By WEI JINGSHENG
Since I was released from a Chinese prison a few weeks ago, I have heard the
same statement over and over. "At least in
That statement was not true 19 years ago, when I posted an essay on a downtown
That bit of truth landed me in prison, where I spent nearly 18 years. And in
that time, my prediction -- that modernization cannot occur without democracy
-- has been fulfilled. What has happened to China in the last few years proves
that.
I remember that the year I was arrested, Deng Xiaoping told the Chinese people
in a speech that, "Important national matters are the consideration of the
Communist Party leadership. Ordinary people need not say too much; they should
just keep their heads down and work hard."
To put this another way: A billion Chinese people should give up their fundamental
human rights and freedom of expression if they want to enjoy the Four
Modernizations promised by the Chinese Communist Party. This, of course, will
satisfy their most primary need: the modernizations of life.
But I have never known the Chinese Communist Party to demonstrate any sincere
willingness to modernize people's lives.
The glorified economic accomplishments of China in recent years are actually
filled with holes. China's economy miracle is already being eaten away by a new
class of corrupt bureaucratic capitalists.
Those public enterprises are now debt ridden. To compensate for them, the
Government has delayed paying workers' wages and used bookkeeping chicanery.
Many people have lost their jobs and rural areas are not being economically
developed.
Meanwhile, the dictatorial political system is protecting the extraordinarily
corrupt bureaucratic class. All manner of legal and illegal means are used to
soak the people dry and deplete the resources of Chinese society as a whole.
What kind of economic miracle is this?
All this makes me feel very heavy. I would prefer that my predictions about the
four modernizations was wrong, but unfortunately it is now a reality.