A Song was Heard in China - A Different Tiananmen
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Wrong forum for this sort of political sniping.
The way I see it, a lot of Localists get to where they are precisely because of Beijing's hamfisted approach in dealing with internal HK matters. This doesn't seem likely to happen ITTL.
Marc A
I notice the same guy liking all the gramatically poor posts that you have spammed.
Obvious samefag 50 Cent troll is obvious. Don't bother to reply as I've just welcomed you into my Ignore List.
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waht is troll? You western propoganda fucker, spread anti-China propoganda on internet. China need not democracy, need not throwing banana.
~Kahing, 2011-2011
I wish people would remember that this thread is for the author's story. If you must argue about politics, do it in the appropriate chat thread where I can ignore it.
29 Years Later: The Construction of Democracy with Chinese characteristics
"As the matter stands, if we look at the surrounding events from here, we can consider three ways to organize a state that we so far knew, as a starting point: the nation state, the liberal state and then the welfare state, and the question is, what is coming up next? The Chinese answer is that the era of a workfare state could be next, we want to organize a workfare state, that – as I previously mentioned – will undertake the odium of expressing that in character it is not of a liberal nature.
What all this exactly means, Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen, is that we have to abandon liberal methods and principles of organizing a society, as well as the liberal way to look at the world. I will only mention two dimensions of this — I do not want to get into a longer lecture here — and I only want to touch on them, so that the importance of the matter could be sensed. When it comes to a relationship between two human beings, the fundamental view of the liberal way of organizing a society holds that we are free to do anything that does not violate another person’s freedom.
The twenty eight years of Chinese environment preceding Prime Minister Li Lu's assassination was founded on this theoretical, conceptual starting point. It accepted a principle that is otherwise a general principle in Western democracies. In China, however, it took us twenty eight years to be able to articulate the problem, that this idea, besides being very attractive on an intellectual level, yet it is not clear, who is going to say at what point my freedom is violated. And as this does not come without understanding, then it has to be fixed and determined by someone. And as nobody was appointed to decide this, therefore everyday life experience suggested to us that it was the stronger party who decided this.
We constantly felt that the weaker were stepped upon. It was not some kind of an abstract principle of fairness that decided upon conflicts originating from a recognition of mutual freedoms, but what happened is that the stronger party was always right: the stronger neighbor told you where your car entrance is. It was always the stronger party, the bank, that dictated how much interest you pay on your mortgage, changing it as they liked over time. I could enumerate the examples that was the continuous life experience of vulnerable, weak families that had smaller economic protection than others during the last twenty nine years. Our suggestion for that, and we will try to build the Chinese state on this, is that it should not be the organizing principle of Chinese society. We can’t pass a law for this. These are principles that you are free to do anything that does not violate another’s freedom. Instead the principle should be do not do to others what you would not do to yourself. And we will attempt to found the world we can call the Chinese society on this theoretical principle, in political thinking, education, in the way we ourselves behave, in our own examples.
If we put this idea in the dimension of the relationship of the individual and the community, so far we were talking about the relationship between two individuals, then we will see that in the past twenty nine years the established Chinese liberal democracy could not achieve a number of objectives. I made a short list of what it was not capable of. Liberal democracy was not capable of openly declaring, or even obliging, governments with constitutional power to declare that they should serve national interests. Moreover, it even questioned the existence of national interests, and led to the death of our great leader. I did not oblige subsequent governments to recognize that Chinese diaspora around the world belongs to our nation and to try and make this sense of belonging stronger with their work.
Liberal democracy, the liberal Chinese state did not protect public wealth and national sovereignty. Although now we are hearing about the opposite, as if some acquisitions – I will get back to that, as the Chinese state recently even bought a bank – and the interpretation of such acquisitions is that the Chinese state could acquire such pieces of wealth, that surpasses behavior accepted in Western democracies.
Every other country – no counting maybe two – has higher proportion of public property than China has. So we can safely state that in China liberal democracy was incapable of protecting public property that is essential in sustaining a nation, even compared to other countries. Then, the liberal Chinese state did not protect the country from indebtedness. And – and here I mostly mean the system of foreign exchange loans – it failed to protect families from bonded labor.
