The Second Hope: Put an End to Diplomatic Extravagance
Even the most commonplace international meeting organised in China involves extraordinary levels of expense. There is no regard for budgets; fiscal waste and the heedless loss of human work hours is considerable. Such activities are content-free and superficial. It’s all about pursuing ‘Vanity Politics’ not ‘Practical Politics’, let alone ‘Hard-edged Politics’. Such events have nothing to do with the so-called ‘venerable traditional of warmth and hospitality demonstrated by the Chinese people from ancient times’; only the most vain and self-serving [leaders and bureaucrats like to] indulge in such things. If foreigners were to copy what we ar constantly doing here, then the VIP-filled headquarters of the United Nations in New York would be on police lock-down 24/7, and the headquarters of the numerous international organisations based in Geneva and Paris would perforce have to stage nightly fireworks displays with their personnel expected to be decked out in all their finery all the time.JFb免费翻墙网
As independent entities countries should aim for validation by means of their actual national strength [實力], and thereby they can pursue their own national interest [實利] through regular international activities, while in the process also exhibiting certain values and moral probity [道義]. All of these things can co-exist and they can have a net benefit for one’s people. The glory and respect will come naturally.— To lack this breadth of understanding and devote instead considerable energy to political grandstanding, even though the Host himself might feel very smug, it is nonetheless a waste of human resources; it is the behavior of a wastrel who is careless of public finance. Moreover, such excessive displays actually elicit contempt from foreign guests; they serve merely to excite popular outrage among one’s own people. Even our Lard-Arse neighbour — Kim Jong-un, a loathsome dictator ostracised by the international community — was welcomed to Beijing with an extravagant motorcade; you can see it all in the print and electronic media. Gossip even has it that top-tier Special Mou-tai valued at 1.28 million yuan a bottle [sic] was served at the official banquet. To be quite frank, this one gesture offended and alienated untold numbers of people in China. Now, as for the so-called China Dream, all I can say is: Dream On!JFb免费翻墙网
Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping at the Diaoyu Tai State Guest House, Beijing, on 28 March 2018
The Third Hope: End the Privileges of the Party Nobility
Elitist privileges for retired high-level cadres should be eliminated. The system of the present ‘dynasty’ [國朝, the dynastic-era term for ‘court-as-country’] allows for the state to provide inclusive retirement-to-grave care for high-level cadres according to a standard that isfar and away above that allowed to the average citizen. These cadres retain the privileges they enjoyed during their working lives, including premium health care and special access to luxury resorts for recreation and holidays. Everyone is aware of the financial burden this places on the people, but the details are never released for fear of sparking public outrage. This system replicates the kinds of prerogative that were provided to the Imperial Zhu Family Lineage during the Ming dynasty [founded by Zhu Yuanzhang in 1368CE], as well as the emoluments permitted to the families of the Eight Banners [八旗 jakūn gūsa, the exclusive Manchu military and administrative groups that were crucial to the founding and rule of the Qing dynasty in 1644; those privileges continued until the abdication of the Royal House in early 1912]. This is not merely a betrayal of the self-advertised ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ [of the Communist Party], it is also in breach of modern standards of civic life. What’s all that talk of ‘the remnants of feudalism’ for? This is a perfect example of it! People are outraged but powerless to do anything about it and it’s one of the main reasons why people regard the system itself with utter contempt. On one side of the hospital Commoners face the challenge of gaining admission for treatment, while everyone knows that grand suites are reserved on the other side for the care of high-level cadres. The people observe this with mute and heartfelt bitterness. Every iota of this bottled up anger may, at some unexpected moment, explode with thunderous fury.JFb免费翻墙网
The Fourth Hope: End the System of Luxury Provisioning
Eliminate the system of Special Needs or Luxury Goods Provisioning. Starting in [the wartime Communist guerrilla base] Yan’an some seventy years ago, this system [whereby Party cadres/ government bureaucrats have been permitted privileged access to goods and services depending on their rank in a 27-tier network] continued unimpeded even during times of mass famine and deprivation. And it continues even now as the Countless Masses are ever increasingly concerned about [the quality of and access to] dairy products for their babies and the hygiene and safety of their everyday foodstuffs.JFb免费翻墙网
