Let us hope that what is oddly called “the problem” of freedom and civic rights in China will be “properly resolved.”

The Problem of Freedom in China

by Arthur Waldron 

A growing movement in China seeks to establish freedom through a truly democratic and constitutional government. Cheng Guangcheng’s advocacy is an important step toward curbing the unlimited power of the Communist Party of China.

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This aspiration for freedom has been definitive of Chinese politics since the turn of the last century, when the Qing dynasty began to create a parliament, and before, even in some of the ancient classics. Indeed, one can say that without a certain degree of freedom of thought and creativity for millennia, the great Chinese civilization would never have come into existence.

The Chinese do not require a strong ruling hand, as some assert. Given the right institutions they are as capable as anyone—the Japanese or the Koreans or the Taiwanese or the Indians, for example—of ruling themselves.

Today’s Chinese word minzhu, meaning “democracy,” is a direct translation of the Greek demokratia, “people rule.” The word was put together from two Chinese characters of the same meanings in Japan in the nineteenth century—what linguists call a calque. It was quickly adopted in China. The cry for democracy was heard over and over again in the various political movements of the last century, a core political desire, though not one ever actualized.

At the end of the Second World War, hope for freedom was strong in China. Many Chinese believed the Communists would deliver it. The country’s future leader, Mao Zedong (1893-1976), found himself in the wartime capital, Chongqing, where the world’s press was concentrated. On September 27, 1945 came the historic moment when he was presented with a series of written questions by the Reuters correspondent, which he answered, definitively, in writing.

The tenth question was, “What is the Chinese Communists’ definition for a free, democratic China?” Mao responded:

A free, democratic China would be a country in which all ranks of governments, including the central government, would be produced by popular, judicious, and anonymous voting, and the country would realize the “of the people, by the people, and for the people” concept of Abraham Lincoln and the “four freedoms” proposed by Franklin Roosevelt.

Many Chinese believed him, but their dreams were not to be. Mao made himself an absolute dictator.

Under Mao there was no freedom: not economic, not political, not intellectual, not religious, not personal. Terror was the rule of the day. One estimate puts the cost of his rule at seventy million Chinese dead.

Mao died on September 9, 1976. Within a month, the army had removed his allies from office and imprisoned them.

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