The fantasies of Asian economic integration have been brought to an abrupt end by Prime Minister Li Lu's tragic death. Japan has been deceiving us through the liberate state, and the only winner of Chinese liberalism. Consequently, the interpretation of 2018 election success, following the tragic death of Prime Minister Li Lu on the hands of a Japanese, can acceptably be that in the great world race that is a race to come up with the most competitive way of organizing state and society, Chinese voters expect from their leaders to figure out, forge and work out a new form of state-organization that will make the community of Chinese competitive once again after the era of liberal state and liberal democracy, one that will of respect Chinese national interests, the traditional Chinese virtues of humaneness, rite, loyalty and filial piety, and of course fundamental freedom and human rights. In China, that means freedom from starvation and survival rights. Those duties and values that I enumerated should be fulfilled and be respected."
- Excerpt from The Victory Speech of Guo Quan [1], Chinese Foreign Minister since 2009, leader of the ruling Democratic Party [2] and Prime Minister-designate, 23rd February, 2018
Chinese prime minister Li Lu dies after stabbing (October 9th, 2017)
Chinese prime minister Li Lu died today from stab wounds sustained when he was attacked by a police officer outside the Goddess of Democracy, when he was touring a US delegation led by former US President Al Gore. The attacker was shot to death on the scene. According to Chinese intelligence sources, the attacker was responsible for the security of the Prime Minister, and was born to a Chinese father and a Japanese mother.
The 51-year-old billionaire-turned-Democratic Party leader and former leader of the 1989 protest movement, widely regarded as the Father of the East Asian Economic Community, suffered severe internal bleeding and liver and stomach injuries after being stabbed in the chest, stomach and arms, doctors said.
Intelligence sources had initially indicated that hia wounds were not "life-threatening". However, in the early hours of today, after Mr Li had been on the operating table for eight hours, doctors described his condition as critical.
Li Lu is widely regarded as the Father of the East Asian Economic Community, and one of the most important figures in the pro-democracy movement back in 1989. He is a champion of Western democracy, and ironically a strong advocate of East Asian economic integration. Before his death, Li is widely seen as the most probable successor of President Ai once her term ends in 2021.
The stabbing has shocked the world, many fear that the death of a liberal icon ironically on the hands of a half-Japanese would spell the end of the East Asian status quo. Hawkish and ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Guo Quan, a member of Li's Democratic Party who received the backing of the far-right Chinese Patriotic Front in the 2009 and 2014 parliamentary elections is immediately tipped as the top contender to succeed Li Lu. As Mayor of Nanjing from 2000 to 2008, Guo controversially forced primary schools in the city to adopt Hanfu as school uniform, sparking national outcry. Interior Minister Yuan Hongbing, a Mongolian Chinese legal scholar-turned politician, is favored by the liberal factions of the Democratic Party.
Former US President Al Gore, who was with Prime Minister Li Lu at the time, was understandably not hurt, but was shaken by the incident. He has yet to comment on the incident.
"The attack on Li Lu is an attack on our open society," said Chinese president Ai Xiaoming, "Fear must not prevail".
Boat collisions spark Japan-China diplomatic row (BBC News, June 7, 2016)
A diplomatic row has intensified between China and Japan after collisions between two Japanese patrol boats and a Chinese trawler on Tuesday.
Beijing has urged Japan's ambassador to stop the "illegal interception" of Chinese fishing boats.
Meanwhile, Japan has arrested the captain of the Chinese vessel.
The incidents in the East China Sea took place near a disputed chain of islands, which Japan controls but are claimed by both China and Taiwan.
According to Shanghai Economic Tribune, the Chinese authorities told the Japanese ambassador that his country must stop what it called illegal interceptions of Chinese fishing boats.
[1] In OTL, Guo Quan is an ultra-nationalist dissident who was one of the founders of the Hanfu movement. He was one of the protest leaders of the early 2000s anti-Japanese protest movement, and in 2005, Guo Quan himself controversially destroyed the monument of Wang Zhi, a Ming Dynasty-era Chinese pirate-merchant working with the Japanese. However, Guo would later become a signatory of Charter 08, and a key figure in the military weiquan movement and PLA veteran rights advocate. Guo would later be jailed for subversion against the state for 10 years. His TTL speech here is from Viktor Orban's speech advocating illiberal democracy.
