by Liu Xiaobo
Poverty in China today is not just a matter of inadequate resources or supply, but more a poverty of the political system and a poverty of rights. A system that uses “bad law” to deprive people of their basic rights cannot eradicate this kind of poverty, and it is precisely the impoverishment of citizens’ rights that lays the groundwork for a system in which avaricious plunder and extreme injustice run rampant. Ever-increasing conflict between populace and officialdom is the only prospect for such a system. If the government wishes to ease or to solve this problem, no temporary carrots or sticks—no ad hoc bans or shows of mercy—will do much good. What needs to be done is to redress the enormous asymmetry between the power of the government and the rights of the people. The goal of “returning property to the people,” which was announced as part of China’s reform and opening, will remain elusive until “returning land to the people” takes place. Inserting the protection of private property into the Constitution and passing the Property Law are merely the beginnings of China’s legal progress toward privatization. The crucial breakthrough, yet to occur, will be to abolish “state ownership” of land.
At home in Beijing, April 7, 2007
Originally published in Guancha (Observe China), April 7, 2007
Translated by Timothy Brook
A DEEPER LOOK INTO WHY CHILD SLAVERY IN CHINA’S “BLACK KILNS” COULD HAPPEN
In May 2007, parents of children who were missing in Henan Province began to report the disappearances to journalists at a local television station. For several years kidnapping of children had been on the rise nationwide, and there were rumors specifically that operators of brick kilns in Shanxi had been kidnapping people to do forced labor. Reporters from Henan television went undercover to Shanxi, found a widespread problem, and reported on it. The news shocked China, reached the international press, and led to government investigations during June and July 2007 in which 570 people in Shanxi and Henan, 69 of them children, were freed from what everyone agreed were conditions of slavery.
This article, in which the author concludes that “a ruling group that makes maintenance of its monopoly on power its first priority can never turn around and put the lives of people—even children—in a higher position,” was one of six articles adduced at Liu Xiaobo’s trial as evidence of his guilt of “the crime of inciting subversion of state power.”—Ed.
IT HAS BEEN NEARLY TWO MONTHS since the news from Shanxi of labor by “child slaves” in “black kilns” shocked China and the world, and yet—compared with the huge public outcry and demands for investigation, compared with the blizzard of official directives, apologies, and dispatches of personnel, compared with the blanket of police enquiries and the announced resolve of Shanxi officials to “completely solve the slavery question within ten days”—the actual results in the case have been perfunctory and superficial.
Slave-labor kilns have proliferated widely during the past decade, but to look at the official response you would think the problem is only a single black kiln in Caosheng Village, Guangshengsi Township, Hongdong County, Shanxi Province. Only a handful of offenders have been charged, and the charges have shrunk to only three: illegal detention, forced labor, and malicious injury. Crimes such as illegal child labor, abduction, kidnapping, and child abuse are passed by. And the verdicts? Brick-kiln supervisor Zhao Yanbing is sentenced to death and chief labor contractor Heng Tinghan, from Henan, to life imprisonment. Others get sentences ranging eighteen months to nine years.
Yet the most glaring examples of perfunctory and superficial justice appear in the ways in which officials have been treated. On July 16, authorities announced a list of officials who were being investigated for either negligence or abuse, and, although the list was long—ninety-five Party members and public officials to be subjected to Party discipline (not criminal charges)—the length of the list masks its threadbare content. All of the names on the list are of people at the lowest levels. The highest among them are a few of what the people call “sesame-seed-sized functionaries” from Hongdong County: County Party Secretary Gao Hongyuan received a “serious warning from the Party”; Deputy County Party Secretary and County Chief Sun Yanlin was dismissed from office, and Deputy County Chief Wang Zhengjun received a “serious warning from the Party” plus administrative dismissal.
That such egregious crimes should lead to such trivial punishments, and that they should arrive so late, is, for the victims, to add insult to injury. It also reveals contempt for the opinions of the outraged public and a radical disrespect for any respectable system of law and justice. No matter how high-sounding words from the central rulers about “caring for the people” might seem, and no matter how sincere the regrets of the Shanxi governor might sound, none of this verbiage will be effective in uprooting the system that gave rise to the widespread scourge of slave labor, nor can it rescue the Communist regime from bankruptcy in its political credibility and moral authority. Specifically, the ways in which the authorities have handled this case cannot possibly stand up to the following six questions.
QUESTION ONE: Why were official efforts to rescue the child slaves so inefficient? On June 5, an appeal entitled “A Cry from 400 Fathers: Who Will Save Our Children?” appeared on the Internet. It read: “The scandal in Hongdong over forced labor has rocked our nation, but is still only the tip of an iceberg; more than a thousand more are still at risk … save our children!” But half a month later, most of these fathers, who were from Henan Province, still could not find their children. On June 20 they posted another appeal online, this one revealing that their search for family members had turned up more than 100 children but that most of these were not from Henan, i.e., were not their own. There obviously were many more children to be rescued, and some of them had likely been transported over long distances. The fathers called for redoubled efforts and that the search be expanded to be nationwide in scope.
