Empire of Lies

by Guy Sorman

  I tell Jiang Rong that the wolf is not kindly viewed in the West. In the past, he used to eat up little girls. Today, he stands for “savage neoliberalism.” Jiang Rong sees nothing wrong with neoliberalism, the market economy, and globalization. In point of fact, the “wolf culture,” which frightens Europeans and elderly Chinese, holds great attraction for his readers. No doubt the Communists would prefer a society of sheep, but the younger generations, dreaming of freedom, have other ideas. The fact that they chose Miss Li as a she-wolf is ample proof, says Jiang Rong.

  Who is Miss Li? Jiang is all praise for the amateur singer who won the Supergirl contest on a Hunan television station in August 2005. Jiang is a fan of Li Yuchun, and so is his wife, also a writer, who did not miss an episode of what became the most popular program ever televised in China. Supergirl and Wolf Totem were the two major events of the year. This, too, is part of globalization. Jiang Rong sees a link between the two. If we want to know where the real China is heading, he says, we have to look at popular fads and understand their significance. Supergirl was the democratic victory of an ordinary Chinese girl. The Party-ordained public television announcers’ vapid baby-doll look didn’t stand a chance against Li’s liberated image and the raw energy that she exuded.

  And so the Year of the Rooster came to an end to make way for the Year of the Dog. With this conversation about wolves and dragons, my last in China, it was time to say good-bye. The interview took place at a venue chosen by Jiang Rong: McDonald’s, the symbol of new China. Located in a parking lot, the restaurant faces the Summer Palace. Jesuit architects designed the imperial abode in 1750 along the lines of Versailles; English and French troops ravaged it in 1860. For many years now, China has ceased to live on another planet. She is very much a part of the world we live in. Her people may use different forms to express their aspirations and conflicts—a story about wolves and dragons, for instance—but they are not fundamentally different from the rest of us. The Chinese are not the Other; neither are they elsewhere. They are very much here and now. Their desires, joys, and sufferings are no different from ours. We have no right to condemn them to Otherness; nor do we have any right to deny them their ordinary desires, be it bad coffee at McDonald’s or the freedom to express themselves. China is no longer exotic; only the Communist Party is. For how long, who can say?

  Which way will China go? Four scenarios, from revolution to status quo

  Rather than prophesy about a country as elusive as China, let me merely outline the four future scenarios—all, apparently, highly unlikely—that dominate contemporary sinology, as well as a fifth, which could in fact come about, but has yet to be described.

  Rebellions are breaking out all over China; I have described those that occurred over the last year. Will all these local revolts add up to a revolution? If so, it will be the third in a hundred years, after the overthrows of the Empire in 1911 and of the Republic in 1949. This is the visionary’s scenario. Though people are simmering with discontent, rebels have no means of communicating with one another and are unable to constitute themselves into a single movement with a common leader and agenda. The Party has succeeded in dividing them. That they will be able to shake the Party seems very unlikely. Nor are they powerful enough to take on the army and the police.

  Do religious movements pose a serious threat? The historical precedent—a regime overthrown on account of a groundswell of mystical fervor—is not likely to repeat itself. Religions and sects active in Chinese society are fulfilling the desire for individual salvation or collective solidarity; they do not constitute a millenarian threat. The Party’s crushing of the Falun Gong shows its determination not to be destabilized by apocalyptic projects. Once again, its mastery of the instruments of repression has given it the upper hand, at least in the immediate future. Moreover, people are mortally afraid of violence, making a revolution seem even less likely. The Chinese fear of civil war is far greater than the Chinese hatred of the Party. Though people are convinced that nothing could be worse than the present regime, they can’t conceive of an alternative. No one—neither rebel nor revolting peasant nor striking worker nor candidate for religious martyrdom—has dared to suggest an alternative. And the Party has seen to it that the desire for liberal democracy is confined to intellectual circles.

