近日，清華大學人文社會科學學院教授汪暉，在北京接受了《亞洲時報在線》記者加布里埃萊•巴塔利亞(Gabriele Battaglia)的英文專訪。期間，圍繞中國的平等觀、社會保障體系、城鎮(zhèn)化建設、憲政討論、公共空間、中日釣魚島問題，以及“棱鏡門”事件等一系列問題，汪暉教授發(fā)表了自己的看法。以下為專訪譯文全文：
中國、新的平等觀與世界——對話汪暉
Gabriele Battaglia
汪暉，當代中國最知名的學者之一，是位于北京的清華大學人文與社會科學教授，被普遍認為是中國"新左派"的代表人物之一，--一個他不喜歡的標簽。厭倦再談舊的模式和西方觀點，"讓我們超越舊思想"，這可以明確看成是他的新宣言。在今天的中國，平等觀的議題正是一個好開頭。
(中文翻譯：鄭棋文)(該譯文經(jīng)作者部分修改，請參考附錄英文)
汪暉(以下簡稱"汪")：最近我正在寫關于"什么的平等"的文章，這在當下是個大問題，無論在中國還是西方。在這里，平等的問題與富人、農村地區(qū)相關，還與生態(tài)危機及別的問題相關，比如少數(shù)民族問題。
在中國，我們都知道有一場關于平等的危機，但是怎么去界定它?70年代末，中國的社會主義陷入危機，一些人由此攻擊"平等"問題，通過提出一種新自由主義的方案：私有化，產權問題等等，將矛頭指向國有企業(yè)。與此同時，他們還提出了一種新的平等觀，即所謂"機會均等"，隨之而來的是法律建構。但它的結果卻是將一個不公平的過程合法化了。人人都看到工人們在上世紀90年代中期開始的私有化浪潮中遭受的痛苦，工人們淪為下崗失業(yè)的人，他們的補償金很少甚至一無所有。以市場的名義實施的是剝奪，他們從勞工的手中奪走了權力和財產，這正與"機會均等"的爭議結伴而行。
于是，在90年代后期，爆發(fā)了關于社會福利危機的辯論，并試圖去重建，比如，如何將醫(yī)療制度擴展到農村地區(qū)。在這個語境下，"分配平等"的觀念在中國再次浮現(xiàn)，但是這個進程現(xiàn)在面臨新的挑戰(zhàn)。一方面，為每個人重建社會安全保障制度很有必要，這是基本的權利。但是，這正是對前一階段私有化過程的反應：現(xiàn)在我們須要為農民工做些事情，否則將會有社會動亂。
現(xiàn)在的挑戰(zhàn)是中國經(jīng)濟增長速度正在放緩，當需要有更多的錢用來建立社會安全保障體系時，稅收卻在下降。與此同時，這種增長模式對環(huán)境太不友好。能源需求越來越大，但當你想上一個新的大壩工程時，馬上就會遭遇抗議。需要重建的是一個包涵生態(tài)保護在內的社會安全體系，這是一個矛盾、悖論的處境，它意味著必須改變生產模式。今天窮人和富人之間有斷裂，但是主要的斷裂是城鄉(xiāng)人口之間。所以政府發(fā)起了新的城鎮(zhèn)化建設(針對中小城市)的戰(zhàn)役，但這卻毫無新意，幾十年一直都是這樣。與此同時，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)這個過程也在中國的邊疆地區(qū)發(fā)生，這些有著不同的文化、生活方式和宗教信仰的西南和西北少數(shù)民族地區(qū)。所以，一方面，提高那兒的經(jīng)濟狀況是絕對正當?shù)?但與此同時，我們卻兼有生態(tài)危機和文化危機，因為他們的生活方式正在發(fā)生改變，所以我們在新疆、西藏出現(xiàn)了沖突。
這些都意味著我們從根本上需要一種包納多樣性的新的平等觀：不僅僅是人(人人平等)與物(分配)的平等，還要嘗試在不違背基本平等原則下去尊重獨特性、差異性和異質性。這是一個挑戰(zhàn)，因為現(xiàn)代的平等理念是基于公民的平等。但是現(xiàn)在怎么去面對不同的生活方式、宗教、生物多樣性與環(huán)境問題?我們需要哪一種平等?或許不是一種觀念，而是一系列的觀念，這是對我們想要的發(fā)展模式的警醒。
但是要想去說服掌管經(jīng)濟進程的經(jīng)濟學家和政策制定者卻并不容易，因為經(jīng)濟議題差不多成為不同利益集團所主導的事情。即使官員也無法掌控整個過程。因此，關鍵在于必須思考原則性的問題，而不僅僅是投資和賺錢。
這就是為什么在中國會爆發(fā)關于改革基本方向的辯論。你知道我們有句話叫："摸著石頭過河"，但是現(xiàn)在河岸在哪里呢?并且你還有在河中間迷失的危險。現(xiàn)在的問題是沒有人能夠清晰地界定河岸到底在哪里。
問：如何用具體的術語來辯論?
