How do Chinese think about the democracy in China? BigEagle found this article written by a Chinese Engineering. Perhaps Chinese may have found their way toward a democratic China too. Please read the following:
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關於大陸的民主問題
2005/06/22 於東森新聞
梁山功夫
大陸的民主問題，是臺灣朋友非常關心的問題，也是迫切希望大陸方面改進的問題，同時也是他們拒絕統一或追求獨立的理由之一。然而，民主並不是靈丹妙藥，它不能解決現實中國的生存和發展問題，也不是盡速解決兩岸問題的鑰匙。
中國是一個有著五千年專制歷史的國家，中國的傳統文化中先天缺少民主的基因。在悠久的歷史歲月中，中國歷朝歷代政權從未嘗試建立民主的國家體制，中國的民衆也缺乏系統的民主教育，可以說民衆的民主素養很低，這種狀況持續了幾千年。在西方國家行得通的東西，未必在中國行得通。比如當前中國大陸在村一級普遍實行了民主選舉，導致許多地區的村級政權被一些大的家族所壟斷，因爲誰的家族勢力大、誰的家族人多，誰推舉的候選人（不管這個候選人人品、能力如何）就可能在選舉中獲勝，家族的利益就能最大限度的得到維護，而弱勢家族的權益卻成爲犧牲品。所以在目前的中國推行民主，不僅艱難，而且會出現許多意想不到的副産品，因爲民衆缺乏基本的民主素養和最基本的民主理念的教育。
民主體制和民主素質的缺乏，是中國傳統政治文化的一個遺憾，也是制約中國民主化進程的重要因素。民主不僅僅意味著民主體制的建立和對公民政治權利的尊重。民主更是一種文化、一種精神，這種文化和精神應包括尊重、包容、公平、正義、和平、對真相真理的追求、對客觀事實的尊重。美國的民主、人權發展水平顯然超過中國大陸，但中國國務院每年都會發表有關美國人權記錄的報告，但美國從未說你中國的人權不如美國，所以你中國沒有資格對指責美國的人權問題。這也許就是所謂的美國精神，大度、寬容、對不同意見給予尊重。
臺灣的民主發展無疑走在了大陸的前面，不少臺灣朋友可以居高臨下、毫不留情地評判大陸的民主發展，卻不容大陸同胞對臺灣的民主發展提出善意的批評。讓人感覺臺灣的民主仍處於咿呀學語、蹣跚起步的階段。其實民主體制、民主素養、民主教育方面的缺失，不僅僅是大陸的問題，同時也是臺灣的問題，更是華人社會的問題。今日的臺灣就是明日的大陸，今日臺灣發展民主中遭遇的問題，未來的中國大陸還會重新遭遇，因爲我們有共同的歷史和文化背景，這是許多大陸人士關注臺灣民主發展的重要原因。今日的臺灣大致建立了民主體制，公民應享有的各種政治權利也得到尊重，但是臺灣的行政機關、司法系統的民主化、執政和在野政黨內部的民主化並未真正實現，臺灣民衆的民主素養也有很大的改善空間。臺灣只有建立完善的民主體制和寬宏的民主文化，才能爲中國大陸樹立民主樣板，才能對中國大陸的民衆形成持久的吸引力。
中國大陸正在全力建設現代化國家，所謂現代化國家，包括三個方面的含義，一是富強的國家，二是民主的國家，三是文明的國家。民主在中國大陸並不是忌諱末深的字眼，中國大陸不是拒絕民主、更不是害怕民主，而是積極考慮如何穩步地推進民主，如何使民主的發展與經濟社會發展、保持社會穩定有效統一起來。可以說在目前的階段，穩定和發展是中國大陸的核心利益，而民主在目前並不是大陸的核心利益。民主進程太慢，會給經濟社會發展帶來阻礙，也會給黨政系統內的腐敗分子以可乘之機。民主進程太快，有可能威脅經濟發展和社會穩定。從維護大陸的核心利益來看，所有的政治改革措施都必須有利於中國大陸的發展，有利於維護中國大陸的穩定，否則這種政治改革我們寧願不要。
目前中國大陸的經濟社會發展水平，還承擔不起激烈的民主變革所造成的負面影響。民衆民主素質的提高基本上是與國民收入的提高成正比，臺灣在推行民主體制時人均國民收入已經達到4000美圓左右，大陸目前人均國民收入僅1200美圓，達到4000美圓大致需要20年，民主變革的時間也要比臺灣推遲20年。臺灣以目前的民主發展水平要求大陸是不公平的。即使現在的臺灣，民主發展的負面效應也到了臺灣社會不能承受的地步，經濟停滯、政黨惡鬥、政權空轉、泛意識形態化、決策效率極低，嚴重制約了臺灣的經濟社會發展，試問大陸能承受這樣的民主嗎？大陸每年的新增就業人口就有3000萬人，經濟停滯意味著每年有新增的3000萬人沒有工作，在沒有解決生存問題的前提下，飯碗顯然比民主更重要。發展民主並不是中國大陸的首要任務，在這個問題上中國大陸的精英階層是有共識的。這也是西方以及臺灣積極鼓動中國大陸推行西方民主，中國大陸的精英階層不爲所動的根本原因。