  After discarding the first scenario, we turn to the second: bankruptcy. China will not be able to maintain its current pace of growth because natural bottlenecks and poor management will lead to shortages of electricity, water, and qualified manpower, as well as pollution and pandemics caused by too many people packed together in unhygienic conditions. Besides, the Party has no real control over the two engines of Chinese growth: American consumer demand and Chinese savings. Should the Americans move away from the Chinese market and should Chinese savers invest in foreign banks, there would be general bankruptcy and the country would plunge into chaos. (Theoretically, it would be possible to develop the economy on a surer footing—by stimulating the domestic market—but this would happen only after a long period of transition. Meanwhile, the Party would have lost the legitimacy that it derived from growth.)

  Could this second scenario lead to democracy? The far greater likelihood is the rise to power of a military regime to end anarchy, prevent provinces like Tibet and Xinjiang from proclaiming their independence, and stop others such as Fujian and Guangzhou from moving toward Hong Kong and Taiwan. In any case, the second scenario seems just as improbable as the first, for the simple reason that the world needs its Chinese workshop. Should the workshop lose momentum, Westerners would have to pay much more for scarcer items of daily consumption. In all probability, international interdependence is what is going to save the Party.

  The third scenario, more moderate, is a gradual, structured transition to democracy—an idea that will find favor with most people both in and out of China. The Party, faced with growing social turmoil and increasingly complex choices, will of its own accord accept the need for dialogue. The principle of negotiation will triumph over the principle of authority. The Communists will organize themselves spontaneously into different streams, liberal and socialist, which will give rise to new political parties. In this way, the Party will have successfully transformed itself for a third time, from a totalitarian to an authoritarian to a liberal democratic body. Don’t local elections, the emerging judiciary and legal systems, social debates in the media, and the white paper published in the Year of the Rooster all point in this direction?

  Alas, this rosy picture is not likely to materialize because the Party refuses to make any firm commitments or set any deadlines. Democratization has been subordinated to vague notions such as “Chinese characteristics” and other “transitions”—in short, pretexts for prevaricating and not doing anything.

  That the Party would willingly set forth on a path that would lead to its extermination is doubtful, to say the least. Democratization would mean replacing the present lot of technocrats with peasants’ representatives, who would then be a majority; it would also mean reorienting economic choices, giving up the current obsession for national power for more people-oriented strategies. Finally, the transitional phase has always been the most perilous to an authoritarian government, a fact that history has vindicated time and time again, from Louis XVI to Mikhail Gorbachev. So why should the Party fish in troubled waters? Reform is wishful thinking and will remain so.

  The fourth scenario, conceivable, is authoritarian status quo. You can hate the Party, fear its all-consuming desire for power, take umbrage at the way it despises its own people, but you have to admit that it has pursued its objectives with a cold-blooded rationality. Its first objective is to stay in power. In the normal course, a dictatorship dies with the dictator or because there is no clear mode of succession. The Chinese Communist Party has become a nonhereditary dynasty in which one generation smoothly replaces the next. It is equally adept at changing its positions, moving from utopia to development, militancy to technical expertise, all the whil
e honing its managerial skills to control the economy, national defense, and social movements. The Party’s second objective is to enrich its members. It has shown a remarkable talent for increasing its power and wealth in the process of making a powerful China.

  Are these reasons strong enough for us to be in awe of the Party? No one doubts its efficiency. What is frightening is its unbridled ambition. Its aims are certainly not those that ordinary Chinese would enunciate if they were allowed to. What the people want is clear: greater individual welfare, schools for their children, hospitals for their old age, a decent wage without being uprooted, freedom of speech, and less corruption and military spending. But the people don’t have a voice. They go unheard both in their own country and outside. They are the a billion people of silence, the victims of the Party’s ruthless efficiency.

  Yet the Chinese, except those who stand to gain directly from the current system, remain steadfast in their demands. Whenever they can, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas, they choose liberal democracy, proving that the Communist model is not a universal one. In fact, it is not even suited to the Chinese—whereas so-called Western values remain a valid point of reference for all peoples, regardless of who they are and where they come from.