[2] In TTL, the Democratic Party is a big tent opposition party that came to power in 2009, following the virtual disintegration of the People's Party, the successor of the Communist Party due to the corruption scandal of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in TTL, it would be explained further in detail later. Sensing that the People's Party is going to lose in 2009, many members of the People's Party actually crossed the floor to join the Democratic Party - a fourth of Democrats in the Chinese federal parliament were former People's Party MPs who switched side between 2005 and 2009.
What happened between 1989 and 2018? Let's wait for the next update, a reboot of this TL.
"As the matter stands, if we look at the surrounding events from here, we can consider three ways to organize a state that we so far knew, as a starting point: the nation state, the liberal state and then the welfare state, and the question is, what is coming up next? The Chinese answer is that the era of a workfare state could be next, we want to organize a workfare state, that – as I previously mentioned – will undertake the odium of expressing that in character it is not of a liberal nature.
What all this exactly means, Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen, is that we have to abandon liberal methods and principles of organizing a society, as well as the liberal way to look at the world. I will only mention two dimensions of this — I do not want to get into a longer lecture here — and I only want to touch on them, so that the importance of the matter could be sensed. When it comes to a relationship between two human beings, the fundamental view of the liberal way of organizing a society holds that we are free to do anything that does not violate another person’s freedom.
The twenty eight years of Chinese environment preceding Prime Minister Li Lu's assassination was founded on this theoretical, conceptual starting point. It accepted a principle that is otherwise a general principle in Western democracies. In China, however, it took us twenty eight years to be able to articulate the problem, that this idea, besides being very attractive on an intellectual level, yet it is not clear, who is going to say at what point my freedom is violated. And as this does not come without understanding, then it has to be fixed and determined by someone. And as nobody was appointed to decide this, therefore everyday life experience suggested to us that it was the stronger party who decided this.
We constantly felt that the weaker were stepped upon. It was not some kind of an abstract principle of fairness that decided upon conflicts originating from a recognition of mutual freedoms, but what happened is that the stronger party was always right: the stronger neighbor told you where your car entrance is. It was always the stronger party, the bank, that dictated how much interest you pay on your mortgage, changing it as they liked over time. I could enumerate the examples that was the continuous life experience of vulnerable, weak families that had smaller economic protection than others during the last twenty nine years. Our suggestion for that, and we will try to build the Chinese state on this, is that it should not be the organizing principle of Chinese society. We can’t pass a law for this. These are principles that you are free to do anything that does not violate another’s freedom. Instead the principle should be do not do to others what you would not do to yourself. And we will attempt to found the world we can call the Chinese society on this theoretical principle, in political thinking, education, in the way we ourselves behave, in our own examples.
If we put this idea in the dimension of the relationship of the individual and the community, so far we were talking about the relationship between two individuals, then we will see that in the past twenty nine years the established Chinese liberal democracy could not achieve a number of objectives. I made a short list of what it was not capable of. Liberal democracy was not capable of openly declaring, or even obliging, governments with constitutional power to declare that they should serve national interests. Moreover, it even questioned the existence of national interests, and led to the death of our great leader. I did not oblige subsequent governments to recognize that Chinese diaspora around the world belongs to our nation and to try and make this sense of belonging stronger with their work.
Liberal democracy, the liberal Chinese state did not protect public wealth and national sovereignty. Although now we are hearing about the opposite, as if some acquisitions – I will get back to that, as the Chinese state recently even bought a bank – and the interpretation of such acquisitions is that the Chinese state could acquire such pieces of wealth, that surpasses behavior accepted in Western democracies.
Every other country – no counting maybe two – has higher proportion of public property than China has. So we can safely state that in China liberal democracy was incapable of protecting public property that is essential in sustaining a nation, even compared to other countries. Then, the liberal Chinese state did not protect the country from indebtedness. And – and here I mostly mean the system of foreign exchange loans – it failed to protect families from bonded labor.
The fantasies of Asian economic integration have been brought to an abrupt end by Prime Minister Li Lu's tragic death. Japan has been deceiving us through the liberate state, and the only winner of Chinese liberalism. Consequently, the interpretation of 2018 election success, following the tragic death of Prime Minister Li Lu on the hands of a Japanese, can acceptably be that in the great world race that is a race to come up with the most competitive way of organizing state and society, Chinese voters expect from their leaders to figure out, forge and work out a new form of state-organization that will make the community of Chinese competitive once again after the era of liberal state and liberal democracy, one that will of respect Chinese national interests, the traditional Chinese virtues of humaneness, rite, loyalty and filial piety, and of course fundamental freedom and human rights. In China, that means freedom from starvation and survival rights. Those duties and values that I enumerated should be fulfilled and be respected."