在中國近代歷史上，中國人吃民主的虧太多了，教訓太深刻了。清朝末年的激烈民主變革，降低了清王朝的權威，動搖了清王朝的根基，也爲中國社會八十多年的動蕩埋下了伏筆。中華民國成立後實行的激烈的西方化的民主改革，很快宣告失敗，中國陷入了持續37年的軍閥混戰、外敵入侵和內戰之中，清朝末年累計的國家積貧積弱的局面沒有任何改觀，激烈的民主改革造成的國家動蕩、國力衰弱的後果一直影響到今日的中國，中國的領導人和民衆都必須爲此買單。孫中山、蔣介石、毛澤東、鄧小平對中國國情的認識都很深刻，孫中山在逝世前也認識到了西方式民主在中國的不可行，並傾向于實行權威統治。中國的民主化只有在克服自私、狹隘、好鬥、偏激的民族劣根性，補上民主素養、民主教育的課程，找尋到適合中國國情的民主體制後，才能有良性的發展。當然我們不反對在探索、發展的過程中實現這些目標。
本人是理性的民族主義者，更是堅定的民主主義者，我們希望中國大陸在確保經濟發展和社會穩定的同時穩步推進民主進程。民主雖然是普世價值，但民主應該與本民族的文化和傳統相適應，我們不贊成照抄照搬西方式民主，我們希望找到符合中國特色的民主之路。把14億中國人帶入經濟現代化的發達國家行列是一項舉世無雙的偉大工程，同樣把14億中國人帶入民主國家的行列也是一項前無古人的偉大工程，需要我們不懈地爲之奮鬥。
目前的中國當務之急不是推進激進民主，而是厲行法制，通過建立健全統一、協調、完備的法律體系，構築獨立公正的司法系統、執法系統，組建廉潔高效的行政系統，完善權利的制約監督體系，實現依法治國、依法行政，提高民衆的民主素養。這是實現民主的基礎性工作，也是今後20年大陸政治改革的根本任務。
在目前國情下構建新的民主體制、實現公民政治權利的時機並不成熟。外敵入侵能中斷大陸的現代化進程，同樣激進的民主變革所帶來的社會動蕩、分離主義運動甚至內戰，同樣能中斷大陸的現代化進程。從這個意義上講，激進的民主和外國欺辱一樣，都是中華民族的敵人。應該說，臺灣的政治精英對大陸國情的認識很膚淺，所以對大陸民主的要求也不切實際。
民主永遠是中華民族不滅的理想，我們會像追求經濟現代化一樣追求民主，我們會繼續走我們認爲應該走的民主之路。
祝願臺灣的民主一路走好！祝願大陸的民主一路走好！
** 作者梁山功夫為中國山東人，現住濟南市。大學畢業，水電高級工程師。
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
Fingerprinting and Citizen's Freedom
It was reported that Taiwan government is planning to add individual citizen's fingerprint on the new National ID card. People concern with human rights would immediate argue the validity and necessity of this policy because a country is not a free country when its citizens are regarded as criminals without proving any crime has been committed.
In the recent history, we member that during Hitler was in power, he ordered to keep fingerprints of all prisoners and Jews. More recently, it was President G.W. Bush ordered to take every foreigner who visits US should have his/her fingerprint taken in 2001. Bush did that as a measure to identify foreign “terrorists”.
Then there was a call for fingerprinting all citizens in EU. That was debated vigorously and was not implemented. During the hearing in Europe, there was an exchange of Q&A:
[Question: Are you personally happy with compulsory fingerprints for all EU citizens via a biometric passport?
Josep Borrell: As you are no doubt aware, this is a requirement imposed by the US authorities. The Council has fallen into line with them, whereas our Parliamentary Committee would have preferred a different approach.]
