A young demonstrator in Hong Kong protests Beijing’s involvement in Hong Kong elections.
In the wake of a battle over civil liberties and technological privacy rights in the United States, an extremely similar and important crisis is occurring in China: the right to the freedom of speech. Hong Kong citizens’ freedom of speech is protected by the hand-over treaty. This treaty guarantees that Hong Kong citizens will continue to live under British law for 50 years after the British turned the colony over in 1997. The Chinese Communist Party’s denial of freedom of speech and expression for its citizens violates Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is essential that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gives the right to its citizens.
The last two years have been tumultuous in China, and Hong Kong has been the scene of massive protests. In the fall of 2014, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents shut down most of the city to protest for universal suffrage in the election of the city’s Chief Executive.
In the early winter and spring of 2015, separatist movements in Xinjiang Province in north western China attacked train stations in major cities.
This winter, Hong Kong publishers who criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were kidnapped, and for the first time since the 1960s, Hong Kong police officers fired shots to break up a riot.
Chinese civil liberties are being trampled on by party officials in Beijing. China is not a free, socialist republic, but rather, a controlled, semi-capitalist oligarchy.
The first part of the problem is the absence of free press. In China, the largest news source is China Daily, a Chinese Communist Party paper that is pro-government and anti-dissenter. Hong Kong’s largest English newspaper, The South China Morning Post (SCMP), has, for a long time, been a face of the free press in China. It has published scathing articles about the CCP, and especially about the Tiananmen Square massacre. However, it was purchased by Alibaba, a company whose spokesperson has said, “What’s good for China is also good for Alibaba.” This means that the SCMP has been corrupted, and that one of the last bastions of free press in China has disappeared. China must have independent and unbiased news sources if its people want to gain the right to the freedom of speech.
Furthermore, newspapers in mainland China are controlled by the wealthy or the CCP. According to the U.S. Congress, to publish a newspaper or other written work in China, one must have $35,000 of starting capital. In the PRC, the average worker only makes $1,200 per year. The press in China is controlled by the Chinese elite, whose interests line up with those of the CCP. The laws restricting publishing are so strict that in 2003, two men were imprisoned for nine and seven years respectively for printing love poems. Publishing laws in the PRC need to be rescinded as a step in gaining the freedom of speech in China.
In denying the freedom of speech to its citizens, the CCP is actually straying from some of the legacy of its original members. In the beginning of the “Socialist Republic,” Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai started the 100 Flowers Movement, which aimed to encourage intellectuals to criticize the CCP in efforts for self-improvement. Mao, a paranoid dictator, was scared by the critiques of the intelligentsia and ordered a massive purging. However, old party officials such as Li Rui have called for democratic reforms, universal suffrage, and the freedom of speech. With the support of “old guard” CCP leaders like Li Rui, China has a better chance in attaining the right to the freedom of speech than it has had over the past half-century.
The international community needs to openly support Chinese movements for the freedom of speech and expression. Chinese citizens, with the support of old revolutionaries and new activists, must take the initiative in order to take back their press, their nation, and their birthright: freedom of speech.