- Excerpt from The Victory Speech of Guo Quan [1], Chinese Foreign Minister since 2009, leader of the ruling Democratic Party [2] and Prime Minister-designate, 23rd February, 2018
Chinese prime minister Li Lu dies after stabbing (October 9th, 2017)
Chinese prime minister Li Lu died today from stab wounds sustained when he was attacked by a police officer outside the Goddess of Democracy, when he was touring a US delegation led by former US President Al Gore. The attacker was shot to death on the scene. According to Chinese intelligence sources, the attacker was responsible for the security of the Prime Minister, and was born to a Chinese father and a Japanese mother.
The 51-year-old billionaire-turned-Democratic Party leader and former leader of the 1989 protest movement, widely regarded as the Father of the East Asian Economic Community, suffered severe internal bleeding and liver and stomach injuries after being stabbed in the chest, stomach and arms, doctors said.
Intelligence sources had initially indicated that hia wounds were not "life-threatening". However, in the early hours of today, after Mr Li had been on the operating table for eight hours, doctors described his condition as critical.
Li Lu is widely regarded as the Father of the East Asian Economic Community, and one of the most important figures in the pro-democracy movement back in 1989. He is a champion of Western democracy, and ironically a strong advocate of East Asian economic integration. Before his death, Li is widely seen as the most probable successor of President Ai once her term ends in 2021.
The stabbing has shocked the world, many fear that the death of a liberal icon ironically on the hands of a half-Japanese would spell the end of the East Asian status quo. Hawkish and ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Guo Quan, a member of Li's Democratic Party who received the backing of the far-right Chinese Patriotic Front in the 2009 and 2014 parliamentary elections is immediately tipped as the top contender to succeed Li Lu. As Mayor of Nanjing from 2000 to 2008, Guo controversially forced primary schools in the city to adopt Hanfu as school uniform, sparking national outcry. Interior Minister Yuan Hongbing, a Mongolian Chinese legal scholar-turned politician, is favored by the liberal factions of the Democratic Party.
Former US President Al Gore, who was with Prime Minister Li Lu at the time, was understandably not hurt, but was shaken by the incident. He has yet to comment on the incident.
"The attack on Li Lu is an attack on our open society," said Chinese president Ai Xiaoming, "Fear must not prevail".
Boat collisions spark Japan-China diplomatic row (BBC News, June 7, 2016)
A diplomatic row has intensified between China and Japan after collisions between two Japanese patrol boats and a Chinese trawler on Tuesday.
Beijing has urged Japan's ambassador to stop the "illegal interception" of Chinese fishing boats.
Meanwhile, Japan has arrested the captain of the Chinese vessel.
The incidents in the East China Sea took place near a disputed chain of islands, which Japan controls but are claimed by both China and Taiwan.
According to Shanghai Economic Tribune, the Chinese authorities told the Japanese ambassador that his country must stop what it called illegal interceptions of Chinese fishing boats.
[1] In OTL, Guo Quan is an ultra-nationalist dissident who was one of the founders of the Hanfu movement. He was one of the protest leaders of the early 2000s anti-Japanese protest movement, and in 2005, Guo Quan himself controversially destroyed the monument of Wang Zhi, a Ming Dynasty-era Chinese pirate-merchant working with the Japanese. However, Guo would later become a signatory of Charter 08, and a key figure in the military weiquan movement and PLA veteran rights advocate. Guo would later be jailed for subversion against the state for 10 years. His TTL speech here is from Viktor Orban's speech advocating illiberal democracy.
[2] In TTL, the Democratic Party is a big tent opposition party that came to power in 2009, following the virtual disintegration of the People's Party, the successor of the Communist Party due to the corruption scandal of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in TTL, it would be explained further in detail later. Sensing that the People's Party is going to lose in 2009, many members of the People's Party actually crossed the floor to join the Democratic Party - a fourth of Democrats in the Chinese federal parliament were former People's Party MPs who switched side between 2005 and 2009.