There were not many oppositions to this measure in Taiwan from both human rights organizations and also newspapers until about 10 days ago, when Ms. Annette Lu, Vice President of ROC, was quoted to say the fingerprinting is not right and is unconstitutional. More attention were paid to this issue by newspapers after Ms Lu spoke at the “International Symposium on Human Rights” held on May 18, 2005. In her welcome speech she commented on this subject by saying:
“Recently, when the government began to consider the necessity of incorporating universal fingerprinting into the new ID system, many in society were worried that such a policy would infringe upon fundamental human rights. The Advisory Council conducted a series of hearings immediately and reported to the president. In that report we reminded the government of the potential problems of incorporating fingerprinting into the new national ID system. Although Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, the Advisory Council reached the conclusion that we should encourage the government to take steps to enter into the regime of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court.”
More discussion on this subject had been made by Bruce Schneier on “Newsday”, January 14, 2004:
According to the Bush administration, the measures are designed to combat terrorism. As a security expert, it's hard for me to see how. The 9/11 terrorists would not have been deterred by this system; many of them entered the country legally on valid passports and visas. We have a 5,500-mile long border with Canada and another 2,000-mile long border with Mexico currently uncovered by the program. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people enter the country illegally each year from Mexico. Two million to 3 million people enter the country legally each year and overstay their visas. Capturing the biometric information of everyone entering the country doesn't make us safer.
And even if we could completely seal our borders, fingerprinting everyone still wouldn't keep terrorists out. It's not like we can identify terrorists in advance. The border guards can't say "this fingerprint is safe; it's not in our database" because there is no fingerprint database for suspected terrorists.
Even more dangerous is the precedent this program sets. Today the program affects only foreign visitors with visas. The next logical step is to fingerprint all visitors to the United States and then everybody, including U.S. citizens.
Retaliation is another worry. Brazil is now fingerprinting Americans who visit that country, and other countries are expected to follow suit. All over the world, totalitarian governments will use our fingerprinting regime to justify fingerprinting Americans who enter their countries. This means that your prints are going to end up on file with every tin-pot dictator from Sierra Leone to Uzbekistan. And Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge has already pledged to share security information with other countries.
Security is a trade-off. When deciding whether to implement a security measure, we must balance the costs against the benefits. Large-scale fingerprinting is something that doesn't add much to our security against terrorism and costs an enormous amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere. Allocating the funds on compiling, sharing and enforcing the terrorist watch list would be a far better security investment. As a security consumer, I'm getting swindled.
America's security comes from our freedoms. For more than two centuries, we have maintained a delicate balance between freedom and the opportunity for crime. We deliberately put laws in place that hamper police investigations because we know we are more secure because of them. We know that laws regulating wiretapping, search and seizure, and interrogation make us all safer, even if they make it harder to convict criminals.
The U.S. system of government has a basic unwritten rule: The government should be granted only limited power, and for limited purposes, because of the certainty that government power will be abused. We've already seen the Patriot Act powers granted to the government to combat terrorism directed against common crimes. Allowing the government to create the infrastructure to collect biometrics information on everyone it can is not a power we should grant the government lightly. It's something we would have expected in former East Germany, Iraq or the Soviet Union. In all of these countries, greater government control meant less security for citizens, and the results in the United States will be no different. It's bad civic hygiene to build an infrastructure that can be used to facilitate a police state.
.........................
The government on Taiwan did not use the anti-Terrorist as the reason of requiring fingerprinting all citizens. It said that fingerprinting will reduce the crime. However, if one look closely to the details of the statistics of crimes, you will quickly find out that:
(1) The most frequent crime is stealing/theft. It consists of about 60% of the total crimes. More interesting fact is that about 62% of these cases was committed by the repeated criminals.
(2) Fingerprint is not the only convincing evidence used by the court. Clever criminals and careful criminals will avoid leaving fingerprint at the crime scene. The police could find fingerprints left by other innocent people.
(3) Fingerprinting system's error can cost lots of money, effort and time for legal solution.
(4) Safety statistics does not support the claim that number of crime will reduce by fingerprinting people related with the cases.
So, what is the advantage of that elaborating and costly system? The only advantage is that it provides a convenient tool for police force to arrest people. But more important issue is that fingerprinting citizens is really violate the fundamental human rights of citizens.