  Human rights: what the West must do

  The fourth scenario, authoritarian status quo, is probable but intolerable for the vast majority of the Chinese. It is thus outside China that the future of the Party will almost certainly be decided. It depends for its legitimacy on the outside world, which treats it with all the deference due to the Chinese nation—precisely because the world seems to have forgotten that the Party is not China.

  Should the West refuse to trade with China, as some democrats in exile are advocating? No, because it is important that China continue to develop. Thanks to trade, a billion human beings will someday be able to escape from the clutches of poverty and rebuild their civilization. Economic and cultural globalization will also benefit the West. The question, therefore, is how to act in a way that fosters the development of the majority of the Chinese, not just the Chinese army and technocrats. Is there anything we can do—and if so, what?

  If we believe in dignity for all, we must be consistent in our behavior and listen to what Chinese democrats have to say. At the time of the Soviet Union, supporting Russian dissidents, linking trade to human rights, and containing the Soviet Union’s military aggressiveness were considered both normal and moral. So we would do well to boycott Yahoo until Shi Tao is released. He has been sentenced to thirteen years’ imprisonment only because he sent pro-democracy e-mail, condemning the Chinese police through the American server. Are we going to allow ourselves to be taken in by the Chinese ethos humbug? Are we going to abandon all that we believe in and let the Party continue suppressing the rights of the Chinese? We should listen to the people of silence and show the same solidarity that we did with the Soviets not so long ago. If we turn a deaf ear, then we should give up the pretense of being the embodiment of humanist values.

  For politicians and businessmen, such an approach may seem unrealistic. But it is no more unrealistic than our support for human rights movements in Russia and Central Europe, oppressed by the Communist Parties of their countries. Besides, is it always necessary to justify a moral choice and duty? The time has come for action. The Olympic Games will be held in Beijing in 2008. Will they prove to be another Berlin, or will they revive the spirit of Seoul? In Berlin in 1938, we remained mute spectators to the triumph of Party, dangerous not just for its own people but for the whole world. Will it be the same in Beijing? Or can the impossible happen: freedom of speech restored to all the Chinese, as in Seoul in 1988?

  It all depends on what we do: the government in Beijing is very sensitive to its image in the West, as investment from abroad determines the growth rate. Mobilizing support for human rights in China is effective: the Chinese are our brothers.

  Paris-Beijing,

  January 2006

  Acknowledgments

  The Empire of Lies is a personal inquiry that I conducted in China from January 2005 to January 2006. Before embarking on this project, I had been going to China each year from 1977 onward and had written about its economic development (La Nouvelle Richesse des nations, published in Paris in 1987 and Beijing in 1989), its religions (Les Vrais Penseurs de notre temps), the economic and political reforms in mainland China and Taiwan (Le Capitalisme, suite et fins, 1991), and the relations between China and its neighbors (Le Monde est ma tribu, 1997).

  Among the many people who guided me in the course of my research, I would like to thank in particular Claude Martin, François-Marcel Plaisant, Jean-Paul Réau, Gérard Chesnel, Pierre Barroux, Nicolas Chapuis, Paul Jean-Ortiz, Daniel Blaise, Bruno Cabrillac, Christian Thimonier, Wang Hua, and Chen Deyan.

  Zhao Fusan, Theodore de Bary and Du Weiming, and Kristofer Schipper initiated me to the religions of China; Pierre-Étienne Will and Yves Camus helped me discover contemporary sinology.

  My numerous meetings with Alain Peyrefitte, both in China and France, helped me clarify my thoughts.

  Yang Hangsheng, Ouyang Zantong, and An Sha accompanied me in my journeys.

  Marie Holzman and René Viénet helped me prepare the final manuscript.

  Brian Anderson, editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, introduced me to the American audience of his magazine and to Roger Kimball at Encounter Books.

  Bibliography

  This is a selective bibliography that helped me verify the information I had gathered in the course of the inquiry. The works are classified alphabetically according to the names of the authors and refer to the various chapters of the book.

  Prologue: The Myth of China

  Bergère, Marie-Claire, Lucien Bianco and Jürgen Domes, La Chine au XXe siècle, de 1949 à aujourd’hui, Fayard, Paris, 1990.

