This deep and moving article is a must read for anyone that feels China is a quick fix away from being perfect. Zha Jianying's account of her pro-democracy brother's imprisonment shows a breadth of comprehension rarely found in analysis about China.
Hat tip to The Granite Studio for pointing it out and providing a great summary.
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zhangbohan
1 year 32 weeks 16 hours 25 min agoI wasn't able to finish reading this article. It is interesting and well-written, but it is unbelievable that one Chinese man can personify the two events that foreigners most associate with China, the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square. The writer is obviously a fabulous academic, but Chinese academics who have made a name for themselves overseas can often score points by adhering to the Western viewpoint of China. I'd rather read articles by Chinese citizens rather than the bitter offspring of China's former elite.
zhwj
1 year 32 weeks 15 hours 56 min agoI'm not sure I follow your criticism, zhangbohan. The author writes "Gradually, though, I have come to feel a certain degree of impatience with the impulse to see Jianguo mainly through the lens of Chinese politics. I’d rather see my brother not as an integer in the realm of political calculation but as a flawed but admirable human being, with perhaps one striking oddity—his uncompromising insistence on upholding his idealism at any cost" - that doesn't really seem like point-scoring to me. And did Zha Jianying get rid of her Chinese citizenship - I can't find a reference?
Ryan
1 year 32 weeks 10 hours 22 min agoI also think you might have missed the point of what Zha was saying Zhangbohan. In reading that article, I felt she did a fantastic job of challenging Western though on a solution for China. She really seemed to put "Chinese Characteristics" into a framwork that is not some stupid cop out, but rather a clear illustration of what things are and what they may end up being.
zhangbohan
1 year 31 weeks 6 days 15 hours agoOk guys, I've read the article again, except this time I read it until the end. The main reason why I didn't like the article was because I thought that there was no reason to romanticise someone who had done something politically stupid. Obviously people who start a democratic party in a one-party system are just asking for trouble.
Unfortunately for me, the article took an unexpected turn because a few people who were quoted also thought Jianguo was being stupid. For example Xu Youyu said 'it was stupid in terms of political strategy.' So the article actually came to the same conclusion that I came to after reading half of the article - whoops!
One of the reasons for my misunderstanding though was that Zha Jianying's writing comes off as quite arrogant - she talks about drinking coffee in Montreal and attending Columbia, which isn't exactly the lifestyle of the average Chinese mainlander. I guess that her intellectualism and name dropping just rub me the wrong way.