Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition News and Article Release Issue Number: A662-O187

中国民主运动海外联席会议新闻与文章发布号：A662-O187

Release Date: October 8, 2011

发布日：2011年10月8日

Topic: "The 1911 Chinese Xinhai Revolution -- Review and Outlook" Forum (reported by: Radio Free Asia)

标题：《辛亥革命的回顾与前瞻》研讨会（自由亚洲电台报道）

Original Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)

此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）

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"The 1911 Chinese Xinhai Revolution -- Review and Outlook"

Radio Free Asia reports (http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/)

2011-10-07

October 10 this year is the centennial anniversary of the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. More than a dozen organizations lead by the Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition and Huang Hua Gang Magazine, etc. held a forum in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to commemorate and review the 1911 Revolution, and to look forward for the democratic future in China.

On Thursday's forum, Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition Chairman Wei Jingsheng pointed out that the Xinhai Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1911 is significant.

"Many people who study history are saying that China was a commodity society and a society with market economy for more than two thousand years. But the Western society of market economies eventually led to the establishment of democratic systems. Why not China? China has always had uprisings back and forth, after which it overthrew one dynasty and finally just established another similar dynasty. I think that a very important point is that the ancient Chinese people did not realize that they could build a democratic system which was better than a dynasty, a system where the people's words are counted. Now the Westerners are ahead of us, they established democratic systems. We the Chinese were the first to learn from the Westerners. We could be said to be the first Democratic Republic in Asia. Of course recently there are people disputing this claim, saying that Japan should be counted as the first. But even now Japan is still a constitutional monarchy rather than a democratic Republic, so it is not a very thorough democratic country."

Wei Jingsheng said that at present, there are a variety of critical voices about this revolution. Some people think that it should not have been an armed uprising at that time, but should have let the Qing Dynasty reform. Some other people launch personal attacks against Dr. Sun Yat-sen. There are even people blaming the setback on the road to democracy over the past century as due to the poor quality of the Chinese people, thus China is not suitable to engage in democracy.

Wei Jingsheng said: "Regarding the quality of the Chinese people, from the average people to the elite, their qualities are not bad. So why in the past one hundred years hasn't a democratic system been able to be established? I think that there are both internal and external reasons. First is that the external factor is relatively important."

Wei thinks that after the Xinhai Revolution, for their own commercial interests the Western powers chose to support Yuan Shikai who represented the old authoritarian power. Meanwhile, many people involved in the 1911 Revolution thought that the authoritarian Qing dynasty had been overthrown and the revolution had been successful, thus they could retire. This situation provided the opportunity for Yuan to usurp the fruit of the revolution and go on to claim himself as emperor of China. Only after the success of the Northern Expedition in 1927 did China return to democracy. Yet 10 years later, the outbreak of the Japanese invasion of China made China's democratic process suffer setbacks again.

However, even in the Sino-Japanese War time, in the area of democracy and freedom of expression, the Nationalist government gave far more space and dimension than today's communist regime.

"Since the Communist Party usurped political power, democracy has become basically an empty word. Of course, when the Communist regime was newly established, it also engaged in some democratic measures as Yuan did, which looked real to the degree of vigorously promoting election and democracy, etc. At that time, it had a very powerful propaganda. But soon after that Communist Party had a firm foothold, it implemented a regime of dictatorship. This is fundamentally different than the criticism of the Kuomintang Nationalist government as being not democratic enough. The so-called not democratic enough of the national government was that it was said to have steps of military governance, during the rebellion era, etc. Regardless what is said, there was still a basic framework of democracy there. The scale of freedom of speech was as much as possible. People still had freedom of speech, even to the extent of people like Li Ao, who accused and scolded the KMT every day and was still able to exist publicly. Even the media provided him with a platform to speak. However, the fundamental theory of the Communist Party is a theory of tyranny. The most basic of these theories of the Communist Party is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus it is for sure to engage in authoritarianism. It would engage in tyranny from its theory. This is fundamentally different than that the KMT not being democratic enough.

Wei Jingsheng said that the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party since it seized power has made people angry. After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping used the slogan of "reform and opening up" to attract a large number of people who still had illusions about the Communist Party. At that time, the majority of Chinese just wanted to improve the economy, and was not interested in democracy. Even the democracy movement in 1989 did not shake the basis of Communist rule. However, in recent years, the situation has changed.

"The Communist Party used various illegal means to plunder the people so that they could form a rich new bureaucratic capitalist class. The conflict between this bureaucratic capitalist class and the people is not the same as at the end of the 1970's. It is a very sharp conflict of life and death. Or to describe it in a simple way: in the late 1970s, people were unhappy, but now the people have hatred against the Communist Party."

Wei Jingsheng pointed out that the revolutionaries under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen had used bombs many times, regardless how many of them were there, and eventually overthrew the tyranny of the Qing dynasty. Nowadays, a reproduced situation like this is what the Communist Party is most worried about. Thus the Communist regime demoted the level of commemoration this year.

