Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 10, 2010
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/288917/Suppressing-voices-in-China-won't-work.html
What would have happened, it was asked on
Twitter last Friday, if someone in the state-controlled media in China had
made a tasteless remark similar to what the TV presenter in New Zealand made
about Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit? Would the Ministry of External
Affairs have summoned the Chinese Ambassador, issued a demarche and snubbed
a visiting dignitary?
My own guess is that we would have quietly
tut-tutted, stonewalled media inquiries and retreated into the depths of helplessness.
When it comes to small fry such as New Zealand, India is willing to live up
to the image of Sheru, the Commonwealth Games mascot: A friendly lion but
a lion all the same. However, when it comes to China, the natural instinct
of the Ministry of External Affairs is to look for excuses to avoid baring
its manicured fangs.
Of course, there are exceptions. Occasionally,
we do get officials and Ministers who don't confuse their respect for China's
civilisation with abject deference to the ruling establishment of the People's
Republic of China. Despite all the dire threats issued by Beijing, the Dalai
Lama was allowed to visit Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. And despite signalling
that his authority stems from the first family, the Minister of Environment's
unmistakable 'give it to China' approach to Arunachal Pradesh's development
will not become official policy. India has its Sinophiles but it also has
a political class that is not swayed by the dangerous logic of China's approach
to the sub-continent.
Yet, because China policy is still unduly
influenced by China experts who take their cue from Beijing, it is extremely
unlikely that there will be any official Indian reaction to the Nobel committee's
decision to award its Peace Prize to the jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo.
This is understandable. India is disinclined
to wear its commitment to democracy on its sleeve. Unlike the United States
which has fetishised its double standards, India is inclined to respect sovereignty
- although this has not prevented our diplomats from proffering gratuitous
advice to Israel, the only worthwhile democracy in West Asia. India has its
inconsistencies but at least we don't claim to be the custodian of all that
is noble in the world.
It is unlikely that either Rashtrapati Bhavan
or Race Course Road will be writing a personal message of congratulations
to the Nobel Prize winner China continues to regard as a convicted "criminal".
The 54-year-old human rights activist was sentenced in December 2009 to 11
years in prison for alleged "subversion". In the Chinese context,
it meant that he had questioned the absence of democratic freedoms in China
and co-authored 'Charter 08', a blistering attack on the crimes of the Communist
Party of China. Having attracted nearly 10,000 signatures (mainly of teachers
and intellectuals), Charter 08 has come to symbolise the yearning for democracy
in China.
However, the understandable wariness of official
India to take an official position on an award that Chinese diplomats tried
desperately to prevent need not be the last word on the subject. There is
nothing to prevent Indian civil society from celebrating the Nobel Committee's
recognition of the universality of basic democratic rights.
That the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu, coming
two decades after the Dalai Lama had been similarly honoured, is calculated
to infuriate Beijing isn't in any doubt. With characteristic Iron Curtain
ham-handedness, the Chinese authorities have attempted to black out the news,
quite forgetting that censorship doesn't work and, in fact, makes the forbidden
item that much more delicious to everyone. Norway has been threatened with
retaliation and, who knows, the US too will be threatened because of President
Barack Obama's call for Liu's release.
These are routine noises by a regime that,
underneath its imperious arrogance, is fundamentally nervous about its own
legitimacy. Some two decades ago, Deng Xiaoping had coined the characteristically
cryptic phrase "Crossing the river by feeling for stones" to define
China's cautious approach to political reforms that can invariably end the
CPC's monopoly of power. There were many who felt that rapid economic growth
and greater exposure to the capitalist world would ease Communist control.
Indeed, it was widely believed that the 2008 Olympics would hasten the process
of relaxation. But this has not happened.
In an interview to The Daily Telegraph last
year, Professor He Weifang, the lead signatory to Charter 08, assessed today's
China using Deng's metaphor: "The situation at the moment is that the
river has deepened and the Party has got scared, so it has pulled back fearing
that the waters will rise up and drown them. In the last two years this pulling
back from the water has got worse."
Whether or not China retreats into the clutches
of a nervous dictatorship has a profound bearing on the world. As it has risen
to the status of the world's second largest economy, Beijing has become fiercely
assertive in its conduct. With growing militarisation, colonisation of the
world's mineral and energy resources in a manner reminiscent of Victorian
imperialism, and aggression towards its neighbours (Japan got a taste of it
last month), it is becoming increasingly apparent that China's unrestrained
rise will lead to it wishing to redraw the rules of the game.
This is why it is important that enlightened
voices are not suppressed in China. Taiwan has shown that democracy and the
Chinese people are fully compatible.
