who fled or were exiled by the regime were genuine patriots who were never “vassals of anyone”. They lived overseas by hard work. They are concerned about the nation’s historical fate and are lovely, honorable people. Their lives have more meaning and value than those “vassals”, who live under the authoritarian regimes as minions or henchmen.
“The power of the American president has not been locked by the Constitution’s cage, but was locked by the cage of the oligopoly of monopoly capital.” The developers of the Constitution set provisions of the United States Constitution that the presidential election should be held every four years and the powers and re-election of the president so that no person or company can change it. The so-called “monopoly capital oligarchs” must engage in activities within the framework of the Constitution. The power of the CCP has never been locked into the Chinese constitutional cage in the mainland. The tigers such as corrupt officials are the real “monopoly capital oligarchs”, and are still outside the Constitutional cage. The whole world knows Chinese authorities are involved in huge corruption scandals, but the CCP is dumb and doesn’t give answers to people. According to Bo Xilai, the people cannot see justice or dignity in the Constitution.
If “The proletariat is relatively naïve, weak and not unified”, why is the proletariat of America inexperienced? Is American information not public? Is there no freedom of the press? “The form of disunity” the government of the United States prohibiting people from forming associations? Never! Those claims by Ma Zhongcheng are unfounded.
Finally, “Gorbachev’s political reform completely failed to be a blueprint of a western constitution” as the article stated. The failure of dictatorship in the Soviet Union is the best indication that this type of governance will never succeed. Collapse would be the destiny of the CPSU and rightly so because it’s inevitable. The CCP should learn, be alert and act earlier. Today might be Russia’s revival, but it had to be established on the basis of this failure.
The third article, also in People’s Daily is entitled “Constitution is an American Weapon to Disintegrate Socialism”. The signature is unclear, but from the writing style and content Ma Zhongcheng may have written it. The constitution was also seen as a weapon of Western capitalism to collapse Chinese feudalism and has had an effect in the constitutional process of social transformation in China during the early part of the last century. As Darwin’s survival of the fittest by natural law instructs us, development of constitution has responsibility and should once again become a weapon in China’s transition to the modern, civilized world.
The civilization of America’s constitutionalism has an unmatched vitality with irresistible charm. It is a model of development for all human civilization, so CCP always looked at the United States as its enemy in order to rationalize dictatorship rule. Their attitude has become less hostile over time. In the 1950’s the CCP launched the “war to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea”. It was a completely unnecessary war that wasted money and cost many their lives. At this year’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the armistice, the war was quietly renamed the “Korean War”. In previous years the CCP shouted that the United States made Korea one of its colonies. Sixty years later, Korea admits that it is a colony of the United States? In fact, South Korea has never had any claim on being an American colony. In contrast, the North Koreans still live in an abyss of suffering under a despotic dictatorship. The Korean War has done nothing to help their situation.
Now the CCP has hired scholars to criticize the Constitution, to use the United States as a target to vent their anger, to create false patriotism, to deceive the general public, and to achieve its stupefying strategy. These articles are based on the stereotypical hostile thinking, inciting the national mood, so people are unanimously hostile and demeaning to western constitutional states in order to continue the dream of the CCP’s dictatorship. But the theoretical level of these anonymous critiques is very bad. They confuse right and wrong and distort facts, and the social effects can only be counterproductive. Disputing the merits of Western type constitutions will ultimately produce the “shoot yourself in the foot” outcome, with propaganda failing to convince citizens of the effectiveness of the government of the CCP.