What happened between 1989 and 2018? Let's wait for the next update, a reboot of this TL.
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So, what has happened to South-East Asia and Middle-East ITTL?
Are they pretty much the same in OTL?
Are they pretty much the same in OTL?
After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, and years of study into and personal interaction with parts of the Chinese dissident community, I’ve come to a very different approach as for what’s likely to happen in democratic China. I would try to be as realistic as possible, and it isn’t that democratic China would not work - but we should not see things through Western lens, and it would be difficult to contain the rise of nationalism. I’m going to explore into a scenario where democratic institutions function in China, but not necessarily good for Western democracies and Southeast Asia.
While the Communist Party in OTL 1990s has been the catalyst of extreme nationalism so as to distract public discontent, never forget the fact that before Tiananmen, there were anti-African race riots in Nanjing - which started because of false rumours and cultural misunderstanding. In 1989, the students were either liberal or nationalistic, and a democratic Chinese government would find it hard not to respond even more decisively to territorial disputes.
Guo Quan of OTL is an example of a nationalistic dissident who feels that the government is being too soft on Japan. At first the government uses people like him to distract the public from actual issues, but Guo Quan, a university professor and staunch nationalist, has grown increasingly sceptical of the Chinese authorities, and eventually he became a liberal nationalist who believes that national sovereignty is impossible without check and balance.
If OTL China one day becomes a true democracy, which is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, nationalistic dissidents like Guo Quan may pose a bigger threat to Western democracies and China’s neibours than the Communist Party.
However, One Child Policy would long have gone during the democratic transition, as forced abortion would be to no extent acceptable to any civilised democracy. But initially there’d be no tax allowance for the second child, and perhaps other forms of executive discrimination - until an unholy alliance of liberals and nationalsits begin to trash the One Child Policy completely.
And if I’m to name an example of places that develop similarly as in OTL? I would immediately say, the Balkans
While the Communist Party in OTL 1990s has been the catalyst of extreme nationalism so as to distract public discontent, never forget the fact that before Tiananmen, there were anti-African race riots in Nanjing - which started because of false rumours and cultural misunderstanding. In 1989, the students were either liberal or nationalistic, and a democratic Chinese government would find it hard not to respond even more decisively to territorial disputes.
Guo Quan of OTL is an example of a nationalistic dissident who feels that the government is being too soft on Japan. At first the government uses people like him to distract the public from actual issues, but Guo Quan, a university professor and staunch nationalist, has grown increasingly sceptical of the Chinese authorities, and eventually he became a liberal nationalist who believes that national sovereignty is impossible without check and balance.
If OTL China one day becomes a true democracy, which is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, nationalistic dissidents like Guo Quan may pose a bigger threat to Western democracies and China’s neibours than the Communist Party.
In TTL, Hanfu movement begins as part of a wider nationalist movement to revive Chinese traditions and culture, damaged by the Cultural Revolution. One Child policy would be seen as a threat to the family traditions, and would of course not be welcomed by ultranationalists.
However, One Child Policy would long have gone during the democratic transition, as forced abortion would be to no extent acceptable to any civilised democracy. But initially there’d be no tax allowance for the second child, and perhaps other forms of executive discrimination - until an unholy alliance of liberals and nationalsits begin to trash the One Child Policy completely.
Very different, but no spoiler for now. In my reboot I’ll dedicate a few chapters to both. My TL represents a world where democratic roots were planted even more dramatically than in OTL, but an initially more democratic-oriented countries may actually spell more trouble in some areas by the end of this TL (2020). And there would be significant parallels to OTL as well. You may not want to live in this world, to be very honest. Not all countries would be very different, but the Middle East and Southeast Asian would experience most of the butterflies.
And if I’m to name an example of places that develop similarly as in OTL? I would immediately say, the Balkans
For those who don’t understand what Hanfu is, Hanfu is a traditional Chinese garment, and the Chinese equivalent of Kimono in Japan. Below is an OTL picture of Professor Guo Quan wearing a Hanfu at a lecture, Nanjing Normal Univetsity, where he taught before being jailed.
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Next week. And on the other hand do you think I should create another thread for the reboot and lock this one?
That's up to you, but, if you're going to re-do it, a locking of this version would work.
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