汪：比如我們現(xiàn)在關于憲政的大討論，它非常模糊。因為新自由派們要搞的憲政改革涉及的是要改變整個政治制度。然而"憲政改革"意味著從回歸憲法自身開始，如果你從拒斥憲法開始，這便意味著革命，現(xiàn)在并沒有發(fā)生一場革命的社會基礎。憲法的根本保障在于共產黨是執(zhí)政黨，這不是個大問題，因為大家都知道沒有別的可替代共產黨的政治力量，即使那些極端右翼分子也十分清楚這點。
另一方面，假如你承認憲法，它便意味著我們國家實際上是一個社會主義國家，工人階級是領導階級，但是今天工人階級在中國的政治地位究竟如何?開啟一場關于憲法的討論很好啊，我們需要回到1954年的憲法來保障基本權力。54憲法是非常開放的，內容也是好的，共產黨是領導力量，但你有言論自由和罷工權力。而這些在文革以后的1982年被廢除了，鄧小平認為中國當時有無政府主義的危險，所以他們修改了憲法。
再說一次，重返這場憲政討論的途徑是開放討論。問題的癥結是這場討論到目前為止非常官方化，沒有真正的公共空間。這也聯(lián)系到中國的另外一個大問題，即媒體自身的危機。一方面，有大量的出版物，另一方面，公共空間卻不斷萎縮。今年1月份有個"《南方周末》事件"的案例，編輯部關于憲政的新年獻詞被當?shù)氐男麄鞑坎块L以一篇贊美共產黨的文章替換掉了，這引發(fā)了大量的抗議。這里有關聯(lián)，但不是一個好案例，因為沖突并不是為公共辯論發(fā)生的，它出現(xiàn)在體制內部：在被任命的管理層與他們的領導之間。以言論自由之名對真正的公共意見進行徹底排斥，所以它實際上是個權力再分配的事件。簡單地拒絕任何不同的觀點發(fā)表在他們的報紙上，只有一邊倒的觀點，《南方周末》和《人民日報》代表了相反的兩級化方向。諷刺的是，兩份報刊都是官方媒體，矛盾其實是關于廣東省委宣傳部新舊領導權更替的問題。
這其實也是一個代表性危機，因為它(宣稱)是對言論自由和民主觀念的代表，正如說共產黨是工人階級的代表。我們真的應當重新思考和界定公共空間的概念，因為媒體總是以通向所謂"真實"輕易地誤導公共輿論。這就是為什么我擔任《讀書》雜志主編時(直到2007年)，試圖開啟這種公共討論的空間。有意味的是，今天真正意義上的公共空間徹底消失了，不被所有的主流力量所允許。
問：您可否談一下城鎮(zhèn)化問題?
