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Opinion
Are China's Rulers Illegal?
by William R. Stimson
 Once
again China’s government lurches wildly and unpredictably in the
diametrically opposite direction to the one everybody agrees it should
rationally be headed in during these times. Not unlike a ward of
psychopaths intent on blocking out reality, the country’s leadership has
abruptly announced that, effective immediately, it is further
restricting foreign news within its borders.
What makes this current measure of particular interest is its exact
wording. Among the categories of news to be made illegal is anything
that may “endanger China’s national security, reputation and interests.”
It’s common knowledge that what most endangers China’s national
security, reputation and interests around the world today is the banning
of information and the censorship of news within China. So are we to
infer from this that China’s Communist Party and its state-run New China
News Agency have now effectively been made illegal?
Or, in the same way China considers all discussion of Taiwan’s status to
be an internal affair, i.e., a matter not subject to discussion — is it
perhaps also the case that it considers the endangerment of its own
national security, reputation and interests to be an internal affair,
i.e. something that can be allowed to go on unimpeded as long as it is
perpetuated by Party leaders themselves?
Although this may seem irrational to those unfamiliar with China’s form
of government, the fact is that China’s rulers define their own
security, reputation and interests to be what is good for China. Since,
other than them, no one else in China has a voice, they are free to get
away with this. Insofar as they are making it increasingly difficult for
outside news to penetrate the country, it’s not hard for them to win
over the Chinese people to their way of seeing things.
So, even if now, according to these new measures that have been put into
effect, China’s rulers are, in fact, illegal — nobody in China except
the rulers themselves will have any way to find this out. It’s
understandable why it’s so important to them to keep it this way. We can
expect further crackdowns in the future on all kinds of news media, the
arresting and harassing of even more journalists, a further tightening
of the regulations governing Web sites and online forums, the
mobilization of many tens of thousands more government workers to screen
and block Web content, and the continued firing of editors in
publications that resist official control.
In this one area, China is back to something like a Cultural Revolution.
This looks bad, which is yet another reason why it’s leaders are
scrambling to cover it all up, no matter how much harm this does to
China and the 1.3 billion Chinese.
September 17,
2006
Image under license with
Gettyimages.com
William R. Stimson is a
writer who lives in Taiwan. More of his writing can be found at
www.billstimson.com
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Opinion
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