The Special Needs Provisioning system allows the high-level Party nobility access to a vast range of specialty products far beyond the dreams of the average person. Apart from a few totalitarian polities, there is no other country that does this like China. Surely this is a case of ‘luxury in the extreme and shamelessness that defies description’ [豪奢之至，而無恥之尤]. Of course, inequalities exist in all societies and disparities in ability and wealth are only natural, but they are a result of differences, not due to the fact that the ideal playing field imagined by our citizens does allow for a level starting point. And none of this even takes into account the outrage felt because a small group of Party grandees is being continuously mollycoddled by [a political party] dipping into the coffers of the state. As long as this system and ‘No 34’ [a code word for the regulations covering special access to necessities and luxury goods provided to the Party nomenklatura which was set up after 1955. (See ‘Providing for the Leadership 特供茶’ in Barmé, More Saliva than Tea 口水多過茶, 2012)] remains unchecked, real food safety in China will never be realised; neither side will really be assured of its long-term security.JFb免费翻墙网
The Fifth Hope: Require Officials to Divulge their Personal Assets
People have been calling for a law requiring officials to gazette their assets for many years, without effect [it was also an early demand of student protesters in 1989]. It is evident that this is where the real skulduggery takes place and that is why the truth cannot be revealed. As cadres and government bureaucrats scale the ladder of officialdom there is a complete lack of transparency about the personal assets that accrue to their children and their families; this is a closely guarded secret hidden deep in the Party’s personnel files. Normal people have no knowledge of what is really going on and everything is clouded in obfuscation.JFb免费翻墙网
In terms of the state’s ability and economic wherewithal, let alone in terms of technical ability, all is in readiness [to reveal the truth], what’s required is for the system to be activated. Thereupon, via the national Internet, and with the oversight of 1.4 billion pairs of eyes, everything would immediately become clear. Despite continued anti-corruption activities, boundless new cases of corruption are constantly being generated. That is because both [the anti-corruption push as well as the corrupt activities themselves] take place internally (and secretly), none involve a legal process based on the principles of open and transparent politics. What is missing is a ‘Sunshine Policy’: if you have nothing to hide then implement such a policy and everything will finally be out in the open! If you are truly sincere, then join the majority of other countries who have signed up to the anti-money laundering Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units. Why conceal yourselves in the obfuscating mists of rhetoric and treat the Vast Multitudes of China like simpletons?JFb免费翻墙网
A designer mortuary for the dead letter of the Leader’s words. People’s Publishing House display, Beijing, 2018
The Sixth Hope: Put a Stop to the New Personality Cult Immediately
An emergency brake must be applied to the unfolding Personality Cult. Who would have thought that, after four decades of Reforms and the Open Door, our Sacred Land would once more witness a Personality Cult? The Party media is going to extreme lengths to create a new Idol, and in the process it is offering up to the world an image of China as Modern Totalitarianism. Portraits of the Leader are hoisted on high throughout the Land, as though they are possessed of some Spiritual Mana. This only adds to all the absurdity. And then, on top of that, the speeches of That Official — things previously merely to be recorded by secretaries in a pro forma bureaucratic manner — are now painstakingly collected in finely bound editions printed in vast quantities and handed out free throughout the world. The profligate waste of paper alone is enough to make you shake your head in disbelief.JFb免费翻墙网
All of this reflects the low IQ of the Concerned Official and His craving for fame. More importantly, we need to ask how a vast country like China, one that was previously so ruinously served by a Personality Cult [under Mao Zedong], simply has no resistance to this new cult, and this includes those droves of ‘Theoreticians’ and ‘Researchers’. In fact, they are outdoing themselves with their sickeningly slavish behaviour [舔癰吸疽, literally ‘licking the carbuncles and sucking liquid from the ulcers’ (of the power-holder to gain favour and solicit reward)]. It’s as though hundreds of millions of Chinese are oblivious; people tolerate the New Cult and allow it unfettered freedom; they are powerless in the face of all those arse-kissing bureaucrats. It goes to show that China’s Enlightenment is far from over. Every generation must champion rationalism in public affairs and continue painstakingly to forge a way to the future. The New Cult is clear evidence that China faces a long struggle before it can claim to be a modern, secular and rational nation-state.