In the recent history, we member that during Hitler was in power, he ordered to keep fingerprints of all prisoners and Jews. More recently, it was President G.W. Bush ordered to take every foreigner who visits US should have his/her fingerprint taken in 2001. Bush did that as a measure to identify foreign “terrorists”.
Then there was a call for fingerprinting all citizens in EU. That was debated vigorously and was not implemented. During the hearing in Europe, there was an exchange of Q&A:
[Question: Are you personally happy with compulsory fingerprints for all EU citizens via a biometric passport?
Josep Borrell: As you are no doubt aware, this is a requirement imposed by the US authorities. The Council has fallen into line with them, whereas our Parliamentary Committee would have preferred a different approach.]
There were not many oppositions to this measure in Taiwan from both human rights organizations and also newspapers until about 10 days ago, when Ms. Annette Lu, Vice President of ROC, was quoted to say the fingerprinting is not right and is unconstitutional. More attention were paid to this issue by newspapers after Ms Lu spoke at the “International Symposium on Human Rights” held on May 18, 2005. In her welcome speech she commented on this subject by saying:
“Recently, when the government began to consider the necessity of incorporating universal fingerprinting into the new ID system, many in society were worried that such a policy would infringe upon fundamental human rights. The Advisory Council conducted a series of hearings immediately and reported to the president. In that report we reminded the government of the potential problems of incorporating fingerprinting into the new national ID system. Although Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, the Advisory Council reached the conclusion that we should encourage the government to take steps to enter into the regime of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court.”
More discussion on this subject had been made by Bruce Schneier on “Newsday”, January 14, 2004:
According to the Bush administration, the measures are designed to combat terrorism. As a security expert, it's hard for me to see how. The 9/11 terrorists would not have been deterred by this system; many of them entered the country legally on valid passports and visas. We have a 5,500-mile long border with Canada and another 2,000-mile long border with Mexico currently uncovered by the program. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people enter the country illegally each year from Mexico. Two million to 3 million people enter the country legally each year and overstay their visas. Capturing the biometric information of everyone entering the country doesn't make us safer.
And even if we could completely seal our borders, fingerprinting everyone still wouldn't keep terrorists out. It's not like we can identify terrorists in advance. The border guards can't say "this fingerprint is safe; it's not in our database" because there is no fingerprint database for suspected terrorists.
Even more dangerous is the precedent this program sets. Today the program affects only foreign visitors with visas. The next logical step is to fingerprint all visitors to the United States and then everybody, including U.S. citizens.
Retaliation is another worry. Brazil is now fingerprinting Americans who visit that country, and other countries are expected to follow suit. All over the world, totalitarian governments will use our fingerprinting regime to justify fingerprinting Americans who enter their countries. This means that your prints are going to end up on file with every tin-pot dictator from Sierra Leone to Uzbekistan. And Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge has already pledged to share security information with other countries.
Security is a trade-off. When deciding whether to implement a security measure, we must balance the costs against the benefits. Large-scale fingerprinting is something that doesn't add much to our security against terrorism and costs an enormous amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere. Allocating the funds on compiling, sharing and enforcing the terrorist watch list would be a far better security investment. As a security consumer, I'm getting swindled.
America's security comes from our freedoms. For more than two centuries, we have maintained a delicate balance between freedom and the opportunity for crime. We deliberately put laws in place that hamper police investigations because we know we are more secure because of them. We know that laws regulating wiretapping, search and seizure, and interrogation make us all safer, even if they make it harder to convict criminals.
The U.S. system of government has a basic unwritten rule: The government should be granted only limited power, and for limited purposes, because of the certainty that government power will be abused. We've already seen the Patriot Act powers granted to the government to combat terrorism directed against common crimes. Allowing the government to create the infrastructure to collect biometrics information on everyone it can is not a power we should grant the government lightly. It's something we would have expected in former East Germany, Iraq or the Soviet Union. In all of these countries, greater government control meant less security for citizens, and the results in the United States will be no different. It's bad civic hygiene to build an infrastructure that can be used to facilitate a police state.
.........................
The government on Taiwan did not use the anti-Terrorist as the reason of requiring fingerprinting all citizens. It said that fingerprinting will reduce the crime. However, if one look closely to the details of the statistics of crimes, you will quickly find out that:
(1) The most frequent crime is stealing/theft. It consists of about 60% of the total crimes. More interesting fact is that about 62% of these cases was committed by the repeated criminals.
(2) Fingerprint is not the only convincing evidence used by the court. Clever criminals and careful criminals will avoid leaving fingerprint at the crime scene. The police could find fingerprints left by other innocent people.
