Blogs > CHINESE SUPPORT CHARTER 08/update

Dec 12, 2008

CHINESE SUPPORT CHARTER 08/update



Whence China? That may be the most important question of the 21st Century. That is the reason that it is important on this day, the 60th anniversary of signing of the Universal declaration of Human Rights by the UNGA to highlight the Chinese views of those right as expressed in a recent poll. Let me say outright that the result are encouraging. Indeed, they prove that The 300 Chinese intellectuals who Over 300 signed “Charter 08”, a manifesto for human rights in China reminiscent of the Czechoslovak Charter 77, are representing the will of the people. Those arresting dozens of them do not.

Far from having resigned themselves to Communist party rule, the Chinese people, like all persons who know what it is like to live in a dictatorship, crave the kind of freedom available only in Democracies. Here are some relevant numbers:

83% of the Chinese believe that"government leaders should be selected through elections in which all citizens can vote" and not"selected some other way." 59% believe that their own government should be governed MORE by the will of the people.

58% believe that it is very important and 27% that it is somewhat important"for the media to be free to publish news and ideas without government control."

71% think Chinese"should have the right to read whatever is on the Internet." Only 21% agree that"the government should have the right to prevent people from having access to some things on the internet."

Only 12% of the Chinese think their media as a lot of freedom though 51% acknowledge it has some.

66% want the Chinese media to have MORE freedom though fear of destabilization leads some to have second thoughts. Indeed, 42% of Chinese are willing to accept the government's right to prevent the publications of politically destabilizing news; 53% not.

In other words, Chinese government would do well to take popular sentiments into account when dealing with the courageous signers of Charter 08 and the international community should provide the signers with moral support and not hide behind the false notions that the average Chinese cares only about his or her economic well being. That is simply not the case.

Police stay mum on arrest of leading China dissident: lawyer Now, that they have an individual to focus on, maybe MSM will start covering the story.

Sadly, I was wrong. The WSJ editors noted the Charter but failed to mention the arrest of some of the signatories.



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Yu Chen - 3/18/2010

and I oppose this charter due to its stupidity. Stupidity of its signatories for naively thinking it will change anything. Stupidity of the high horse west for supporting this charter, thinking their support will do any good, as opposed to shredding any legitimacy it ever had. Stupidity through and through.

If Chinese really hates the CCP, it would have been overthrown already. An allied China is a delusion of the west, something that won't happen after your gunboats were chased out of the Yangtze.