汪：很難籠統(tǒng)地說它是好是壞，或許在這里好、在那里壞。例如在有些地方，大規(guī)模的城鎮(zhèn)化意味著昂貴的生態(tài)代價，但在有些地方卻適合。所以要允許有些實驗來探索，根據(jù)我們過去的經(jīng)驗，這些探索才是改革的真正動力。在中國，多數(shù)宏觀調控政策的制定都是對早些時候開始的地方經(jīng)驗的確認，而不是開始。正如，農村改革始于安徽，并向全國推廣。所以需要給這些實驗以更大的空間。
問：城鎮(zhèn)化進程不是一個平等的進程嗎?它看上去像是試圖創(chuàng)造全世界最大的中產階級。
汪：恐怕城鎮(zhèn)化更多是一個自上而下的過程，為什么不允許人們從下面進行實踐性的實驗，再逐漸讓它變得完備呢?比如在成都和重慶，他們已經(jīng)有了關于城鄉(xiāng)一體化的討論，關于如何處理人口與市民地位的討論。但我們有另外一個大問題，各地城市之間已經(jīng)沒有任何差別了，這是多樣性的重大損失。
沒有人能夠扭轉這個進程，所以我們不得不思考它。有時在快與慢之間抉擇并非易事。我認為在每村安裝高速網(wǎng)絡就不見得一定好，而中國就有這個問題：它太快了。一旦實現(xiàn)了城鎮(zhèn)化，你如何確保有足夠的土地用來耕作?誰能確保中國巨大人口的食品安全?所以我們看到美國孟山都公司股票激揚，為什么呢?因為中國和阿根廷簽了一份協(xié)議，允許進口他們的轉基因食品。你知道這些轉基因食品安全是不確定的，但與此同時必須為眾多稠密的人口保障食品供給，而發(fā)展經(jīng)濟意味著需要更多土地。眾所周知中國經(jīng)濟增長的奧秘在于地方政府所執(zhí)行的土地政策：如果不通過掠奪土地并將其出賣給開發(fā)商的話，就沒有途徑來獲取足夠的稅收。
(城鎮(zhèn)化)有很多局限，沒有人能確保一定能成功甚至產生(新的)中產階級，中產階級在各地也都正在萎縮。我們如何保證是中產階級而不是像印度或拉美那樣的貧民窟產生呢?沒有土地的話，人們在城市里就成為"沒有土地"的失業(yè)者。然而我們現(xiàn)在卻有一些學者甚至為貧民窟的好處辯護，因為貧民窟是基于土地的私有產權和"遷徙自由"，貧民窟是"人權"。明白了吧?這就是為什么我覺得要寫一點關于"什么的平等"的緣由。
請注意在最近的幾周內，政府關于城鎮(zhèn)化的說法正在發(fā)生變化。他們現(xiàn)在的提法是"穩(wěn)妥城鎮(zhèn)化"，這意味著"安全地"城鎮(zhèn)化。張高麗是第一個這樣提的人。它意味著什么呢?我想該是這樣的，近10%的中國人口是流動人口，這對國內交通是一個巨大的問題，如你在春節(jié)看到的那樣。但在最近幾年這些情形有所改善，全球金融危機促使許多流動人口返回鄉(xiāng)村種地。這可能意味著這種人口流動沒必要這么快，離家距離也沒有必要這么遠，這樣人們便不會和他們的家鄉(xiāng)故土失去聯(lián)系，這種地方性的遷移是一種積極的進展，政府現(xiàn)在可能正在朝這方面考慮。如果城鎮(zhèn)化進程過快，那仍將會是非常危險的。
說到土地和人口，想起了烏坎事件--全村對強征土地的反抗催生了政治變革：很多年后新的基層選舉。你知道最近的進展，它是一種民主的模式，但最終無以為繼(一年以后，土地強征問題還持續(xù)著，村民們的怒火轉向選舉上臺的村民委員會)。然而當村民們遭遇真正的問題發(fā)生時，媒體卻對它失去了興趣，他們甚至不知道如何去界定它。開始是容易的：呼喚選舉，但是當真正的問題浮現(xiàn)時，媒體卻失語了。