Meanwhile, public opinion continued to demand answers from the government. An editorial entitled “How Can We Be Sure to Rescue Every Single One?” appeared in the Southern Metropolis newspaper on June 27. It read:
How can we be sure that no corner of our country is left to crime, and that we can rescue every single victim? Simply to rely on the high-sounding rhetoric of Shanxi officials is not going to do it. The government must—immediately—give itself a far more rigorous physical exam. Society must pitch in more aggressively, and citizens must greatly heighten their awareness if we are to have any hope that every single one of the victims of this scandal will be rescued—and, more importantly, if we are to have any hope that the social environment that allowed the blight of slavery to arise will be fundamentally eradicated. All of these measures are much more pressing and practical than any high-sounding political rhetoric could be.
Nevertheless, as I write this in mid-July, there still have been no renewed efforts to find the missing child-slaves. The number that have been found, as reported in the official media, is a bit over 100, which is only 10 percent of the more than 1,000 that are missing. From this we can see that the mighty government, with all of its advantages of vast resources, is not ready to do battle with the Chinese underworld.
If the rescue efforts of tens of thousands of police, blanketing the area, produce results as pitiful as this, what are we to believe? That the criminal underworld is out of control, or—as I believe—that for this kind of effort the government is dysfunctional?
It is common knowledge that our powerful authoritarian government, with its monopoly on society’s resources, presents an odd paradox of competence: when it comes to preserving its grip on power, pursuing its privileges, suppressing people’s civil rights, monitoring dissent, controlling the media, converting public property into its own property, or smoothly pulling off corruption, the government and its officials are not just competent but supercompetent. In these matters nothing escapes them; a pack of police in a bevy of cars can focus on a single dissident. But in serving the people, fostering social justice, improving social welfare
, or combating social ills, the government and its officials are not just incompetent but super-incompetent. In these matters they are good only at turning a blind eye—even to something like child slave-labor, even as it persists on a large scale and for a long time.
QUESTION TWO: Why are Chinese officials so coldhearted and shameless? Let’s review the government hoopla over the black-kiln matter that has appeared so far: on instructions from the central government of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, the Hongdong County government dispatched eleven task forces to twelve provinces to deliver letters of apology, missing wages, and reparations directly into the hands of rescued migrant workers. The county office of the Party Discipline Commission launched an investigation into malfeasance by involved officials. On June 20 in Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao convened a meeting of the State Council at which Shanxi governor Yu Youjun presented the Shanxi provincial government’s official examination of the case. On June 22 in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi, the State Labor Protection Department, the Ministry of Public Security, and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions Joint Working Group held a press conference at which Governor Yu, speaking for the provincial government, apologized to the migrant-worker victims and their families about the black-kiln matter and offered a self-criticism to all of the people of the province.
Amid this flurry of activity one man, a lone campaigner named Wang Quanjie, who was a representative to the National People’s Congress from Shandong Province, tried to reach deeper. On June 28, Wang sent to Shanxi governor Yu Youjun “A Call for the Resignation of the Chief of the Office of Labor and Social Security in Shanxi Province.” Wang wrote:
In recent days the “black kiln” scandal in Shanxi has shocked the entire country … it has led to universal condemnation … Shanxi governor Yu Youjun has apologized to the victims and has offered a self-criticism to the people of his province. But officials at the vortex of the scandal, in the Shanxi Provincial Office of Labor and Social Security—the ones who are directly responsible for labor in the province—remain strangely untouched. Not one has come forward to take any responsibility or to offer any apology. All we have are a few “bold attacks” from labor and police offices, but these only push the blame onto others. People of course will ask: How can it be that, when something as big as this happens, nobody in the government’s labor offices bears any responsibility?… How can the person in charge of “labor and social security” in the province calmly and confidently proceed as director of all the rescue efforts? Article 82 of our country’s Law on Civil Servants stipulates that people “who make serious mistakes in their work, or are in dereliction of duty, or cause major losses or adverse social impact, or who bear major leadership responsibility for accidents, should accept responsibility by resigning from leadership positions.” The practice of resigning as a way to acknowledge responsibility is a hallmark of a society ruled by law. Public trust can be restored only when officials who are seriously miscreant resign.
Resignation of this kind should be a standard political procedure: it shows an official’s respect for his job, his deference to public opinion, and his willingness to accept the supervision of fellow citizens. It should also be a conditioned reflex in any human being who is endowed with a sense of shame. But no, there are those who, girding themselves with the tactics of “shamelessness and cruelty” that have been so useful throughout Chinese history, can bear up under any weight, face down the denunciations of an entire society, cling tenaciously to the “entitlements of their official position,” and not only have no fear for public opinion but lose track of their very senses of shame.