  Domenach, Jean-Luc, L’Archipel oublié, Fayard, Paris, 1992.

  ——Où va la Chine?, Fayard, Paris, 2002.

  Étiemble, René, Quarante ans de mon maoïsme (1934-1974), Gallimard, Paris, 1976

  Fairbank, John K., The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985, Harper & Row, New York, 1986.

  Fairbank, John K., China, a New History, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1992.

  Granet, Marcel, La Pensée chinoise, Albin Michel, Paris, 1968.

  Guillain, Robert, Dans trente ans la Chine, Seuil, Paris, 1965.

  Huc, Père, L’Empire chinois, Éditions du Rocher, Monaco, 1980.

  Ladany, Laszlo, The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921- 1985: A Self-portrait, Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., 1988.

  Lecomte, Louis, Un Jésuite à Pékin: Nouveaux mémoires sur l’état Présent de la Chine, 1687-1692, Phébus, Paris, 1990.

  Leví, Jean, La Chine romanesque: Fictions d’Orient et d’Occident, Seuil, Paris, 1995.

  Leys, Simon, Essais sur la Chine, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1998.

  Pasqualini, Jean, Prisonniers de Mao: Sept ans dans un camp de travail en Chine, Gallimard, Paris, 1973.

  Peyrefitte, Alain, L’Empire immobile ou le choc des mondes, Fayard, Paris, 1989.

  ——La Tragédie chinoise, Fayard, Paris, 1990.

  ——Un Choc des cultures, le regard des Anglais, Fayard, Paris, 1998.

  Short, Philip, Mao Tsé-toung, Fayard, Paris, 2005.

  Spence, Jonathan D., Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture, W. W. Norton, New York, 1992.

  ——The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds, W. W. Norton, New York, 1998.

  Tsien Tche-hao, L’Empire du milieu retrouvé: La Chine populaire a Trente ans, Flammarion, Paris, 1979.

  Verdier, Fabienne, Passagère du silence, dix ans d’initiation en Chine, Albin Michel, Paris, 2003.

  Chapter One: The Dissenters

  Bastid-Burguière, Marianne, L’Évolution de la société chinoise à la fin de la dynastie des Qing, 1873-1911, Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1979.<
br />
  Che Muqi, Beijing Turmoil: More than Meets the Eyes, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1990.

  Fang Lizhi, Abattre la Grande Muraille: Science, culture et démocratie en Chine, Albin Michel, Paris, 1990.

  Holzman, Marie and Bernard Debord, Wei Jingsheng, un Chinois inflexible, Bleu de Chine, Paris, 2005.

  Lian Heng and Judith Shapiro, After the Nightmare: A Survivor of the Cultural Revolution Reports on China Today, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1986.

  Lou Sin, Nouvelles chinoises, Éditions en langues étrangères, Beijing, 1974.

  Sabatier, Patrick, Le Dernier Dragon, Deng Xiaoping: Un siècle de l’histoire de Chine, Jean-Claude Lattès, Paris, 1990.

  Spence, Jonathan D., Emperor of China, Self-portrait of K’Ang-His, Vintage Books, New York, 1988.

  Wei Jingsheng, Lettres de prison, Plon, Paris, 1998.

  Wu, Harry, Laogai, the Chinese Gulag, Westview Press, Boulder, Colo., 1992.

  Zhang Jie, Ailes de plomb, Maren Sell, Paris, 1985.

  Chapter Two: Wild Grass

  Buck, Pearl, Peony, Mayer Bell, New York, 2004.

  Haski, Pierre, Le Sang de la Chine, quand le silence tue, Grasset, Paris, 2005.

  Johnson, Ian, Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China, Random House, New York, 2004.

  Kristeva, Julia, Des Chinoises, Pauvert, Paris, 2001.

  Kristof, Nicholas D., and Sheryl Wudunn, China Wakes, Random House, New York, 1994.

  Li Zhisui, La Vie privée du président Mao, Plon, Paris, 1994.

  Shang Yu, Ripoux à Zhengzhou, Philippe Picquier, Arles, 2002.