"This year, they are particularly nervous. They treat this commemoration of the Revolution as a major event and they want to lower the tone. They do not want us to talk about this thing. What are they so nervous about? It is because China has come to a time of crisis. The people's mood of resistance is more serious than in the late 1970s."

Wei Jingsheng thinks the way to overthrow the authoritarian regime will be chosen by the people. It may not necessarily be in the non-violent way advocated by the elite.

"The Jasmine Revolution in North Africa this time had different ways. In Libya, because Gaddafi is determined to resist and not to delegate the power, he could only be overthrown by force. Even though the Libyan people sacrificed a lot and thousands of people died, they think it was worth it to overthrow a despotic ruler. But there are different possibilities. The rulers of Egypt and Tunisia withdrew and compromised, so of course there was no need to initiate a war. But is this path easy? Neither. Look at Egypt now, it is going back and forth. No matter which road, it will not be a really easy one. The most crucial thing is that the understanding of ordinary people remains consistent. "

Dr. Li Jinjin, who participated in the '89 pro-democracy movement and currently practices law in New York, pointed out at the forum that today's Communist Party fears the word of "revolution".

"'Revolution' in the Xinhai Revolution was the favorite word for the Communist Party to use. That is because they always say that they are revolutionaries themselves. Other people like us are counter-revolutionary. But after more than 60 years, the situation has changed. It has realized that it is wrong -- it has become the object of a revolution. So today, as they look back in commemoration of Sun Yat-sen's Xinhai Revolution, they say the revolution is over. They completed a revolution and do not want another one."

Zhang Jian, the assistant to the chairmen of the National Committee of the Democracy Party of China, thinks that the Communist Party has been destroying the traditional Chinese morals and culture, while blocking Western democratic values, since its established the regime. Today, China has changed from believing its treasures are its people to wealth hidden by the officers; from the "that under heaven is for all the people" to "that under heaven is for the Communists".

Zhang believes that Sun Yat-sen's "drive out the invaders and restore China" still has significance today.

"The invaders are not the foreigners of high noses and blue eyes with strong ships and powerful cannons. The invader is the Communist party which has been bullying against the Chinese culture and bullying against all the Chinese people, bullying against our motherland China. We have to expel the invaders to restore China; expel the Communist Party to restore China."

The is a report by Radio Free Asia correspondent, Lin Ping.

Related audio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzdDiAEQ7C4&feature=player_embedded

Link of the original report:

http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gm-10072011160957.html

(Translated by: the Wei Jingsheng Foundation)

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中文版

Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition News and Article Release Issue Number: A662-O187

中国民主运动海外联席会议新闻与文章发布号：A662-O187

Release Date: October 8, 2011

发布日：2011年10月8日

Topic: "The 1911 Chinese Xinhai Revolution -- Review and Outlook" Forum (reported by: Radio Free Asia)

标题：《辛亥革命的回顾与前瞻》研讨会（自由亚洲电台报道）

Original Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)

此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）

如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:

http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2011/report2011-10/XinHaiForumUScapitol111008RFAreportA662-O187.htm

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《辛亥革命的回顾与前瞻》研讨会（图，视频）

-- 自由亚洲电台报道

2011-10-07

今年10月10号是辛亥革命一百周年纪念日。中国民主运动海外联席会议、《黄花岗》杂志等十多个组织星期四在美国国会举办研讨会，纪念和回顾辛亥革命，并对中国的民主未来进行前瞻。

在星期四的研讨会上，中国民主运动海外联席会议主席魏京生指出，孙中山1911年领导的辛亥革命意义重大。

“很多研究历史的人也都说中国的历史事实上两千多年以来一直是一个商品社会，是一个市场经济社会。但是在西方市场经济社会最终导致建立了民主制度。而为什么中国就没有呢？中国总是反反复复在起义，推翻一个王朝，最后又建立一个差不多的王朝。我觉得很重要的一点就是古代中国人没有意识到我们还能建立起一个比王朝更好的，老百姓真正能说话算数的这样一个民主制度。西方人走在我们前面了，他们建立了民主制度，于是我们中国人是最早学习西方人的这个制度。可以说是亚洲第一个民主共和国。当然最近有人提出争议。日本人比咱们中国人要早一点，但是日本到现在还是君主立宪，它并不是民主共和国，不是很彻底的民主国家。”

魏京生说，目前围绕辛亥革命，有各种批评之声，认为当时不应该进行武装起义，而应该让清政府进行改革，有人对孙中山个人进行人身攻击，甚至还有人把中国近百年来民主道路上遇到的挫折归咎于中国人素质差，不适合搞民主。

对此，魏京生表示：“中国人从素质上讲，无论从老百姓来讲，从精英阶层来讲素质都并不差。那么为什么这一百年来我们的民主制度始终没有建立起来呢？我想有内因和外因两种原因。首先是外因比较重要。”