關鍵在于不僅僅是烏坎，它是一場自2005年以民主和保護私有產權的名義對國有企業(yè)進行私有化的巨大進程，它會帶來什么樣的后果?起初是"民主"，但是通過這樣的"民主"新當選的領導人也變得需要批評的時候，媒體就失去了興趣。這就是問題所在，這意味著我們需要一種新的語匯。左翼內部的辯論集中在如何界定這個新進程的語言敘述，只有這樣，才能發(fā)現(xiàn)新的抗爭策略。無論在國家層面還是在村莊的層面，情況是一樣的，即政治形式與社會形式不相匹配，它也同樣存于我們的體制內和西方的體制之間。
西方媒體很容易用"專制獨裁"和"國家資本主義"這樣的詞來說中國，但是理解不同的政治形式是更具挑戰(zhàn)性的。而中國的主流媒體，一有什么事情，馬上就是要回到"文化大革命"、烏托邦的危機云云，問題在于，烏托邦并不是問題的開始，而是對已經(jīng)存在的問題的回應。這些都揭示了媒體對現(xiàn)實把握的無能。
讓我們看看釣魚島問題吧。中日發(fā)言人給出的回應都基于同一個前提：釣魚島問題是由于毛澤東早期政策。我想問他們："如果這個問題來源于毛，為什么恰恰是在1972年的毛澤東時代中日關系實現(xiàn)日常化，并沒有發(fā)生現(xiàn)在這樣的大危機?那時，中國是社會主義國家，日本是資本主義國家，但是他們坐在一起達成了可協(xié)商性協(xié)議，從外交的意義上終止了差不多40多年的沖突，這可謂是非常成功的。它實現(xiàn)的基礎是什么?為什么釣魚島問題現(xiàn)在突然成了一個焦點要害?"對這些人來說，任何錯誤的事情都是過去造成的，沒有我們的責任。這很荒誕可笑，他們只能訴諸于一種反意識形態(tài)的意識形態(tài)功能。
問：說起替罪羊，正如您剛才提到的毛，您如何看斯諾登事件和大量的美國諜報活動的曝光?這個家伙(斯諾登)現(xiàn)在飛走了，但對中國和香港特區(qū)來說是仍然一件大事。
汪：我不同意那些認為要將斯諾登移交美國的看法。關鍵在于，當斯諾登揭露了美國已竊取了大量中國大陸和香港信息的時候，應該立即開啟一項大型調查。我們?yōu)槭裁床荒軌蜃鲞@樣的調查并將之公諸世界呢?我真的認為在這次事件上，中國不僅僅是捍衛(wèi)中國的利益，它應當使得這個事件能夠透明和公開化。這是又一個需要打開公共性的案例。
當然，黑客事件正在擴大，美國應當受到更多的譴責，因為大家都在使用微軟、蘋果、谷歌，所有國家都有黑客行為，現(xiàn)在我們需要將事情的全部揭露給整個世界。我當然希望中美關系得到改善，但這并不意味著過分妥協(xié)，這是沒必要的。我真不希望中國在這個案子上只為自己的行為辯護。相反，我認為這種辯論需要一種真正的國際視野，因為美國同樣從歐洲竊取了大量信息。然而諷刺的是，大多數(shù)美國媒體將斯諾登描述為犯罪分子。
問：所以這對中國也是個考驗。
汪：是的，這非常有意思，因為這不僅是對美國的巨大考驗，它對中國來說尤其是個巨大的考驗。它不僅是對國際秩序有意味，對中國的內部制度及其與香港的關系具有同樣的意味。斯諾登到香港去，因為他知道香港不同于中國大陸，他當然不會去北京。
香港與美國都遵循國際條約。有些中國人第一次承認香港享有一些只有民族國家、主權國家才有的權力，所以在我們的制度內，香港到底是一種什么樣的狀況?這是一個重大的問題，因為我們并沒有搞清楚一國兩制到底意味著什么。有些人馬上說這是我們第一次知道香港在國際范圍內享有獨立的司法體系，這意味著一種主權。在我看這很有意味，因為香港回歸中國是英國政府與中國政府之間協(xié)商的結果，而非一個公開的議程。現(xiàn)在它將承受人們的檢驗。所以我認為，從不同的發(fā)展可能來看，這是個很好的故事。
問：這一案例如何影響中美關系呢?
