Democracy is certainly no across-the-board panacea for social ills. Evidence of the problems that accompany it in the U.S. and elsewhere is there for everyone to see: high crime rates, murky moral standards, and highly ambiguous social justice, all manifesting themselves under the democratic umbrella. Though there are no quick solutions in sight, there is general and definite popular agreement that democracy remains the best political system ever devised by man. Chinese intellectuals are far from exceptions, and have long risked their lives for a democratic realm.
What do Chinese intellectuals mean when they talk about democracy in general terms? What happened to the so-called "Democracy Wall" movement on the mainland in the late 1970s? What are the basic differences between the Communist claim to democracy and American practice? These and other relevant questions are raised and explored in Andrew Nathan's comprehensive, though not all-exhaustive, Chinese Democracy.
Professor Nathan, who teaches Chinese studies at Columbia University's East Asian Institute, has focused his volume on the post-Mao happenings of 1978-81, when the Democracy Wall movement briefly flourished in Communist China. He explores in detail the Tienanmen Square incident and the rise and fall of Wei Ching-sheng. And he summarizes relevant statements made first in the wall posters, and later in such publications as Tan Suo (Search), April Fifth Forum (Sze Wu Lun Tan), and Peking Spring.
A chapter on "Liang Chi-chao and the Chinese Democratic Tradition" provides historical perspective; another, "Political Rights in the Chinese Constitutional Tradition," compares several of the Chinese Communist constitutions with the early Republican Constitution of 1912-13 and the 1946 Constitution which serves the Republic of China today.
Other chapters include one on Chinese Communist "Official Limits" for the democracy movement, "Democracy and Bureaucratism," "The Challenge to Party Dictatorship," "The Rise of Propaganda," "Media in the Service of the State," and a chapter specifically dealing with the chaotic situation during the 1980 Communist-type local elections on the mainland.
Preparing for this book, Professor Nathan conducted a series of interviews with Chinese emigres and travelers in Hongkong and America, delving into such subject matter as the internal organization of newspapers, specific activities of the democracy movement, the reality of the county-level elections, etc. In an Appendix, he explains his interview methods and results in great detail; extensive notes also help the reader to identify or check out his sources.
Chinese Democracy is a bit misleading as a title, because the actual coverage is only of the abortive democracy movement on the Communist-ruled mainland, with marginal reference to other Chinese historical episodes. But Nathan's limited purpose, namely, to document and explore the movement on the mainland, has succeeded admirably in explaining how and why the post-Mao regime under Teng Hsiao-ping first condoned (even encouraged), then crushed the movement, committing its leaders to long terms of confinement. Professor Nathan theorizes on Teng's contradictory behavior in these words:
"(Teng's) temporary endorsement of the movement, in late 1978, must have had something to do with the closely balanced struggle at the central work conference that preceded the Third Plenum. It was useful to have his rivals denounced in wall posters outside the Great Hall of the People, where the conference took place; useful to hear shouts for the rehabilitation of his allies; and useful to be able to show that the 'masses' 'wanted political reform and economic growth.
"When (Teng) acquiesced in the restriction of the movement in March 1979, it may also have been for factional reasons, because his policies of late 1978 had encountered difficulties and were under attack. But by February 1980, if not earlier, his political control was relatively firm. Now the democracy movement represented a threat to that control."
Nathan's objective explanations enhance our understanding of a rule generally based on the whims of one leader, and in as general a disregard for law. The Peking regime once published, in justification of such practices, a commentary on the 1982 Communist Chinese constitution, from which the following is excerpted:
In socialist countries, as the people are the masters of the country and the government is the people's government, the subject and object of management are consistent with each other. In other words, the masses of the people are simultaneously conductors and objects of state management. This determines that in the socialist state, administrative management bears the nature of a democracy.
"It follows," commented Professor Nathan, "the rule by the party's leaders is rule in the people's interests and, by definition, democratic."
It is an all-embracing logic: For example, no general election is indicated outside the party, because the party already serves all interests; and all power should also belong to the party for like reasons, ad infinitum.
As an American-trained journalist, unadapted to such twistings of logic, I have pointed out, elsewhere, that if we simply substitute the word "party" for "people" in Chinese Communist terminology, most everything becomes clearer: Starting with the "People's Daily," which is indeed the Communist Party official organ, and going out to the "People's Liberation Army," which actually serves only the Communist Party, the "People's Bank," the "People's Hotel," etc.
In any case, also particularly valuable are the book's perceptive studies on the rise of propaganda in Communist China and of the mainland media in the service of the state, and its comparative look at "Chinese democracy and Western values."
For all Chinese and Western intellectuals, in particular, this book provides a solid theoretical background on Chinese views of democracy, and is a useful historical perspective for the future political development of China.