Once again I call upon the Chief of the Office of Labor and Social Security in Shanxi Province, who bears undeniable responsibility in the black-kiln scandal, to face the nationwide public outcry, have the courage to accept responsibility, look squarely at the situation, and bow to the public will. There is but one way he can honor public service, thank his fellow citizens, and put his apologies into concrete form: resign!
In the face of demands as strong as this, and with such a passionate public outcry in the background, how can it be that we have seen not one province-level resignation? Why doesn’t the central government step in to call these people to account? How can the state-run media focus attention only on the black kilns of Shanxi and pay no attention whatever to the dereliction of official responsibility in neighboring Henan Province, from where most of the child-slaves were kidnapped? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Shanxi governor’s self-criticism and apology are nothing but a perfunctory and superficial show.
In Shanxi, where all the attention is focused, only small-fry officials at the county and township levels have been punished. Party and government officials at higher levels have been ordered merely to undergo “inspection.” On July 16 chinanews.com reported that the Shanxi provincial committee of the Communist Party instructed the Party committees of Linfen City and Yuncheng City to do a “deep inspection.” Within the parallel government bureaucracy, the Shanxi provincial government instructed the governments of Linfen City and Yuncheng City, the Provincial Office of Labor and Social Security, the Provincial Ministry of Land and Resources, and the Provincial Bureau of Industry and Commerce also to do “deep inspections.” Leading officials in these cities and bureaucracies followed up with self-criticisms in front of large assemblies of officials. Mere talk.
And of course the people who need to come clean are not just in Shanxi. High officials in Henan must do so as well. Fully two-thirds of the missing children of those 400 fathers who issued the appeal were children from Henan. That so many children could be missing for so long shows how rampant human trafficking in Henan has become. Henan is a main supplier of slave labor. Moreover, when parents fail to find their children even after so long a search—and then see them found not by police but by journalists—it is clear that the public security organs are at best grossly negligent and at worst deliberately looking the other way. Those police organs should be called to account. And Henan governor Xu Guangchun should, at the very least, match Shanxi governor Yu Youjun by offering a public apology to the victims and their families.
The main reason officials at all levels in China are so coldhearted and irresponsible is that they are appointed within a system in which public power is monopolized in the hands of a private group, the Communist Party of China. In order to guard the power of its one-party dictatorship and the vested interests of the privileged elite, the Party keeps a tight grip on the appointments and dismissals of officials at every level. In effect this takes power out of the hands of the people, where rightly it belongs, and turns it into an item of private exchange within the Party. The power of every official at every level comes not from below, from the people, but from above, from higher levels within the structure of private authority. This fact then establishes a pattern: the first priority of officials is always to serve the higher-ups (because, in effect, this serves oneself) and not to serve the people below. The priorities are not even hidden. For example, in a July 5, 2007, interview with Southern Weekend, Governor Yu Youjun stated his mission this way: “When Party Central sent me to Shanxi,” he said, “it delegated a heavy responsibility to me. When the National People’s Congress appointed me governor, it invested high hopes in me. My duty was to protect the territory, to help Party Central shoulder its burdens, and to ease the distresses of the people.” Even in rhetoric, the people come last.
Not only has no big province-level official resigned; we don’t even have a resignation from any official from Hongdong County or Linfen City—the ones who are in the direct line of responsibility for the black-kiln scandal. No police official from Henan or Shanxi who ignored the reports of missing children for all of that time has acknowledged any fault. (A few chiefs of local police offices have been interrogated, but that’s it.) The judicial system—another tool of monopoly Party power—consistently shows its competence in dealing with citizens and its incompetence in dealing with the official-underworld alliance.
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br /> QUESTION THREE: Why did it take so long for such a huge scandal to come to light in the first place? In any civilized country, a story about child slavery would be headline news even if only a few people were involved, let alone more than a thousand. But in China, while news from Shanxi sent shockwaves around the world, headlines at home were dominated instead by the comings and goings of the Communist oligarchy. Reporting good news and pushing the government’s point of view remain the main tasks of the Chinese news media. The Party’s Propaganda Department at all levels, together with bureaucracies like the Press and Publication Administration that handle ideology, are the responsible offices. They are watchdogs that scour the media and force them to be the Party’s mouthpiece, simultaneously robbing the public of its right to know and robbing journalists of their freedom to report.
Without freedom in reporting, the media become, over time, tools of the regime in its efforts to lock out certain information and to keep the people in ignorance. As the black-kiln case shows, blocking information can lead to major disasters. Then, after disasters happen, the Party manipulates the media to portray the villains as the saviors, bad government as good government, and the cleanup of losses as political achievements. A blanket of pretty headlines covers the regime’s shabby record of performance. So when shocking events in Shanxi are exposed, reports on the treatment and fate of child-slaves are squeezed out by reports about Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, and other high officials issuing instructions. Stories of parents searching for their children give way to accounts of the rescue activities of local governments. In the end the regime’s monopoly of the media once again works its magic: the words and deeds of officials high and low get all of the attention, while the voice of the victims, if it gets out at all, is only on the Internet.