汪：對美國來說，當然他們有點尷尬，但也不會感到太難堪，他們并不太在乎自己的行為。美國做過太多諸如戰(zhàn)爭，殺戮，劫掠，所以這次事件也并不新鮮。但在這里卻很重要，因為這里的所有改革都與中美有關。即使人們會批評美國在穆斯林世界、在南美或非洲發(fā)動戰(zhàn)爭，美國還是一個好模版，因為那里的人們享有言論自由，更重要的是國家對私人生活的干涉是非法的。在中國，微博上的人們每天都在重復這些口號式的標語，但現(xiàn)在這個事件發(fā)生了。所以該如何回應呢?我認為這不僅僅是美國的問題，我們應該對這里的某種政治改革有所"去魅"，這是重要的，否則的話我們總要試圖把一個"他者"作為樣板。
現(xiàn)在的新危機的性質與冷戰(zhàn)和后冷戰(zhàn)語境下的完全不同。你不能簡單地認為我們可以用這種制度替代那種制度。我們不是為這個制度辯護，而是試圖改變它。我們需要重新思考現(xiàn)實，而不是簡單地從對"他者"的幻想開始。這只是一個小故事，卻也是一個新開始。
有一個中國與前蘇聯(lián)學術界的辯論，最近我在讀Rein Mullerson的書，他是愛沙尼亞塔林(Tallin)大學法學院的院長，也曾擔任蘇聯(lián)改革期間戈爾巴喬夫的法律顧問，他對蘇聯(lián)改革過程持非常批判，說我們需要重新思考它。語境雖然不同，但我們都同意說中國的境況其實非常相像，改革進程也是相似的。我記得89運動時廣場上的標語，--當時我在那里，在絕食抗議開始階段，正值戈爾巴喬夫訪問中國，我們打出的標語是："我們要58，不要85"，因為當時戈爾巴喬夫58歲，鄧小平是85歲。但是歷史證明，當時85歲的鄧比58歲的戈爾巴喬夫或許要聰明一些，這是很反諷的。
(Gabriele Battaglia是駐北京的中國事務觀察家，那里正在開始成為觀察全球化及其替代的好地方，他是China-Files 機構的成員，曾任PeaceReporter and E-il mensile 雜志作家。)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-030713.html
China, a new equality and the world
A conversation with Wang Hui
By Gabriele Battaglia
BEIJING - Wang Hui is one of the great contemporary Chinese scholars. Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Beijing's Tsinghua University, he is universally considered as one of the main representatives of the Chinese "new left", a definition he doesn't like, being too tied to old patterns and to a Western point of view. "Let's go beyond old thoughts" definitely seems his new manifesto and in today's China the equality issue happens to be a good start.
Wang Hui: [Currently] I'm writing about "the equality of what?". It is a big issue now, everywhere, both in China and in the West. Here, it's about the rich and the rural regions and it is also about the ecological crisis and other issues such as the minorities.
We all know [in China] there is a crisis of equality, but how to define it? At the end of the '70s, China's socialism was in crisis, so some people attacked equality, especially the state-owned enterprises, by suggesting a new liberal agenda: privatization, property rights and so on.
At the same time they suggested a new kind of equality, calling it "equality of opportunities" and the legal frame followed. But this came to be the legitimation of an unequal process. Everybody can see how the workers suffered from privatization, which started in the mid-'90s when they became unemployed and the compensation was very low or none at all. On behalf of the market we had deprivation, they took away rights and property from the hands of labor while arguing for equality of opportunities.
Then, at the end of the '90s, came debate about a crisis in social welfare and an attempt to rebuild. For instance, how to spread the medical system in the countryside.
In this context, the idea of "equality of redistribution" re-emerged in China, but now the process itself is facing new challenges. On one hand it is necessary to rebuild the social security system for everybody; that's about basic rights. However, this is just a response to the earlier stage, the privatization process, and now we need to do something for the migrant workers, otherwise there will be turmoil.
The big challenge here is that the Chinese economy is slowing down. More money is needed to build up that social security system while the revenues are decreasing. And at the same time, this kind of growth is so unfriendly toward the environment.