魏京生认为，辛亥革命后，西方列强为了各自的商业利益，选择支持代表旧的专制势力的袁世凯，而参与辛亥革命的很多人认为清王朝专制已被推翻，革命已经成功，可以卸甲归田，也给了袁世凯篡夺辛亥革命果实，然后复辟称帝的机会。1927年北伐成功，中国又恢复到民主体制，但10年后，日本侵华战争爆发，使得中国的民主进程又遭受挫折。

不过，即使在抗日战争时期，国民政府在民主、言论自由方面留下的空间和尺度，也远远超过今天的共产党政权。

“从共产党篡夺了政权以后，民主基本上就成为一句空话了。当然共产党刚刚建立政权的时候跟袁世凯早期一样也搞了一些民主的措施，看上去也跟真的一样，甚至大力宣传要选举、要民主等等。那个时候宣传得很厉害，但是很快等共产党站稳脚跟以后，它就实行了独裁专制的政权。这个和大家所批评的国民党国民政府当年的不够民主是有根本差别的。当年的国民政府的所谓不够民主，说要暂时实行军政，戡乱时期等等，不管那种说法它基本的民主框架还是存在的。言论自由的尺度也是放到尽可能宽的地步。老百姓还是有言论的空间。至少像李敖那种天天骂国民党的人他就能公开地存在，而且有媒体给他提供舞台。但是共产党它的根本理论就是一个专制的理论。那共产党的这些理论有个最基本的理论就是无产阶级专政，它就是要搞专制，它从理论上就要搞专制。这个和台湾国民党的不够民主有根本的区别。”

魏京生说，共产党建政以来的专制统治，让人们感到愤怒。文革结束后，邓小平用“改革开放”的口号，吸引了大批对中共政权还抱幻想的人，当时大部分中国人只想搞好经济，对民主不感兴趣，即使是89年的民主运动，也没能动摇共产党的统治基础。

不过，近年来，情况有所变化。

“共产党用各种非法的手段去掠夺老百姓使他们形成了一个新的富裕的官僚资产阶级。这个官僚资产阶级和老百姓之间的矛盾已经不是70年代末的那种矛盾了。已经是非常尖锐的、你死我活的矛盾。用简单的形容来说70年代末的时候老百姓只是不满。现在老百姓对共产党已经不是不满了，而是仇视。”

魏京生指出，当年孙中山领导革命者，不管人数多寡，拿起炸弹多次起义，最终推翻了专制的清王朝，共产党现在最担心这种情况的重现，于是在今年对辛亥革命的纪念活动进行降调处理。

“今年他们特别的紧张，他们把辛亥革命纪念活动当作一个大事。他们要降调子，他们也不希望我们谈论这个事情。他们这么紧张的原因是什么呢？也就是说中国现在也已经到了一个危机时机。老百姓的反抗的情绪比70年代末要更加严重。”

魏京生认为，用什么方式推翻专制政权，要由百姓自己来选择，不一定非要用精英们倡导的非暴力方式。

“你比如说这次北非的茉莉花革命就有不同的方式。利比亚因为卡扎菲是坚决抵抗，他坚决不放权，那么就只能是武力推翻。即使利比亚人民牺牲了很多，成千上万的人死掉了，但是大家觉得推翻一个专制统治者还是值得。但是也有不同的可能，你比如像埃及和突尼斯这样统治者主动让步了，主动妥协了，那么在这个妥协的情况下当然用不着去发动战争了。但是这条道路容易吗？也不容易。看看埃及现在就在那个地方不断地反复。不管走哪条道路其实都是不容易的，最关键的一条就是老百姓的认识要一致。”

曾参与89民运，目前在纽约执业的李进进律师在研讨会上指出，今天的共产党害怕提“革命”二字。

“辛亥革命这个革命两个字是共产党最喜欢讲的，因为他们自己总是说自己是革命者。所以其他人像我们这种人就是反革命者。现在过了60年以后这个情况发生了变化，它看不对头了，它变成革命的对象了。他们今天在回顾、在纪念孙中山先生辛亥革命祭奠的时候他们会说革命结束了，他们完成了革命，不要再革命。”

美国的中国民主党全委员会主席助理张建认为，中国共产党建政以来，一方面摧毁传统道德文化，另一方面又阻碍西方民主价值的涌入。目前，中国已从藏富于民变成藏富于“官”，从孙中山先生倡导的天下为公，变成天下为“共”。

张建认为，孙中山先生提出的“驱除鞑虏、恢复中华”在今天仍有现实意义。

“鞑虏再也不是那些船坚炮利，高鼻子、蓝眼睛的外国人。鞑虏就是欺凌在中国民族文化之上的，欺凌在所有中国人民之上，我们华夏母亲之上的最邪恶的政党--中国共产党。驱除鞑虏，恢复中华，驱除中共，恢复中华。”

以上是自由亚洲电台记者林坪的报道。