When China the Biggest Surviving Dictatorship Government doesn't Help, but Harms it's CITIZENS

Tunisia. Egypt. Now Libya and Bahrain. It seems like 1986 when People Power swept away the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in Philippines and brought Corazon Aquino to power. Or 1989 when spontaneous uprisings threw away the Communist regimes in many East European countries. It is as if suddenly the Arab world is having its moment of epiphany and seeing what has been fed to them by their dictatorial rulers for the nonsense it is.

The Repression - June 1989

The tumultuous events in Middle East can be utterly heart-warming if you are not one of those enamored with ruthless strongmen. On the other hand, they must be chilling for those still wanting to run their countries with no respect for the wish of their people. One can be sure the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, the junta in Myanmar, and the Kims of North Korea are sleeping uneasy at this moment. But nowhere must the events be creating greater unease than in China, the biggest surviving dictatorship of our times. Its silence on developments in Egypt was deafening.

June 2nd - Military vehicle kills three bicyclists 

Injured civilian 

Already there have been ripples of a “jasmine revolution” appearing in Beijing. Whether it was real or engineered by the regime itself to send out a message to potential troublemakers, the fact that it happened at all indicates winds of change have reached China. As China grows into potentially the world’s biggest economy, its position as a nation run by one-party with close to 1.5 billion people devoid of ordinary political rights is increasingly an oddity.

 PLA soldiers beating up pedestrians -

China has embraced change as far as economy and technology are concerned. Indeed, these factors have driven its miraculous rise as an economic power. They will force the desire for political change too. The last time such a desire was forcefully expressed and ruthlessly crushed was in 1989. At that time, fax and phone lines got the word of Tiananmen Square unrest and massacre out to the wider world. Compared to today’s communication capability, it was primitive. Yet, it ensured that neither the uprising nor its suppression could be swept under the carpet

Burnt body of a victim 

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Today’s world is far different. Virtually every pocket today has a camera and a phone connection that not only can get the word of events out but also pictures and sounds. Then there is Facebook and YouTube whose power to subvert authoritarian regimes is only just being discovered. Within space of a month, they have gone on from being a teen distraction to tools that can unleash tidal waves of change. Of course, it is possible for China to shut down the Internet and cell phone networks as Egypt did. But there are good reasons why the Chinese communists would be very scared to do so.

Tank crushes motorcycle. All that's left of a human being crushed by (263K) the communist tanks - 259K ; another view -238K ;small image - 51K. 

For all its size and economic heft, Egypt is just a fraction of China. It could not get away with shutting down Internet and phone networks. China will find it much harder to do so. Today’s China is economically so wired up that shutting down Internet would mean shutting down much of its commerce as well. Internet is not just about email, chats, and social networking. It is also about netbanking, online commerce including rail and ticket booking, credit card transactions, running company networks, and much more. Shut that down and you shut down large swathes of economy. That is no Chinese ruler can even think of. It would add economic misery to political unrest and spread discontent more.

So, whenever the people power asserts itself again—and it will, whether next month, next year or in next decade—the rulers will face two choices. They will have to make peace with it and extend concessions to people. Or crush it with an iron fist and let the world watch it live. Either choice will erode the legitimacy of totalitarian political structure the country has and can potentially sink one of world’s most powerful nations into instability and chaos.

Commonsense would suggest the commissars see the writing on their Facebook wall and begin making changes. Much better to manage change than let the change manage you. However, dictatorial regimes have a way of divorcing themselves from commonsense. Modern China presents a peculiar case. It is truly a one-party and not one-man dictatorship. Hence, it won’t do if one person or even a handful of top leaders is able to see what is coming and decide to liberalise the regime. The present system has created vested interests across many levels. The change-makers would encounter resistance at every level. Many of those benefiting from status quo would want to preserve it. How that is overcome would test the sagacity and wisdom of rulers. It is going to be an interesting few years for our neighbour

Defiant citizens show off license plate of military vehicle 

Sun Zhou, now 7-years-old, is still missing

On the afternoon after Peng Gaofeng brought his son, abducted and missing for over two years, back home to his family, Mr. Peng received a visit from the police.  The entourage of Shenzhen Public Security officers strode in to Mr. Peng's dingy Internet cafe with a couple of fruit and gift baskets, tied up in big red bows. 