More and more energy is needed, but when you make a project for a new dam you immediately face a protest. You need to rebuild the social security system including in it ecological preservation, and this is a paradoxical, contradictory situation.
This means that you have to change the production model. There is a gap between the poor and the rich, but the main gap is between urban and rural population. So the government launched this new campaign for urbanization,chengzhenhua, [urbanization of medium and small cities] but it is nothing new, it has been like that for decades. At the same time, you see this process happening in the Chinese frontiers, the minority areas in the southwest and morthwest whose culture, lifestyle and religion are very different.
So, on one hand it's perfectly legitimate to improve the economic situation there; however we have also an ecological crisis going hand in hand with a cultural crisis, because their lifestyle is changing, and so we have conflicts in Xinjiang and Tibet.
All this means that we basically need a new idea of equality that incorporates the idea of diversity: not simply equalize everybody and everything but try to respect singularity, diversity, differences without rejecting the basic idea of equality. This is the challenge because modern equality was based on the idea of citizens who are equal. But now how to deal with lifestyles, religions, biodiversity, environment? Which equality we need? Maybe not a single idea, but a set of ideas. And this reminds to the kind of development we want.
But it's not easy to convince those economists and policy-makers in charge of the economic process, basically because the economic issue has become dominant especially for different interest groups. Even the officials can't control the whole process. So the point is that you have to think about the general issue, not only about investment and money.
This is the reason why right now we have in China a debate about the basic orientation of reforms. You know we have a say: "Cross the river by feeling the stones", but now where are the banks of the river? And you risk getting lost in the middle of the river. The point now is that nobody can clearly define where the banks are.
Gabriele Battaglia: How to put this debate in concrete terms?
WH: Take the big debate about the constitution we have now. It is very ambiguous because the new liberals argue for a constitutional reform whose implication is to change the whole political system. However, "constitutional reform" means starting from the constitution itself. If you start from the rejection of the constitution this means revolution. And right now there is no social base for a revolution. The basic guarantee of the constitution is the Communist Party in power, and this is not a big problem because everybody knows that there is no other political force which can replace the Communist Party. Even the radicals of the right-wing perfectly know this.
On the other hand, if you recognize this constitution it means that we are actually a socialist country and the working class is the leading class. So what is the political status of the working class in China?
Opening a discussion about the constitution is good and we need to go back to the 1954 constitution and guarantee basic rights. It was quite open and good; the Communist Party was the leading force, but you had freedom of speech and the right to strike, which was cancelled in 1982 after the Cultural Revolution, when Deng Xiaoping thought that China was at risk of anarchy and so they changed the constitution.
Again, the way to go back to this constitutional debate is to open up the discussion. The problem is that this discussion is very official so far; there is no real public space. This also relates to another big issue in China, which is the crisis of the media. On one hand, you have a huge amount of publications; on the other, public space is shrinking.
And here we have the Nanfang Zhoumo case last January, the weekly magazine whose editorial board's new year editorial on the defense of the constitution was substituted with another one praising the Communist Party, by the local propaganda leader. Huge protests happened in that case.
There is a relation, but this is not a good case because the conflict didn't happen about the public debate, it happened within the system: the appointed board members and their leaders. On behalf of freedom of speech there was a complete exclusion of real public opinion. So it was actually a matter of power redistribution. They simply rejected any single different idea to be published in their newspapers, there was only one side's idea, polarized in the Southern Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumo] and the People's Daily. Ironically both were kind of official newspapers. The conflict was about the leadership of the Department of Propaganda between old and new leaders.
This is also a crisis of representation because it is just a representation of the idea of freedom of speech and democracy, as much as the Communist Party is the representation of the idea of working class. We really need to rethink and redefine public space because the media can easily mislead public opinion towards so called "truth". This is why when I was editor of Dushu magazine [until 2007] I tried to open up this kind of space. And it is interesting: now it is all completely gone, not allowed by all the mainstream forces.
GB: What about urbanization, so called chengzhenhua?
