送交者: Baby_Steps 于 November 21, 1999 17:50:34:
WASHINGTON, Nov 21, 1999 -- (Agence
France Presse) Incremental political and social
changes are altering the face of China, U.S.-based
Chinese dissidents said at a conference here
Saturday, although they emphasized that true democracy is still a long way
off.
Despite the persistence of political authoritarianism, "China has quietly
transformed into an increasingly vibrant diversified and complex society,"
said Richard Long, a member of the student democracy movement who
escaped the massacre at Tiananmen Square 10 years ago.
Speaking at a conference on human rights in China, sponsored by the
non-profit Population Research Institute, Long said evidence of a new
vibrancy in China can be found in "a strong strain of self-assertiveness" in
various sectors of society -- from mass media, to higher education, to legal
reform and the proliferation of civic associations. Shen Tong, another
alumnus of the student democracy movement living in the United States,
compared the recent political changes in China to the end of the former
Soviet Union.
"The end of Communism in the 1990s in China is less formal and visible than
the post-Communist transition in central and eastern European countries and
the former Soviet Union, (but) it is however, profound," said Shen, who is
affiliated with the group Democracy for China Fund.
Leading dissidents also pointed to a rise in incidents of civil disobedience as
proof of greater openness, as in the defiance displayed by followers of the
outlawed Falungong movement. Citing Falungong's actions of civil
disobedience -- as well as statistics from Beijing's public security bureau that
there were more than 60,000 protests last year -- dissident Lian Shengde
said that in China "the people are ready to change."
Dissidents also credited the revolution in global technology with helping to
erode the state's once iron-clad grip on power. Long, for instance, said his
Internet-based company, Chinese VIP Reference, was sending dissident
news to some one million people in China daily. Economic reforms
meanwhile, are compelling Chinese citizens to fight for their self-interest
instead of harboring old Communist ideals of the collective good.
"Ten, twenty years ago, when China initiated economic reforms, nobody
believed China could develop a new model, but now economists see there is
a new model," said Wang Juntao, an activist in China since he was 17.
The turning point, some dissidents said, was the brutal crackdown on the
students in Tiananmen Square, which sparked the emergence of an
organized opposition inside the country. Tiananmen has even left its imprint
on the Chinese government, as leaders in Beijing demonstrate ever greater
commitment to "economic growth and a xenophobic nationalism," said Shen.
Even the army, once seen as an unwavering bulwark of the government,
could have a role in future change, said Shen who called the army China's
"wild card."
However, Lian, who served two years in prison after his actions in
Tiananmen Square, reminded the conference that political repression remains
a feature of daily life in China.
"More than 150 former student activists are in jail or labor camps. Hundreds
of others are dying or being tortured in labor camps," he said. "This struggle
for freedom cannot be won by the Chinese people themselves,
we need help from the international community," said Lian, calling for an
alliance of forces similar to that which unraveled the apartheid regime of
South Africa in 1990.
And Shen cautioned against overestimating the importance of greater
freedom without significant changes in China's laws.
"Chinese people still cannot live without fear," he said, "unless these changes
are institutionalized through legal rights." ((c) 1999 Agence France Presse)
Internet could force Chinese government to open political door
by Sharon Behn
WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (AFP) - The power of the Internet could be the chink
in the armor of Beijing's communist government's political control of its
people, one top Chinese dissident said Saturday.
Beijing, as part of the US-China trade deal signed Monday paving the way
for its entry into the World Trade Organization, has stated it will open up
its telecommunications and Internet markets to foreign investors.
The WTO deal, Richard Long said, "opens a slight window that can allow
the free flow of ideas across traditional borders that are controlled by the
government.
"Freedom of information through Internet newsgroups are a powerful tool
for freedom of speech in China," said Long.
Long was a member of the student democracy movement brutalized at
Tiananmen Square 10 years ago. He is now based in Washington and runs the
Internet-based non-profit company Chinese VIP Reference.
Through VIP he sends news normally censored by Beijing to China through
the Internet.
"I'm reaching about a million people daily in Chinese on individual
e-mail accounts all across China," he told AFP.
China's government so far has made sure that newsgroups were completely
cut off, developing a strategy of hiring thousands of people to search and
censure the Internet, he said.
"The only way left now" to reach people inside China is through the
e-mail system. "Internet police can't figure out to whom I send (my news)
and to how many," Long said at a human rights in China conference here.
Like other dissidents who have come to the United States, Long said he
was unsure if Beijing would be true to the deal it signed with Washington.
"I hope China will respect the rules related to western civilization but
I'm not optimistic about that," he said.
"China will not grant (Internet) freedom without first having a means to
control it," he explained.
"But it is a cat and mouse game." But within the game, political
opposition news is reaching Chinese citizens and will do so more often, he
added.
"We need to push more to make the Chinese government realize they can't
control the information age," he said. "That's the only opportunity we have."
Speaking in San Francisco Friday, Chang Xiaobing, deputy director general
of China's telecommunications bureau was reticent on questions of government
regulation of the industry.
"That is a difficult question. I don't want to answer," he said.
Long believes the final word on the issue will come only from Chinese
President Jiang Zemin himself.
"I think he will open up to Western business after he has a fence of
security control, as well as when Western business companies have a better
understanding of self-censorship," he stated.
For example, Long said, "In Yahoo! under the key word VIP Reference you
only get a site attacking ours and no link to our website. That's called
self censorship."