They were there to congratulate Mr. Peng on his one-in-a-billion achievement, what none of them thought he could possibly ever do - find his lost son, Peng Wenle.

The visit was remarkable because Peng Gaofeng found his son not with the assistance of police - but despite them.

Over the past two years, police have threatened Mr. Peng and have demanded he stop speaking to journalists.  It's unclear why, but one possibility was that Mr. Peng's very public hunt for his son reflected poorly on the city's safety record.

And, along this father's journey across the province and beyond, he had befriended other parents of missing children.  One of them, Sun Haiyang, began working closely with Mr. Peng, and together they compiled a list of abducted children that numbered in the thousands.  A group of them even travelled all the way to Beijing in the hopes of bringing attention to their cause.  They were harassed, and sent back home by police instead.

Online tools

It was Mr. Peng who tracked down his son with the power of the Internet.  He'd set up his own online Sina Weibo account, a Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter, and posted pictures up of little Wenle.  Of the 80 million Chinese users on Weibo, surely, one would recognise the boy.

This was done just as Professor Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences launched his own online campaign from Beijing to track down missing children.  The professor encouraged people to get involved, to photograph street children who too often, he felt, were victims of abductions and human trafficking. 

The photographs would be posted online.  Tens of thousands of people responded to Yu's call, creating buzz and national interest.  And amidst them all, one curious university student found his way to Peng Gao Feng's site and recognized little Wenle as a neighbor's boy.

The miracle reunion happened because of the involvement of ordinary citizens and the most tenacious father in the world.

The government, however, has not been won over.

When Al Jazeera learned Mr. Peng had found Wenle -- we were particularly excited.  We had interviewed Mr. Peng more than two years ago, following the kidnapping of his son.  No one could have possibly believed the father would succeed against all odds.  And, we also rang up Professor Yu.

And that's when we sensed something was wrong.  Professor Yu would not pick up his phone and would not respond to text messages.  Only days ago, he'd been amiable and open to discussing his project, but for whatever reason, he was no longer talking about or promoting his website.  And Mr. Sun, whose son remained missing, reported police intimidation even as he tried to capitalise on his association with his friend, Mr. Peng and all the media attention he was getting.  In fact, Shenzhen Public Security warned Mr. Sun that any meeting of five parents or more would constitute an illegal gathering.

'Government threatened'

Even more appallingly, a state-run newspaper The Global Times came out with an editorial warning citizens that "the crackdown on trafficking children... should be largely left to the police."

Charles Custer, a filmmaker in Beijing currently working on a documentary about child trafficking, believes this has nothing to do with the government actually opposing the idea that parents seek out their children (you can read more by Charles on the matter, here).

"The government is threatened, I think, by the movement because it represents the masses attempting to collectively and directly address a social problem, completely circumventing the system."

In other words, the people organised.  And to leaders, any organisation other than the Communist Party is perceived as a threat to the system.  However paranoid that might seem to outsiders, Beijing firmly believes that the existence of civil society, for whatever purposes, could potentially lead to organisations of the more dangerous sort - the kind that could oppose power.

And so police continue to threaten Mr. Sun.  The father ignores the threats.

"I will never give up finding my son.  I will continue using Sina Weibo and online social networking to try to find him," he said.  His friend Peng Gaofeng's success, motivates him.

And every day, on Sina Weibo, he reposts this message that is always the same:

"Sun Zhou was born on December 7th, 2003.  On October 9th, 2007, in front of our storefront, a man of about 40 years of age, with some snacks and a toy car in hand, lured him way.  The kidnapper is bald at the crown of his head, was wearing brown shoes, and carrying a laptop bag.  Supermarket surveillance video captured the entire incident.  If you have any information about my son, please call 159 2005 4088 alsohttp://sinaurl.cn/hqe1A3."