WH: It's difficult to say if generally speaking it is right or wrong. Maybe here is good and there is bad. For instance in some areas a large amount of urbanization means a high ecological price but somewhere else it fits. So you need to allow some experiments to go on, and according to our past experience these are the real driving force for the reforms. In China, most of the general macropolicy has always been a recognition of an earlier local process, not the beginning of it. For instance, rural reform started in Anhui and then spread out. So you need an even bigger space for these experiments.
GB: Isn't chengzhenhua an egalitarian process? It looks like an attempt to create the biggest middle-class in the world.
WH: I'm afraid chengzhenhua is too much of a top-down process, so why not allow the people to try some practical experiment from the lower level and gradually make it more and more sophisticated?
For instance in Chengdu and Chongqing, they have already had discussions about integration, how to deal with the population and their citizen status. But we have another big problem, which is that everywhere there is no longer any difference among the cities. This is a big loss of diversity.
Nobody can reverse the process, so we have to think about it. Sometimes the choice between slow and fast is not an easy one. I think it's not necessarily good to have fast Internet in every single village and China has this problem: it's too fast.
Once you have urbanized, how do you guarantee enough land for cultivation, who can you guarantee food for the huge Chinese population? So we have Monsanto's shares booming in the stock market. Why? Because China made an agreement with Argentina to allow and import their OGM [genetically modified] products. And you know these kind of products are unpredictable but at the same time you need to guarantee food for a huge and dense population while economic growth means more land. Everybody knows the secret of Chinese growth is a land policy carried on by local governments: without grabbing land and selling it to developers there is no way to get enough taxes.
There are limits, and nobody can guarantee a success and even the creation of a middle-class, which is shrinking everywhere. How can we guarantee a middle-class instead of slums, as happened in India or Latin America? Without land, people become "unemployed without land" in an urban area.
So now we have some scholars who even argue that slums are good because the slum system is based on private property of land and "freedom of migration": slums are "human rights", you see? This is the reason why I feel like writing something about "the equality of what?".
Please note that in the last few weeks the rhetoric of the government on chengzhenhua has changed. They now speak of wentuo chengzhenhua, which means "safe urbanization". Zhang Gaoli [first-ranked vice premier of the PRC and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party] was the first to speak in these terms.
What does it mean? I guess something like this. Almost 10% of the Chinese population is a migrant population, which for example is a huge problem for domestic transportation, like you see during the Spring Festival. But in these past few years the situation has improved because of the [global financial] crisis, which pushed many migrants back to their villages and to cultivate the land. This probably means that migration should not necessary be so fast and so long-distance. People don't lose contact with their hometown, and we could have migration at the local level. This is a positive development, and the government probably thinks now in these terms. But if the process is too fast it is still dangerous.
So, the land and the people. Here we have the Wukan case - the village whose rebellion against land eviction forced a political change: new grassroots elections after many years.
You know the latest developments. It was a sort of model for democracy but eventually didn't follow [after one year the evictions go on and villagers' anger is rising against the newly elected local committee] and when this happened the media lost interest in that and they even didn't know how to define it, the real difficulties those people meet. In the beginning it was easy: a call for elections. But when the real problems emerged the media lost their voice.
The point is [it] not only Wukan, it's a huge process going on since 2005 with the privatization of state enterprises and so on, all on behalf of democracy and the protection of private property. What's the result of that? At first it was "democracy", then, when even the elected local leaders became critical about it, everybody lost interest.
This is the problem, which means we need a new vocabulary. The debate inside the left is about the language to define the new process and only in this way you can find new strategies to fight. At the state level and at the village level is the same thing: the political form and the social form do not match, and it's the same between our system and the Western system.
In Western media it's too easy to use terms such as totalitarian state or state capitalism about China, but understanding other political forms is too challenging. And for the mainstream media here, if anything happens you immediately go back to the Cultural Revolution and the crisis of that utopia. But this is not the point, since utopia is not the beginning of a problem, it is the response to a problem we already have. It reveals our incapability of mastering reality.
