Bao Tong: Guizhou and the grandfather ghosts

So who has the power to “deploy police force” whenever they want to? It certainly isn’t ordinary Chinese people, nor is it a democratically elected government. It is a pack of bureaucrats nominated by the Communist Party, whose names have been picked out of a mechanical “election” process, who have been given a franchise on state power; with no competition.

— Bao Tong on the Guizhou unrest

2008-07-05
鲍彤评论：贵州省委书记一篇有普遍意义的讲话

On a remark by the Guizhou provincial Party secretary that merits everyone’s attention
by Bao Tong

瓮安县最近出了人命，案情离奇，众说纷纭。我也是一个”不明真相”的人，越听越糊涂。但是，贵州省委书记石先生7月3日的一席话，我听懂了。

Recently, a person died in Weng’an county. The details of the case are unclear, and many different versions are floating around. I too am one of those who don’t know what really happened. The more I hear, the more confused I become. But I did understand one thing, and that was a comment made on July 3 by Mr Shi, the Guizhou provincial Party secretary.

他的话，被公布出来的虽然只有寥寥几段，但是有重量，有深度，切合实际，对整个中国，有普遍意义。

Only a few fragments of his comments were actually reported, but those that were carry great depth and weight, striking close to the heart of the matter, and are worthy of the attention of the entire nation.

Sorrow, ah! sorrow: Cardboard buns and the prison undercurrent

Click here to hear the theme song for this post
On July 8, Beijing TV’s Life Channel program <Degree of Transparency> aired the report on “cardboard buns” and gained broad social attention. The Beijing city Industry and Commerce department and the Food Safety Administration paid high attention and formed law enforcement teams to check the breakfast markets in the city. But they did not find any “cardboard buns” at those markets. The Beijing public security bureau formed an investigative team and discovered the truth on July 16.

— from ESWN

I am interested in the meme of cardboard in buns. I think the rumour may have preserved itself in popular culture from a genuine experiment in the labour camps

Confessions of a karaoke addict: Three music videos for Hong Kong’s anniversary

“Because you are there” (in Chinese “You were always there”, and while it’s Hong Kong that was alluded to in the lyrics, one can’t help but read it as a paean to the Motherland.) It’s hard to describe this official theme tune for the 10th anniversary of the handover. My first thought was: “Ah, Hong Kong’s got its own Malaysia song!”

50 Years On: China’s ‘rightists’ remember

 The Anti-Rightist Movement (反右派运动) of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s and early 1960s consisted of a series of campaigns to purge alleged “rightists” within the Communist Party of China and abroad. The campaigns were instigated by the Chairman, Mao Zedong.

— Wikipedia

“At that time there were huge struggle meetings with more than 1,400 people attending. I was struggled for an entire day. I was 22 years old. The mayor and the Chengdu municipal Party secretary even attended. They told me to speak up for myself, and I said three things. One was that I had never hated the Communist Party because I was born to a poor family and my father had never been punished by the Party; the second was that I loved socialism and the Communist Party. The third was that I was not a rightist. They said I was diehard and sent me off to the labor camp for re-education through labor.”

— former ‘rightist’ Tie Liu

Bao Tong on the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Campaign

This essay was broadcast exclusively on RFA’s Mandarin service June 14 under the title, 论反右派斗争的非法性-为反右派斗争五十周年作:

On the illegality of the anti-rightist struggle–written on the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Movement.

By Bao Tong

What sort of a crime is denying the leadership of the Party or reversing the direction of socialism? Citizens have a right to express agreement or disagreement with the Party’s leadership or with the direction of socialism. This is a legal act. The State and the law have a responsibility to protect it, not the right to punish it. Didn’t “we” allow tens of millions of people to starve to death through the “progress” achieved through the Party’s leadership and socialism, and persecute two hundred million more? The label “murderous spirit” should rather be applied to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, who wiped out 550,000 people.