(3) Fingerprinting system's error can cost lots of money, effort and time for legal solution.
(4) Safety statistics does not support the claim that number of crime will reduce by fingerprinting people related with the cases.
So, what is the advantage of that elaborating and costly system? The only advantage is that it provides a convenient tool for police force to arrest people. But more important issue is that fingerprinting citizens is really violate the fundamental human rights of citizens.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Taiwanese American Heritage Week
慶祝美國台灣傳統週之一則感觸
每年五月是美國國訂的亞太美裔月。台灣人公共事務協會(FAPA) 在1998起經多位眾議員的協助，終於在2000年由Clinton總統宣佈五月最後一週訂為『Taiwanese American Heritage Week』，而從此正式成為美國國訂慶節之一。我很榮幸擔任第一屆洛杉磯美國台灣傳統週的總召集人，深受各社團的支持及參與，共同在當年五月二十日在洛杉磯台福基督教會舉辦了第一次的慶祝。
事經五年，這項慶祝活動也逐年擴大，今年的壓軸戲是五月二十二日的園遊會(Bazaar)。回想當年籌劃節目時，我詢遍社團及鄉親，希望能展示台灣的傳統服裝，但是最後只好用原住民的舞蹈來代替我原來的節目。我由那一次的經驗，就鼓勵婦女團體及服裝店，共同去提高對台灣傳統服裝的研究發展，甚至於也向台灣文建會建議過。可是五年來還是沒有看到我的建議被注重，更不用說被推動。
每位讀者一定有經驗過下列的直覺：
當您看到…
女人穿高叉長袍 … 越南人
女人穿紗麗... 印度人
穿和服... 日本人
穿韓服... 韓國人
男人穿尼格裙.. 蘇格蘭人
這種傳統文化是由整個社會的日常生活，經過長期時間的粹煉而合成的一種永續的活文化。如果台灣文化沒有一件可以代表台灣的衣服，那不是很遺憾嗎？
每年五月是美國國訂的亞太美裔月。台灣人公共事務協會(FAPA) 在1998起經多位眾議員的協助，終於在2000年由Clinton總統宣佈五月最後一週訂為『Taiwanese American Heritage Week』，而從此正式成為美國國訂慶節之一。我很榮幸擔任第一屆洛杉磯美國台灣傳統週的總召集人，深受各社團的支持及參與，共同在當年五月二十日在洛杉磯台福基督教會舉辦了第一次的慶祝。
事經五年，這項慶祝活動也逐年擴大，今年的壓軸戲是五月二十二日的園遊會(Bazaar)。回想當年籌劃節目時，我詢遍社團及鄉親，希望能展示台灣的傳統服裝，但是最後只好用原住民的舞蹈來代替我原來的節目。我由那一次的經驗，就鼓勵婦女團體及服裝店，共同去提高對台灣傳統服裝的研究發展，甚至於也向台灣文建會建議過。可是五年來還是沒有看到我的建議被注重，更不用說被推動。
每位讀者一定有經驗過下列的直覺：
當您看到…
女人穿高叉長袍 … 越南人
女人穿紗麗... 印度人
穿和服... 日本人
穿韓服... 韓國人
男人穿尼格裙.. 蘇格蘭人
這種傳統文化是由整個社會的日常生活，經過長期時間的粹煉而合成的一種永續的活文化。如果台灣文化沒有一件可以代表台灣的衣服，那不是很遺憾嗎？
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Update on Democracy Ranking
In February I posted the rankings of Taiwan published by Worldaudit.org. In March, they had an update of their rankings of countries in the world. Here are the new result about Taiwan:
Democracy Index: 42 (was 39 in January)
Press Freedom: 38 (no change)
Corruption: 31 (no change).
The organization now added another index called Index of Economic Freedom. I just select a few countries for comparison:
No. 1 Hong Kong
No. 2 Singapore
No. 7 UK
No. 12 USA
No. 27 Taiwan
No. 39 Japan
No. 45 S. Korea
No. 112 China
No. 155 N. Korea
Democracy Index: 42 (was 39 in January)
Press Freedom: 38 (no change)
Corruption: 31 (no change).
The organization now added another index called Index of Economic Freedom. I just select a few countries for comparison:
No. 1 Hong Kong
No. 2 Singapore
No. 7 UK
No. 12 USA
No. 27 Taiwan
No. 39 Japan
No. 45 S. Korea
No. 112 China
No. 155 N. Korea
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