Let's see the Diaoyu islands issue. Both the Chinese and the Japanese speakers give a response based on a common ground: this happens because of Mao's earlier policy. I asked them: "If this problem comes from Mao, why in Mao's era a reconciliation took place in 1972 and no such a big crisis happened? China was a socialist country, Japan a capitalist one, but they sat together and reached ambiguous agreements, suspended any conflict for almost 40 years which in terms of foreign policy is quite successful. What's the foundation for that? Why have the islands suddenly became a main issue now, instead?"
For them everything which is wrong is past and it is not our responsibility. This is ridiculous and looks really like the call of ideology.
GB: Speaking of scapegoats, such as Mao in this case, do you have any idea about the Edward Snowden case and the revelations about widespread US espionage? The guy flew away right now, but this is anyway a big issue for China and Hong Kong.
WH: I disagree with those people who argued that this guy should have been handed over to the US; this is not the case. Instead, a big investigation should start because Snowden revealed that the US got a huge amount of information from Hong Kong and China. Why don't we do this investigation and reveal it to the world? I really argue that in this case China shouldn't only defend China's interest, it should keep this case transparent to the world. Again, it's a case of opening up.
Of course the hacking issue is widespread. America is actually the more culpable country, since we all use Microsoft, Apple and Google, but all the countries do that and now we need to reveal the whole story to the world.
I really hope China's relations with America will improve, but this doesn't mean it must compromise too much. It's not necessary. I really think China shouldn't use this case to defend its own behavior. Instead, I think that this kind of debate needs a real international opinion because the US got a lot of information from Europe too. And ironically most of America's media now describes that guy as a criminal.
GB: So it's a test for China too.
WH: Yes, it's very interesting because this is a big test not only for America. It is a big test especially for China. It is meaningful not only for the international system but also for China's inner system and its relations with Hong Kong. Snowden arrived in Hong Kong because he knew it's different from China. Of course he didn't come to Beijing.
And also, Hong Kong and the US subscribe to international treaties. So some people in China acknowledged for the first time that Hong Kong enjoys some kind of rights which only nation-states, sovereign states, have. So what kind of state is Hong Kong within our system? This is a big issue because we have not really clear what the double system means.
Some people immediately argued this is the first time we know Hong Kong has such an independent legal system in the international realm, and this means it has also a kind of sovereignty. And in my opinion this is interesting because, again, the handover of Hong Kong to China was the result of negotiations between Britain and China's government, not a public process. Now it will be tested by the people. So I think this is a very good story with different possible developments.
GB: How this case can affect relations between China and the US?
WH: As for America, well they are embarrassed but not so much, they don't care that much about their behavior. They did so many wars, killings, kidnappings, so this is nothing new. But here it's important because every reform here is a China-America matter. Even if people criticize how they launch a war in Muslim countries, South America or Africa, America is the model because people there enjoy freedom of speech and, especially, state interference in people's private life is illegal.
In Chinese, Weibo [microblogging] people repeat these slogans every day, and now this story has happened. So what is the response? My point is that this is not only an American problem. Here we have the disillusion about a certain kind of political change, this is important because otherwise we always try to take "the other" as a model.
Now the new nature of the crisis is totally different from the Cold War and post-Cold War context. You cannot simply think that we can replace this system with that system. We don't want to defend this system but try to change it. And we need to rethink reality, not simply start from the illusion about "the other". This is only a small story, but also a new beginning.
There's a debate between the Chinese and former Soviet academic world, and I recently read the book of Rein Mullerson, who is the president of the Tallin University's Law School and was also Gorbachev's legal adviser during the [USSR] reform era. Well, he is very critical toward that era's process and says we must rethink it. The context is different but we both agree that for China it's pretty much the same, the process is similar. I remember the slogans of the Tiananmen movement in 1989 because I was there, and at the beginning of the hunger strike, when Gorbachev came to visit China, we had this: "We want 58, not 85", because Gorbachev was 58 and Deng Xiaoping was 85. But history proved that 85 was possibly smarter than 58, and this is the irony.
Gabriele Battaglia is an observer of Chinese affairs based in Beijing, the place to be and a good starting point for a look on globalization and its alternatives. He is a member of China-Files agency, and has previously been a writer for PeaceReporter and E-il mensile magazines.
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