After I participated in the CDP's activities, I thought about Chinese government and society more from a political perspective. Here I would like to share my opinion about Weng'an incident.
Weng'an incident fully demonstrates that the corruption of Chinese official and social injustice is the reason of social instability. It is often the most important cause of mass incidents frequently occurred in China.
Social harmony is difficult to come true in China. The underlying reason is social injustice, or the government did not treat the people well. The vulnerable people were given no way out. Chinese people are used to accept the reality and live their lives no matter how hard it is. In Chinese history, all peasant uprisings are the Government's responsibility, without exception. For a harmonious society, those in power should be responsible first. Who is undermining social harmony? The appealer who suffered enough injustice? The protesting migrant worker who couldn't get paid as should? The farmers deprived of their land? Or the vulnerable people who had their residence forcibly taken down? I think, the Government should bear most of the responsibility.
Now, people simply do not trust the Government, which is also China's general crisis. Government does not tell the truth, never admit its mistakes, so how could people want to trust it? Now in China, few local officials really care about ordinary people's sufferings. Few officials are clean of corruption and work for the people. Therefore, China's ordinary people became very disappointed with the government, no longer have the confidence that the Government could help them.
It seems to me that, if the Chinese government wants to change its own failure figure, it should honor its own promise and give freedom to the press and Internet, and take this opportunity to shape the Government's integrity and restore people's trust in the Government.
Chinese government officials of any levels should abandon autocracy and establish the rule of law. Everyone is equal before the law. Ordinary people should be allowed to know and criticize the officials' mistakes, and anyone who broke the law should be punished with justice.
Such a government would be the government people could trust, and could possibly achieve social harmony and stability.
07/30/2008